The Week in Review: Tory paedophile spectre haunts Westminster
While Barack Obama was getting re-elected for four more years, British politics was in a stranger, much more unpleasant place.
Seven days have now passed since Steve Messham, a victim of child abuse at a north Wales care home, alleged in a Newsnight interview that a senior Tory politician had abused him during the 1980s. The consequences of Newsnight's promotion of the interview – and their subsequent decision not to actually reveal the name of the person they were accusing – have dominated the week in Westminster.
"Cars would pull up outside the home and you were taken," Messham said. "There's be a Porsche, there's be a Jag, and you were taken." His chief criticism of the Waterhouse inquiry set up to look into the abuse claims in the late 90s was that it did not investigate allegations of abuse which took place at locations other than the care homes in question. On Monday morning, Downing Street would only say that it was "actively" looking at the claims. Later that afternoon, home secretary Theresa May announced two further inquiries – one into the behaviour of the police, another effectively probing the Waterhouse inquiry – would take place.
Meanwhile, online, speculation about the identity of the mysterious paedophile was rife. This was the sort of case which showed up exactly how inadequate our libel laws are when confronted with rumour-mongering of this scale on social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter. Most journalists dealt with the issue with discretion. But Philip Schofield, of all people, raised the ire of Downing Street by confronting David Cameron with a list of names while live on national television. This might have been a mistake even if he hadn't inadvertently flashed the list at the cameras, thus prompting a legal nightmare for his bosses. Schofield subsequently apologised.
One of those named online was Alistair McAlpine, the former Tory party treasurer during Margaret Thatcher's day. That we are naming him at all is only because he took the bull by the horns to "set the record straight". His fierce denial of the "wholly false and seriously defamatory" allegations made clear his position, ending a week in which unsubstantiated claims have gripped the attention of the country.
There was other news, of course. Quite a lot, in fact. Across the Atlantic, Barack Obama was busy getting re-elected, to the dismay of some right-wing Conservatives. Cameron found time to congratulate Obama from the Middle East, where he was busy selling arms to the Arabs. That sort of statesmanship is actually much easier than the diplomacy required closer to home – as he discovered on Wednesday evening, when a cosy dinner with German chancellor Angela Merkel revealed exactly how difficult the looming EU budget is going to be. That's the subject of our podcast this week; as we've been finding out, the prime minister really does face something of a mission:impossible.
At least Cameron has a new iPad app to help distract him; this new toy allows the PM to govern the country inbetween playing Angry Birds, which is nice. The PM will also be able to spend any spare moments watching one of his MPs, one Nadine Dorries, on the television from next Sunday. Her unexpected departure for the Australian jungle in midweek prompted mixed reactions in Westminster, from bemusement to outright outrage. Her constituents certainly don't seem impressed, and three-quarters of the British public think she's done the wrong thing by heading down under. There may be trouble – and I don't just mean kangaroo testicles – ahead.
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