Leon (censored) Brittan has died.

Wait and see. Wait and see. In a year or two this is where the inquiry is going to run into the sand.


Posted from TSR Mobile

There is a difference between conclusion-jumping and suspicion.

I'm sure that would please their legal team immensely, not gonna happen though.

You are mistaken. There is very serious risk that this inquiry will be seen by the gay community as a witch hunt. If that happens the gay lobby will turn its fire on it and the the inquiry will be abandoned as those whose sympathies are with that lobby and those who wish to ride on its coat tails because they have something to hide refuse to participate.

It won't please the legal teams of those involved. This is a gravy train and lawyers want to climb on and stay on any gravy train going. It will please the guilty of course.


Posted from TSR Mobile

I prefer conclusion.

Apparently he'd been battling cancer for a long-time - but this is the first I've heard of it. I can't seem to find anything on the internet, either. Seems a little weird to me.

Of course, it's his private-life - he's entitled to keep it quiet if he likes, but I find it a little unusual that there's no mention of the illness prior to today's statement.

This is such an unpleasant post.

OK.

Sounds a little PIE don't you think?

PIE was trying to change acceptable mores and was spotted, though not by many on the political left.

Here the problem is different. Social mores had changed more than the law allowed. Is behaviour in the past to be judged by a law most then regarded as obsolete or by some other, and if so what, standard?

You can see how matters are running out of control in the absence of an inquiry chairman if you take the Mirror story and ask the question precisely in what way was Brittan's conduct wrong?

Obviously it was wrong if this was rape. Leave aside as a lawyer's quibble that males could not be raped at that date, it is as I said wholly implausible that the intercourse was non-consensual. The journalist is using rape merely as a perjorative expression to condemn sexual behaviour of which he disapproved.

Is it wrong because it was a male? Is it wrong because it was a prostitute? Is it wrong because it may have been an orgy . Is it wrong because the male was under age (back to the same issue-what age)? Is it wrong because of the difference in age? Is it wrong because there is just a yuk factor?

There is a real risk that this inquiry gets under way without answering these questions.



Posted from TSR Mobile

It is improbable that police conducting surveillance on a male brothel ascertained that the customers were raping the rent boys. It is further improbable that as professional sex workers they or their pimps would allow them to be bilked of their fees more than once. Therefore the reference to rape is likely to be lazy journalism.

This does of course move the story on in two respects. Firstly, A man who is willing to pay for sex with young men/boys is more likely to have abused boys than one who has no sexual interest in them. This is the first material that has emerged from any source other than alleged victims, that Brittan was bisexual.

Secondly this is going to fairly raise the fundamental problem at the heart of this inquiry. These rent boys were almost certainly under 21, the then age of homosexual consent. Should the authorities have been prosecuting all under 21 homosexual conduct. If not, what illegal behaviour were they right to turn a blind eye to and what illegal behaviour should they have pursued?

Posted from TSR Mobile

This is such an unpleasant post. Why should distinguished statesmen publicise their illnesses ? A certain class of Englishman still keeps a stiff upper lip about personal matters. Lord Brittan was not of the Jeremy Kyle school of behaviour.

No indeed - and clearly his paedophilia and rape of minors was of the gentlemanly sort too and the way it was covered up (along with the large number of similar crimes committed by politicians) by the helpful security services and policeman was also 'splendidly gentlemanly' and the abiding love they all had for Thatcherism and she for them was absolutely terrifically ripping.

I'm sure working class oinks like Jimmy Savile should never have been allowed in to such august circles, it was only going to cause trouble for the private clubs of rich old white men attacking children at will and with impunity.

I'm not clear why it makes it any different calling them 'rent boys' - eg, child prostitutes, often coerced, tricked or the victims of long term abuse - isn't it just as bad to attack and rape victimised children if they happen to be labelled (by society sometimes) 'rent boys' as it is other kinds of boys?

Because you are conflating different evils.

Rape is not the same as consorting with prostitutes. Rape is not the same as consorting with prostitutes who have been coerced into prostitution. At a point consorting with underage prostitutes blends into rape but that point isn't (or shouldn't be) 21.

Rape is rape regardless of the victim, but there was nothing in the Mirror's description of the activities, which seems to have derived from a police observation, other than the use of the word "rape" to suggest that what took place amounted to non-consenual intercourse.

I'm still not quite clear what point you're making. Are you claiming that underage boys can consent to sex with older men and more so if they are somehow classified as prostitutes?

I wasn't trying to make that point. However the question you ask has more layers than an onion to answer.

In the 1980s, no male person under 21 could have consented so as to make the older man's behaviour lawful. If the boy was over 10 and knew he was doing was wrong or if the boy/young man was over 14, then the boy/young man also committed a crime if he consented to intercourse. If he did not consent, he committed no crime.

The possibility of prosecuting the boy/young man (and boys/young men were regularly prosecuted and convicted for these offences) demonstrates that yes they could consent so as to make themselves criminally liable but not to so as to exonerate the behaviour of the older man.

The law wasn't treating these boys/young men as victims but as joint perpetrators.

We are all at sea in a not very clearly defined world. It would be wholly wrong to apply standards of the time. I would feel deeply uncomfortable if one of these now middle-aged ex-rent boys was now prosecuted for what he got up to in the 1980s with some establishment figure. However you can't easily read back present day attitudes in the past. Virtually all homosexual behaviour was secret and much was illicit. Remember these alleged orgies would have been criminal if no-one under 40 was in the building.