Whilst most political parties do sleaze, the Lib-Dems do it particularly well. The BBC has had little choice to run with Rennard after all this is just the latest instance in a line that weaves from Huhne to Laws, Brown to Oaten. Wonder what you make of the line the BBC is taking on this?
RENNARD
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Sarah Montague this morning tried to blame the Tories for ‘driving this story’…curious she never said that about Tom Watson’s claims or indeed the BBC itself in regard to McAlpine.
The Guardian also takes that line:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/blog/2013/feb/25/why-rennard-claims-surfaced-now
Whilst Nick Cohen has also noticed this attempt to somehow divert attention away to Tories or the right wing papers:
http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/nick-cohen/2013/02/sexual-abuse-dont-toe-the-party-line/
Funny that both the BBC and the Guardian covers the Rennard story extensively themselves.
What a load of cant that Grauniad piece is. ‘Ooh the allegations have been around for years. Why now?’
It’s a pity they didn’t ask the same questions about the Millie Dowler fraca that led to Leveson isn’t it?
I suppose at least a dead kid isn’t been used this time for grubby politicing. Not much of a consolation tho’ is it?
‘Instead of involving detectives and judges, the XXX disciplinary committee set itself up as a kangaroo court, and “tried” the man it would identify only as “Comrade Delta”. The minutes show the paranoia with great clarity. One of the seven “judges” said that the XXX had ‘no faith in the bourgeois court system to deliver justice’.
But then nor could its “proletarian” disciplinary committee. The “judges” had no independent evidence – how could they when they were a bunch of Trots rather than a competent court? They were not impartial. They knew the “accused”. They valued the “leading role” he had played in the party. And they acquitted him.
Redacted a few bits to spare some blushes, but maybe inspire a few rosy cheeks in market rate towers or CECUTT:)
Oh, and, as inevitable: ‘Comments for this thread are now closed.’
Now? They never opened
Very odd that this story should surface just before the Eastleigh by election some serious politicing going on here, and the only party with something to gain by it are the Tories. Never the less the bBC have made little of it, and seem to have been reporting this with a shrug of the corporate shoulders & a sigh – a kind of ‘oh no not again’!
The electorate losing faith in politicians doesn’t seem to suit the bBC well, perhaps there a kind of shared pain with their own scandals having been partly exposed. Perhaps a closer parallel by the misshandling by the bosses too!
That is untrue, the timing has been explained. The complainers (complainants?) were told that Reynard had been told to leave and so action had been taken and they didn’t want to damage the party so they accepted that.
Then they found that he had been invited to “party balancing” weekends – where minority candidates are taken away for a weekend to vet them. Clearly this involves a lot of young woman, so a perfect chance for a sexual predator to advance his personal cause.
The Biased BBC refused to look into the story, so C4 did, credit to them!
So Simon Hughes on Newsnight, also now using the ” I knew nothing until a week ago” defence. We shall see! Emily Maitless did to be fair, make an attempt to rubish his claims tho’ ! To be sure, Hughes and Co are awaiting an inquiry to learn the lessons, after a suitably long delay in the long grass.
Considering the releatively small number of Liberal MPs they do have quite a hall of shame.
Jeremy Thorpe
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/place-london/plain/A2430091
In 1975, former model Norman Scott, made allegations that he’d once had a homosexual affair with Thorpe back in the early 1960s. Of course, at the time the affair – which Scott claimed had begun in 1963 and ended in 1963 – homosexuality was still a criminal offence and Thorpe was a member of the House of Commons. Scott also claimed that Thorpe threatened to kill him after the alleged affair had been made public, specifically that Thorpe had incited David Holmes, deputy Treasurer of the Liberals, to murder Scott.
Cyril Smith
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-20522408
The failure to charge Sir Cyril Smith with sex abuse means “justice has been cheated”, a solicitor representing one of his alleged victims has said.
Chris Huhne
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21320992
Chris Huhne has resigned as an MP after he admitted perverting the course of justice over claims his ex-wife took speeding points for him a decade ago.
