Ms Woolf's memory lapse and why I fear an Establishment cover-up over the paedophile scandal

There are calls for Fiona Woolf to quit after she admitted she entertained
former Home Secretary Leon Brittan and his wife

When a government is forced to call a public inquiry, it almost invariably summons a judge or senior lawyer from the liberal Establishment in the expectation that he or she will come up with the ‘right’ recommendations.

So it was that, when in July the Home Secretary Theresa May finally assented to a major inquiry into historical sex abuse among Establishment figures, she turned to an 80-year-old former judge, Baroness Butler-Sloss.

This is the way things operate: the Establishment looks after its own.

Unfortunately, Mrs May overlooked the fact that Lady Butler-Sloss’s brother, Sir Michael Havers, had been Attorney General in the 1980s, and may have turned a blind eye to the very scandals she was supposed to investigate.

Against the wishes of the Home Office, she honourably stood down.

Whereupon Mrs May conjured up another Establishment figure, Fiona Woolf, a high-flying solicitor who is also Lord Mayor of London. Ms Woolf told the Commons Home Affairs Committee on Tuesday: ‘I am not a member of the Establishment.’ If she isn’t, who on Earth is?

It’s now clear that Ms Woolf is even more compromised than Lady Butler-Sloss, because she is friends with Lord Brittan, a central character in the drama. As Home Secretary in 1983, Lord (Leon) Brittan was handed a dossier by the then-Tory MP Geoffrey Dickens into the alleged involvement of VIP figures in a child sex ring. This explosive document was either lost or destroyed by the Home Office.  (more...)

Ms Woolf's memory lapse and why I fear an Establishment cover-up over the paedophile scandal

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