"Savile sex scandal spurs British soul searching" by Jill Lawless | Associated Press, November 01, 2012
LONDON — Jimmy Savile was one of Britain’s biggest stars — and, allegedly, one of its worst sexual predators. Now the nation is asking whether there was a link between one and the other.
Was this man at the heart of the nation’s popular culture a product of the permissive 1960s and ’70s, or do the conditions that allegedly let him get away with repeated child sex abuse still exist, even as awareness of the problem is more widespread?
*********************************************
Savile, who died a year ago at age 84, came to fame in an era of social transformation. He started out as a dance hall DJ in the early days of rock ’n’ roll before breaking into television in the early 1960s as host of the music program ‘‘Top of the Pops.’’ Later he hosted ‘‘Jim’ll Fix It,’’ a TV show in which he made young viewers’ wishes come true.
What you sadly begin to realize is all these allegedly beneficent causes the elite and others engage in are nothing more than a cover to gain access to kids so they can fulfill their perverse predilections upon them. For a thought-starter think Sandusky. I'm not saying they are all bad; however, I am suspicious -- especially when promoted by agenda-pushing papers.
The rules of social and sexual behavior in Britain were changing in the ’60s and ’70s — and along with new freedoms came opportunities for abuse. Savile’s career in the exploding world of popular entertainment gave him access to legions of star-struck young people....
I don't recall the age of free love promoting child molestation or pedophilia, but then again I smoked a lot of pot back then (sigh, cough).
Savile was further shielded from scrutiny by the notion that celebrities are larger-than-life figures who exist outside normal social constraints.
It's the culture in which we now live.
With his brightly colored tracksuits, big cigars, and aggressively jocular screen persona, he appeared to many, a harmless oddball — one in a long roster of British eccentrics....
Wow, talk about self-denial.
Youngsters made several complaints to police over the years, none of which led to charges. The chief of London’s Metropolitan Police, Bernard Hogan-Howe, has apologized, saying police failed to piece together Savile’s ‘‘pattern of behavior’’ from the disparate complaints.
More like WILFUL IGNORANCE, sorry. If it were a member of the rabble DSS (or the British equivalent) would be in there in a heartbeat.
British police vow that the Savile case will be a watershed moment in combating child abuse, and child protection authorities have stressed that awareness has increased enormously in recent years.
We'll see. Our first clue will be how the agenda-pushing corporate press handles it.
Scandals within several large institutions — from the Roman Catholic Church to the Boy Scouts — have led to soul-searching and stronger rules to protect children.
The sad fact is it appears that any institutional structure that has control of children at such a young age really seem to have this sick power-play perversion at work.
--more--"
"Britain orders inquiry into new abuse claims" Associated Press, November 06, 2012
LONDON — Britain’s Prime Minister David Cameron ordered an investigation Monday into newly raised allegations related to a major child abuse scandal in north Wales in the 1970s and 1980s.
Cameron said he had also asked a Cabinet minister to meet with a victim of child abuse who alleges a senior figure at the time within the Conservative Party was involved in a pedophile ring....
Cameron's announcement, in Abu Dhabi during a three-day tour of the Gulf and Middle East, comes amid national scrutiny of the alleged sexual abuse of hundreds of young people by Jimmy Savile, the well-known BBC TV host who died last year. Police say that since the complaints against Savile were made public last month, hundreds of people not linked to his case have emerged to report their own allegations of past abuse.
Cameron said he would appoint an independent figure to lead an investigation aimed at determining if a previous major public inquiry into the north Wales scandal was sufficiently thorough....
--more--"
Related: Some in Britain call for national inquiry on child abuse
Inquiry is British for cover-up commission, 'murkns.
"UK’s Cameron warns over child abuse witch hunt" by David Stringer | Associated Press, November 09, 2012
LONDON — Speculation about a political figure from the Margaret Thatcher era alleged to be tied to Britain’s child abuse scandal risks becoming a witch hunt, Prime Minister David Cameron warned Thursday after he was confronted in a television interview with names of supposed potential suspects.
Amazing how perceptions turn when the scum-shit elite start feeling the pinch.
Go tell it to some set-up and framed Muslim patsy.
Cameron has authorized two new inquiries into widespread child abuse at care homes, foster homes, and other institutions for vulnerable young people in Wales in the 1970s and 1980s. One victim has alleged that previous investigations had failed to examine accusations against a senior figure within Cameron’s Conservative Party at the time.