David Laws
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/10191524
Liberal Democrat David Laws has resigned as Chief Secretary to the Treasury after admitting he claimed expenses to pay rent to his partner.
Time for the BBC to refer to the Lib Dems as the Sleazy Party? I bet they don’t.
Don’t forget Mark Oaten and his disgusting coprophilic predilections, Simon Hughes’grossly hypocritical election campaign, devised by Rennard, as “the Straight Choice” when his main opponent was Peter Tatchell, the Party accepting donations from a fraudster whose main victims were pensioners – and then refusing to pay back the stolen money. And then going back in history there was Lloyd George selling peerages.
This is the political party that’s been squatting on the moral high ground for fifty years.
Don’t forget “Jihad Jennie” the wannabe suicide bomber.
Promoted the the upper house.
It also makes you think, what did the females at the top of the party do to get there? The mind boggles about Sarah Teather.
Susan Cramer – or should I say Baroness Cramer!
I baffed how she managed to ascend the greasy pole.
Let’s not forget Paddy ‘Pants-down’ and Charles Kennedy!
No, the BBC will not tarnish the Lib Dems afterall, wasn’t it only a few days ago that they, the Lib Dems, were sucking up to the Labour Party? Move along now, nothing to see here.
The fact that the BBC made so little about Home Affairs (of all subjects!) spokesman Mark Oaten’s coprophiliac activities with a 17 year old boy – at a time when such child abuse was illegal – speaks volumes about the corporation’s attitude towards paedophilia, both in-house and islamic.
The Rennard story has probably been leaked to the press by someone within the LibDem party itself. Someone who is ambitious enough to try and embarrass Clegg enough to have him ousted. Let’s not forget the LibDems are particularly brutal with their leaders over the past ten years or so.
If Clegg does fall because of this scandal (oh dear, what a shame, never mind) look to the first person to throw their hat into the ring as a likely suspect.
Politics is a dirty business, and no organisation is more dirty that the LibDem Party. My main suspect is one of the people who has been on all the main news stations defending Clegg and who says they are wanting justice for these poor women.
Channel 4’s Cathy Newman explains
Lord Rennard: why are we running the story now?
I’m not convinced. Huhne’s demise was predictable, and the Rennard story could have been run after the Eastleigh by-election.
Isn’t it amusing that the liberal media feel moved to justify the timing of a story that is embarrassing for the left?
So the Twitterati have been out in force questioning Channel 4 – come on chaps, we’re all on the same anti-Tory side here aren’t we? Couldn’t we just have hushed this one up for a few more days?
Also note the BBC’s coverage of this versus their complete disinterest in much more serious allegations against members of the Socialist Workers Party.
MATT: on Lib Dems and Eastleigh.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/matt/
“One thing’s clear about Eastleigh: it’ll be a wretched day for Labour.
The magnificent Maria may see off the yellow peril, but Miliband’s man is already down and out, writes Boris Johnson.”
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/9891751/One-things-clear-about-Eastleigh-itll-be-a-wretched-day-for-Labour.html
And it goes on.
DP are discussing this and Ros Altman speculated that there has to be some political motivation behind the timing of these disclosures….then in the next breath says that women have the right to have their allegations listened to. YES! that’s right Ros, it’s the women concerned that have driven this…they want their allegations listened to, sorry that the timing isn’t convenient for you, the BBC or the Guardian.
At the same time DPs political observer slickly raises the stakes for Cameron, stating that the Lib Dems are pulling out all of the stops to win the Eastleigh bi-election AGAINST ALL OF THE ODDS, going on to say that Cameron will have questions to answer, if with everything in his favour, the Tories fail to do so.
She what she did there?
“BBC ACCUSED OF ‘GOING EASY’ ON LIBERAL DEMOCRATS”
BY PAUL REVOIR, ‘Daily Mail’.
“The BBC was accused last night of ‘laying off’ the Liberal Democrats over the Lord Rennard controversy after it emerged the corporation knew about the scandal months ago.
Some Conservatives contrasted the BBC’s response with its ‘slavering’ enthusiasm to air the bungled Newsnight report last November that wrongly linked former Tory party treasurer Lord McAlpine to historic child abuse allegations.
