Should Harriet Harman apologise?

Best not to bring bring Staffordshire NHS Trust into this which has nothing to do with the OP. That's another black mark for the Labour Party anyway.

I'm not sure it is in their interests to keep it on front page, given the failure of an academy trust and the likely closure of Stafford NHS Trust. Coalition must be rather pleased with the distraction.

The Daily Mail has it's own agenda with this story but it shows a flaw in either HH herself or the Labour Party that they are trying to avoid apologising. They are keeping this story on the paper's front page. I'm sure after this there will be more especially in the run up to the general election. But the Labour Party will be shooting themselves continually in the foot if they try to thrash out each story as they have this one.

Wonder why the Mail has suddenly decided the bee in its bonnet needs exercising now then.

She's spoken out NOW, but this has been rumbling for years.

But she has spoken out. She has made it quite clear what she thinks of PIE.

Well said, when. Agree totally.

Zoe Williams misses the point that PIE was a much publicised and reviled organisation at that time. Simply disassociating herself when she realised there was an unwanted connection would have been enough, or doing what Shami did later on would have exonerated her, but riding it out when it has been raised several times, not just in this instance, hasn't done HH any good. It's not quite the same as Ed's dad - HH is still around to put the record straight for herself. I don't believe for one moment she supports paedophilia, but for someone who isn't shy about speaking out I'm disappointed she hasn't done so here until forced to by this ugly smear campaign. She's inadvertently encouraged the sort of media behaviour that makes the DM look bad, too not that that would be difficult to do

Has anyone seen Pat Hewitt or is Hattie the only one who has put her head above the parapet?
PH was chief executive.

Yes, I agree that they are basically in agreement - Zoe's piece does seem to be a bit of a rant though.

We have the run up to the general election to look forward to soon.

X post, ppb.

Yes, that's also an interesting article. White seems to be agreeing with Williams quite a lot of the time, especially about the Daily Mail's smear tactics.

Thank you Nonu.
It is an interesting article by Zoe Williams but her trying to pigeonhole the Daily Mail, "if you were a suffragette....." leaves her just as guilty of daft assumptions as anything the Daily Mail puts out.

I think Mamie's link of 13.45 was rather more balanced. Only my opinion, of course.

Gives a bit of historical balance to the whole caboodle.

Zoe Williams has written an intersting piece in the Guardian.

Good post , pENGUIN

PIE were completely open about their message at the time so there was no unawareness about it. It was the educated people at the time who were so passionate about freedom of speech they were prepared for that to apply to all. Even groups such as PIE.
It's a huge error but if the 3 of them had just taken the same path as Shami this story would already be forgotten.
There is a huge dislike, disdain for The Daily Mail amongst Labour and the Left but it is a popular paper. And it's readers are not all loony right wing nutters. People are getting tired of being somehow tarnished if they dare to admit to reading it.

Thinking back to that time, people, even well educated ones, were very unaware of paedophilia and child abuse. These days we hear about it all the time. I think when this story hit the news originally the majority of the population were unaware of the meaning of the word. Before that it would have only been found in psychiatric text books etc. There was a case some years later when a paediatrician was targeted by people who thought she was a paedophile.
I don't think it is appropriate for us (or the DM) to judge the actions or inactions that people took in such a different climate. Any more than it was appropriate for the DM to try to undermine the reputation Ed Milliband by distorting the truth about his late father.

She was the legal officer but tried to make out that, as there were over 1, 000 organisations affiliated to NCCL, she could not know about all of them. So is she in denial or was she not on top of the job?

Hewitt was chief Executive, have not seen much of her, it seems to be Hattie taking the flak.

Harriet Harman irritates me because it seems she always has to be right. I don't think associating her with PIE because she joined Civil Liberties is anything to worry about - they joined because they could, before she came on the scene, like a thousand other organisations. PIE was ousted in due course, and should have been booted out a lot faster. Her mistake was to appear to collude because she didn't speak out and disassociate herself when opportunities arose. She should apologise for that.

I don't think that I have ever heard Harriet Harman apologise for anything at all in all her time as an MP.She is one MP who consistently seeks to justify anything that she or the Labour party has done [or not done] for years and years, and that includes the mess that Gordon Brown left the country in.Quite how PIE managed to 'affiliate' itself in the way it did is questionable in itself, who [and why] allowed that?

I agree that HH, JD and PH should have addressed this issue much earlier. It has been the subject of endless debate on internet forums for years. It seems to me to have been a time bomb waiting to go off. I'm surprised that such experienced politicians weren't aware of the need to open discussion about that period and their work at the NCCL before the DM had the opportunity to use it to attack them, and the Labour Party.
Like other posters, I remember PIE and attempts to argue that sex with children was not damaging, as long as the child consented. I was concerned then about its links with the NCCL and I find it hard to believe it isn't something HH hasn't pondered on at various points in her career. It's a great pity she hasn't at any point acknowledged regret about putting in writing the possibility that this was a reasonable discussion for anyone to be having. It so wasn't!

She just needs to admit that she made some serious errors of judgment in her youth.