Lord McAlpine: Latest news
First came the child sex abuse in North Wales.
Then came the allegations and the Waterhouse inquiry.
Interestingly, Lord McAlpine engaged the services of a barrister to attend the inquiry, as a watching brief, in case his name was mentioned. Why he should have done so is a mystery.
Rumours linking Lord McAlpine to the child sex scandal circulated in political and media circles, and on the internet, for a number of years.
Newsnight was reeling from its dropped investigation into Jimmy Savile being a paedophile.
Newsnight then joined forces with the Bureau of Investigative Journalism on a story to name Lord McAlpine as being linked to the North Wales child sex abuse scandal.
Meanwhile, the Oxford Union staged a debate and the motion was "British politics is in the pocket of the media".
Iain Overton, head of the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, was a speaker in the debate. After the debate and after a few drinks he announced that the next evening's Newsnight would carry a story about a senior Tory child sex abuser.
Michael Crick, a former Newsnight political journalist now working for Channel 4, asked the question "Do you mean McAlpine?". Overton confirmed this. Crick then, attempting to steal the Newsnight scoop because Channel 4 News goes on air earlier, phoned Lord McAlpine and put the allegations to him. Honestly! What did Crick expect, Lord McAlpine to throw up his hands and confess to being a paedophile? Of course he denied it. Bear in mind Jonathan Aitken also denied wrong doing.
As we know Newsnight bottled it. And I didn't.
On ITV's This Morning Philip Schofield ambushed David Cameron with a list of names he got off the internet and which he claimed were Tory paedophiles. The uncomfortable Cameron then crassly linked paedophilia with homosexuals.
Seeing which way the wind was blowing, Michael Crick then attacked Newsnight by stating the truth could have been discovered by a couple of phone calls.
Source for some of this article here.
A mixture of law, politics, autobiography and humour. Once described as "The Devilish Advocate" (Guardian), I do have the ability to provoke a response. Sometimes it comes from someone who uses a thought process, and sometimes from jerks usually associated with the knee.
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