The political figure has not been named, and no official with the Conservative Party — led from the mid-1970s until 1990 by Thatcher — has ever faced charges in connection to the abuse scandal.
Allegations were raised in the wake of disclosures that renowned BBC children’s TV host Jimmy Savile is accused of using his fame — and charity work that took him to schools and care homes — to abuse hundreds of young people in past decades. Savile died last year.
Police and charities say the case has been a watershed moment, prompting adults to come forward with scores of unrelated complaints about sex abuse they claim they suffered in childhood.
During an interview Thursday on ITV’s ‘‘This Morning’’ program, host Phillip Schofield passed Cameron a note bearing several names of political figures mentioned on social media sites in connection with the allegations of abuse in Wales.
Once again, it TOOK the WEB and BLOGS to GET the STORY OUT!
‘‘There is a danger if we are not careful that this can turn into a sort of witch hunt, particularly about people who are gay, and I’m worried about the sort of thing you are doing right now, taking a list of names off the Internet,’’ Cameron said, rebuking the program for highlighting the speculation.
Oh, HOW DISGUSTING! He is trying to EQUATE CONDEMNATION of PEDOPHILE PERVERTS with HOMOPHOBIA!!
I think YOUR GOVERNMENT is SICK, Britain.
--more--"
Time to blow the whistle:
"BBC chief out amid widening scandal; Enwistle held office 8 weeks" by John F. Burns and Ravi Somaiya | New York Times, November 11, 2012
LONDON — The director general of the BBC resigned late Saturday in the wake of a growing scandal surrounding news reports about prominent public figures accused of pedophilia.
Burned at the stake as it were.
George Entwistle, who was appointed to head the network less than eight weeks ago, said in a statement that he had decided that ‘‘the honorable thing to do is to step down.’’
His announcement followed a report on the BBC’s flagship “Newsnight’’ program that the BBC said wrongly implicated a former official of Britain’s ruling Conservative Party in the sexual abuse of a teenage boy.
Good God, they are going to boldly and brazenly cover it all up!
Earlier Saturday, Entwistle said the report, broadcast Nov. 2, reflected ‘‘unacceptable journalistic standards’’ and never should have been broadcast.
And thus YOU CAN NEVER TRUST the BBC AGAIN!!
The broadcast seems to have only compounded the scandals plaguing the network since the revelation last month that the late Jimmy Savile, a longtime BBC television host, was suspected of having sexually abused perhaps hundreds of people....
The Nov. 2 “Newsnight’’ report contained an interview with a man, Steve Messham, who said he had been taken to a local hotel from a children’s home in the North Wales town of Wrexham in the 1980s and abused more than a dozen times by a man he identified as a senior Conservative politician from the years when Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was in power.
It fueled widespread speculation about the identity of the politician involved. A former government official, Alistair McAlpine, was named online.
But it emerged that he had been the victim of mistaken identity. On Friday, Messham apologized, saying the actual McAlpine bore no resemblance to the man in the photos shown to him by the police.
Who put the pre$$ure on him to get him to retract, and was it worth it?
The “Newsnight’’ broadcast on Friday was a postmortem of the story, featuring a broad apology to McAlpine, coupled with an announcement that all investigative reporting by “Newsnight’’ was being suspended indefinitely....
At last, the British people will receive a respite from propaganda!
--more--"
"BBC chair says scandal has revealed a ‘ghastly mess’" by John F. Burns | New York Times, November 12, 2012
LONDON — The BBC’s chairman said Sunday that the broadcasting organization was in a ‘‘ghastly mess’’ as a result of its bungled coverage of a decades-old sexual abuse scandal and was in need of a fundamental shake-up....
I don't think a pr polishing is going to make this turd smell any better, sorry.
And if anyone cares to remember, they also bungled the dropping of WTC 7 by about half-an-hour early.
But although chairman of the BBC Trust, Chris Patten, has said that the BBC’s handling of the scandal was marked by ‘‘unacceptably shoddy journalism,’’ he pushed back on "The Andrew Marr Show,’’ the BBC’s flagship Sunday morning talk show, against suggestions that the crisis could lead to a dismantling of the BBC as it now exists, with 23,000 employees, a $6 billion annual budget, and a dominant role in British broadcasting.
