Harriet Harman in the Dock

http://news.sky.com/story/1216706/did-ed-urge-harriet-to-break-her-silence

The Mail is adamant their investigation can be proved. 'There was, however, no threat of any legal action against the Mail from either Harriet Harman or Jack Dromey'.......says it all.

JAMES KIRKUP
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LABOUR'S PR SHAMBLES

CLOUDED JUDGMENT

Harriet Harman said she had “nothing to apologise for” over the connection between her former employer, the National Council for Civil Liberties, and a group called the Paedophile Information Exchange, in the 1970s and 80s.

This appears to be the third position Miss Harman has taken on the issue in the last 24 hours. Last night she claimed she was the victim of a smear campaign by the Daily Mail and refused to apologise. This morning, a spokesman revealed her “regret” at the connection between NCCL and PIE. And a few hours later, Miss Harman said this:

“I’m not going to apologise because I’ve got nothing to apologise for. I very much regret that this vile organisation, PIE, ever existed and that it ever had anything to do with NCCL. But it did not affect my work at NCCL.”

So far, the Labour response to the PIE issue has been textbook example of how not to do political communications. Having initially refused to comment in the hope that the story would simply go away, the mixed messages are simply drawing attention to the issue.

It’s not as if Labour was caught on the hop, either. Miss Harman has had almost a week to consider her response, since the Mail’s first story on the matter appeared last week. And she’s had several years to lay this particular ghost, since questions have been raised before the current storm: the Telegraph wrote this in 2009, for instance.

In all this, it’s best not to underestimate the role emotion plays in politics. Politicians are human beings, and they have feelings. Miss Harman, like a lot of senior Labour folk, gets very emotional where the Daily Mail is concerned. The suspicion is that those passions have clouded judgment in this case: the refusal to give an inch to a paper that they loathe is actually making it harder for Labour to make this row go away.

But whatever the causes and explanations, the outcome is bad: more headlines including the words “Labour” and “paedophile”. Argue all you like about the Westminster bubble failing to connect to the real world, but that simply cannot be good for Labour. Regardless of whether voters conclude the party is institutionally supportive of child abuse (unlikely), there’s a major opportunity cost: the time and energy this row is consuming cannot be spent on endeavours that might actually win some votes. No wonder wiser Labour people are privately despairing this evening. They know that a party that has a realistic chance of being in power in barely a year’s time really needs to get better at media management, and soon.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26502420


This is not going away, a Chief Justice involved now

SAW THAT TODAY,HAD LINKS TO ROYAL FAMILY.
PERVERTS SEEM TO BE EVERYWHERE.

Badboy wrote:SAW THAT TODAY,HAD LINKS TO ROYAL FAMILY.
PERVERTS SEEM TO BE EVERYWHERE.

Badboy, this is a comment from Fulford


Lord Justice Fulford said he attended several meetings of the NCCL's gay rights committee, at which Mr O'Carroll was "sometimes present", and this had left him feeling "extremely uncomfortable".


Oh Yeah......I believe you thousands wouldn't.