With apologies for a bit of a cut n paste, this writer in today’s paper puts it better than I can
When Tom Watson stood up in the House of Commons and declared the existence of a historical paedophile ring at the heart of Westminster, there was only one problem: he had got it completely wrong.
But Mr Watson’s fateful intervention in 2012 would set in chain an extraordinary series of events. It led to Theresa May establishing a public inquiry into historic child sexual abuse – that is still running and will cost the taxpayer upwards of £200 million – and prompt the police, under Mr Watson’s watchful glare, to falsely accuse a string of VIPs of participating in torture, sadistic abuse and murder.
Mr Watson would wrongly brand Leon Brittan, the former home secretary, just days after his death, of being as “close to evil as any human being could be”. But he was quoting, as it transpired, Carl Beech, a fantasist and paedophile, who was jailed this summer for perverting the course of justice, fraud and sexual offences.
The association with Beech – Mr Watson met him face to face just once but they exchanged email and phone messages – would lead to a series of dignitaries demanding his resignation as Labour’s deputy leader.