Patten, 68, a former Conservative cabinet minister who gained a reputation for independence when he was Britain’s last colonial governor in Hong Kong, said critics of the BBC should not lose sight of its reputation at home and abroad for impartial, trustworthy journalism....
Does that include the Iraq war lies they shoveled for Bliar, et al?
Public confidence in the BBC has slumped further in opinion polls in the wake of its coverage of a scandal involving allegations of abuses by a senior politician at a children’s home in Wales in the 1970s and ‘80s.
That's because people don't like being lied to -- or at the very least, not being told the truth. The fact is, the western corporate media has become one large agenda-pushing intelligence agency operation, and the British people know it. That's why they are coming here by the hundreds even though I am absent for weeks at a time.
But the British public would not support breaking up the BBC, Patten said, adding, ‘‘The BBC is one of the things that has come to define and reflect Britishness, and we shouldn’t lose that.’’
If true, that's really, really sad.
Barely 12 hours earlier, Patten stood outside the BBC’s new billion-dollar London headquarters with George Entwistle, the departing director-general, as Entwistle announced his resignation after just eight weeks in the job to atone for his failings in dealing with what he called ‘‘the exceptional events of the past few weeks.’’
Entwistle’s resignation was prompted by outrage about a Nov. 2 report on ‘‘Newsnight,’’ a current affairs program, that wrongly implicated a former Conservative Party politician in the scandal.
Responding to reports that the ‘‘Newsnight’’ segment was broadcast without some basic fact-checking that would have exculpated the 70-year-old, retired politician it implicated, Alistair McAlpine, Entwistle said it reflected ‘‘unacceptable journalistic standards’’ and never should have been broadcast.
Truthfully, SEEMS to be a PATTERN with WESTERN CORPORATE MEDIA!
That episode, which McAlpine’s lawyers have said will be the subject of a defamation lawsuit, compounded the problems facing the network since revelations last month about a longtime BBC television host, Jimmy Savile, who died at 84 in 2011. Savile was suspected of having sexually abused as many as 300 young people over decades, in the BBC’s studios and in children’s homes and hospitals where he gained ready access as a campaigner for children’s charities.
The BBC has been accused of covering up the Savile case by canceling a ‘‘Newsnight’’ report on the accusations against him last December and going ahead with several Christmas specials that paid tribute to Savile....
They still are.
On Monday, Mark Thompson, who stepped down in September after eight years as director-general. begins his new job as president and chief executive of The New York Times. He has said he knew nothing beforehand about the ‘‘Newsnight’’ investigation of Savile or the decision to scrap it — not even that it involved allegations of pedophilia....
Just when you thought the Times reputation couldn't sink any lower.
--more--"
At least you can always turn to the British bobbies for justice, right?
"London’s police force faces making budget cuts of more than $800 million. Planned staffing cuts will make the massive central London building a luxury. Other things being considered to save money are co-locating police with fire service and local authorities and — gasp — they could even end up being based at supermarkets or post offices."
I know the reporter is trying to be funny (gasp); however, those types of comments are best left to sarcastic analysts like myself. Wondering how the Scotland Yard likes being the butt of the insulting elitism I see in my paper every day.
UPDATE:
"2 senior executives at BBC step aside during inquiry; Director of news, deputy exit amid sex abuse scandal" By Alan Cowell | New York Times, November 13, 2012
LONDON — The BBC struggled Monday to contain a spreading crisis over its reporting of a decades-old sexual abuse scandal as two senior executives withdrew temporarily from their jobs following the resignation of the corporation’s director-general in the worst setback to the public broadcaster’s status, prestige, and self-confidence in years....
On Monday, British lawmakers, politicians, and newspapers focused on a decision by the BBC Trust to authorize a payment to the former director-general, George Entwistle, equivalent to one year’s salary of around $750,000. The BBC justified the payment by saying Entwistle would continue to help with various inquiries into the scandals at the BBC. Prime Minister David Cameron’s office challenged the payoff to Entwistle as ‘‘hard to justify’’ but sent a political signal rebutting calls for the chairman of the supervisory BBC Trust, Lord Chris Patten, to step down....
The latest debacle has compounded the problems facing the network since accusations last month against Savile, who was suspected of having sexually abused as many as 300 young people. Critics have accused the BBC of covering up the abuse by canceling a ‘‘Newsnight’’ report on the accusations against him in December....
--more--"
