There has been a great deal of indignation about the wicked behaviour of Jimmy Savile, that friend of ‘the great and the good’, but that now seems to be merely the tip of the proverbial iceberg. Allegations of widespread abuse of inmates of children’s homes have reached the newspapers and television. A little searching on the internet brings up claims that this abuse included sadistic rape, with some of the victims dying as result, or being killed to silence them.
How much of this is true, I have no idea; I am certainly very sceptical of dramatic allegations about Ted Heath, particularly as they seem to have come from an unreliable source who has made similar claims about two former American Presidents. It is just possible that the stories are all completely false, or all completely true, but much more likely that the truth lies somewhere between these two extremes.
Unless some effective form of mind control is developed (which is a scary idea), in any society there will always be individuals whose sexual desires will overpower their morality; the presence of such individuals within a society does not necessarily reflect badly on the society as a whole – unless that society protects the perpetrators instead of the victims.
One of the disturbing aspects of the Jimmy Savile case is that it appears that a significant number of people were aware that Savile was a sexual predator, and yet he was able to act with impunity. On the internet, Savile is alleged to have procured victims for others to abuse; if this is true, then he was not just an evil individual, but part of an evil conspiracy, which may have operated for many years and have involved largely members of the British Establishment.
It has emerged that a dossier handed to Leon Brittan when he was Home Secretary somehow disappeared, and that 114 documents relating to alleged child sex abuse are unaccounted for. On the internet, it is alleged that Special Branch officers threatened people who were trying to investigate this abuse; one person claimed to have had a gun held against their head. As recently as 2011, an American journalist, who was investigating what happened at the Jersey children’s home Haut de la Garenne, was banned from entering the UK for more than a year by Home Secretary Theresa May. (leahmcgrathgoodman.com)
Two separate reviews have been announced by the Government. Whether these will be effective remains to be seen, but my cynical suspicion is that they will be allowed to drag on for years without being allowed the resources needed to have much chance of uncovering any real evidence. At the most, one or two people on the fringes of the Establishment will be thrown to the wolves, people who are perhaps closely associated with the Establishment but not truly part of it – rather like Jimmy Savile.
Was there indeed a particularly vicious group of paedophiles operating within the British Establishment over many years? Were they systematically protected by other members of the Establishment who were aware of their activities? At this stage there is no real proof available, but I think that, on balance of probabilities, the answer to both questions is yes. If one looks at the financial links between politicians and business, it is easy to conclude that the Establishment is financially corrupt. If the Establishment has indeed protected possibly murderous paedophiles within its midst, then it is not just corrupt but depraved.
At the start of this post, I said that Savile’s activities were the tip of an iceberg. It is tempting to think of the Establishment as the Titanic, headed at full speed towards that iceberg, but I fear that the Establishment really is unsinkable and will get away with only minor damage.
We need independence to distance ourselves from the stink of Westminster, with its archaic, rotten system of privilege as epitomised by the House of Lords. As an independent state, we will no doubt have our own Scottish Establishment, but as a smaller, and at least slightly more egalitarian, nation than the UK we should be better able to keep it in check.
lescunningham 