CHILD ABUSE ALLEGATIONS CHILL ME TO THE BONE
“It might be debt, it might be a scandal involving small boys, or any kind of scandal in which, erm, a member seemed likely to be mixed up in, they’d come and ask if we could help and, if we could, we did.” Who said that? Tim Fortescue, the House of Commons chief whip in the early 70s. When did he say it? 1995. Where? In a BBC2 documentary called Westminster’s Secret Service. Why did he say it? Because he thought he could get away with it.
How could a man admit on national television to hushing up scandals involving young boys and not face consequences? The footage only resurfaced after his death in 2008. We don’t know which scandals he covered for, but the sexual implication is clear. So, let me be clear: sexual contact between powerful men and young boys is not a scandal; it’s a crime, and a serious one at that.
This is from a television review published in The Independent, May 22nd, 1995: “Did [Fortescue] really mean to say that members of the Government would make themselves accessories to the sexual abuse of minors? Surely not. Well, not as long as they had a safe working majority anyway. Cockerell didn’t press him on the point. He had already secured the golden quote, when Fortescue winked slyly at the fact that the Tories had had a woman leader but no female whips. Do you really mean to say that the whips are more important than the Prime Minister, asked Cockerell. ‘You said it, I didn’t say it,’ Fortescue replied, with an Urquhart twinkle.”
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