Others also raised eyebrows yesterday over the way the corporation’s flagship radio news show, the Today programme, suggested that members of the Conservative Party might be ‘encouraging this story [about Lord Rennard] forward’.
It has emerged that the BBC knew about the scandal last November but decided against running the story.
The BBC said it had been unable to get the women to speak on camera. It was left to Channel 4 News to lift the lid on the controversy last Thursday.
Critics also said major BBC bulletins largely ignored the story in the first couple of days after its rivals ran the report.
Tory MP Jake Berry said: ‘Is this another example of the BBC’s obsession with pursuing Conservatives while having a head-in-the-sand approach when it comes the Liberal and Labour party?’
His colleague Philip Davies added: ‘It seems the BBC is up to its usual tricks again, laying off the liberal left and sticking the boot in to the Conservatives.
‘Their political bias is so entrenched they probably don’t even realise they are doing it.
‘They couldn’t make the Lord McAlpine story stick, but they couldn’t help themselves. They were slavering at the mouth to get that out there.’
BBC insiders believe, however, that after the McAlpine disaster the corporation was simply terrified of wrongly accusing another leading political figure.
Yesterday, in an interview with Liberal Democrat president Tim Farron, Today presenter Sarah Montague raised suspicions that Tory figures were playing a part in keeping the story going.
She told him: ‘But there is one thing for you to deal with, your Coalition parties and the suggestion that it actually is the Conservatives who might be encouraging this story forward.’
A BBC spokesman said: ‘To suggest we did not pursue the story is untrue.
‘The BBC began investigating some allegations but we were unable to persuade the women to speak on camera.”
‘We needed to get first-hand testimony on camera. We have continued to try to secure interviews, making it clear we were ready to record an interview when they were ready to talk.’
-http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284458/Nick-Clegg-faces-questions-shifting-version-events-Rennard-scandal.html
[Scroll down, right-hand column.]
Open goal here…
George above says that the BBC weren`t able to get women to speak on camera.
Especially when they were perched on Jimmys knee at the time…and, of course; more ” clean fingernailed suits up on the fifth floor by way of “casting/executive relief.
Oh here comes Jeremy Hardy…he`ll love these, and expect to see this in the News Now Shwizz coming up this Friday.
Link to above:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2284458/Nick-Clegg-faces-questions-shifting-version-events-Rennard-scandal.html
I have to admit I find all this very confusing. Did the Tories try to push this story only because Rennard isn’t in the Cabinet? As if to say they would have done the same with Huhne or Laws, stabbing their Coalition partners in the back, if they hadn’t been? I mean, they’d have to know this would affect Danny Alexander at least. Why would they do such a thing? What political sense does that make? Maybe I’m giving Call Me Dave and his crew too much credit for being intelligent.
I’m also now trying to remember if the BBC was equally reticent about Huhne and Laws until reality forced them to make it a priority. Evan Davis and Iain Dale made it quite clear why they didn’t see the Laws story as any big deal, but what about Huhne? The BBC hates the Coalition, loves anything that undermines the partnership, so what’s their incentive to avoid this? Discrediting the Lib Dems works to Labour’s advantage anyway, so I just don’t get it.
Is it just more BBC timidity and poor management structure that caused them to sit on it? Which will of course be solved by adding yet another layer of upper management.
Rather nice to be able to watch this one from the sidelines a bit, as the BBC, Ch4, the Graun & Lib Dems seems to have got themselves in a bit of a pickle not just with what may or may not have been done, but again who may or may not have known about it, and from what height nothing may or may not have been known, acted upon, etc.
If wrong has been done, any whose first thought is to question the moment it becomes public really are showing their tribal default settings and lack of coherent moral equivalences.
It’s the kind of mentality that got the BBC & NHS Stasi gunning for whistleblowers to silence with threat or money more than the silly notion of addressing the actual abuse as a priority.
Maybe Lord Rennard should try the ‘it was a different time’ gambit? It didn’t work before, but the BBC gave it a heck of a thrashing and some still are operating on a ‘tell it often enough’ basis.
Me, I just stumbled over the into line in the BBC report linked above:
‘looking at “whether or not criminal activity has taken place” after claims of sexual impropriety by former Liberal Democrat chief executive Lord Rennard.
For a second I though it was him making claims about the behaviour of others!
That would have been a definite popcorn moment.
Richard Bacon gets excited about some news stories.
Give him a Catholic Bishop, for example, caught with his trousers down and Bacon jumps up like a Meerkat with a rocket up his jacksie.
However we find our hero rather downbeat today as he introduces a major news item. He leads into an interview with a female Lib Dem with the observation that this story ‘rumbles on’.
How can the BBC continue to employ such a biased presenter?
As much as I am delighted to see Britain’s main repository of openly* self-righteous cant suffer this slow motion car crash – I do wonder quite how we got here?
I note a newspaper headline ‘Lib Dem Sex Scandal’
Which seems to boil down to some quick naughty gropes and a couple of embarassing rebuttals.
Political sex scandals once involved call girls and weekend orgies at country houses.
* The BBC is of course the main still in the closet repository of self-righteous cant. The Labour Party are more of a suppository.
‘Daily Mail’ Comment:-
“Liberal bias at BBC.
“For four days, the BBC tried desperately to ignore the Lord Rennard sex scandal engulfing the Liberal Democrat Party, despite it being on the front page of the Mail and a string of other newspapers.
“Indeed, it was only after Nick Clegg issued a weasel-worded statement on Sunday evening – confirming he’d been made aware of ‘non-specific’ allegations of sexual misconduct by the peer in 2008 – that the Corporation finally considered the issue worthy of significant coverage.
“Now contrast this head-in-the-sand approach with the disastrous decision to slur Lord McAlpine as a paedophile on Newsnight last November.
“The libellous claims were broadcast in such a hurry that, disgracefully, the Tory peer was not even given a right of reply.
“Now we learn the Corporation was in fact aware of the Rennard story last year but opted not to proceed with it.
“It is hard to avoid the conclusion that the BBC – with its innate liberal bias – is only interested in pursuing political scandal when it involves the Conservative Party.”
[Scroll down.]
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-2284516/Moodys-downgrade-UKs-AAA-status-exposes-myth-cuts.html
MAC cartoon:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/coffeebreak/cartoons/mac.html
Given that it is Lib Dem women who seem to be the more enthusiastic critics of Rennard in all this, and not letting up one jot when it became embarrassing for Cleggy, is it possible this could be a Lib/Lab conspiracy to get St Vince into pole position ready for a different kind of coalition, using the ‘abused’ women as the catalyst? If Clegg goes, it’s difficult to see the Lib/Con coalition surviving.
Let’s talk about sex, baybee.
Always reliable:
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/busy-line.html?
‘But we have one worrying element at large – a story in The Sunday Times (prop R Murdoch) claiming that lawyers for Helen Boaden say she telephoned Mark in December 2011 about the Newsnight allegations against Jimmy Savile. This story does not appear in any of the Pollard transcripts, emails or submissions published last week; it comes from freelance Miles Goslett. If true, it makes Mark’s protestations of what he knew and when about JS difficult to maintain, to say the least. So far, there’s no response from Boaden, Thompson or the NYT.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/02/24/top-exec-warned-mark-thompson-of-savile-scandal.html
Maybe time the LibDems were spotlighted by the full force of the impartial, professional and in no way headless self-defending chicken that is the national treasure …pronto? Oo.. look, a squir… horsemeat…triple A… other people’s sex scandals!!!!!!!!!
In other news…
http://tradingaswdr.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/getting-on-with-things.html?
The attendees list for the meeting shows Fran Unsworth attending as Acting Director of News – but, lo, the minutes suggest it was really Helen Boaden who was there, noting the relaunch of World News.
Guess those are the kind of archive glitches Peter Rippon gets to keep his pension with if he ‘handles’ them?
To be fair to tubby Renard, most Lib Dem women would be offended if you so much as looked at them incorrectly of fail to address them as Ms…
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