Once again, the whole British Establishment is mired in deep scandal. Whilst the most vulnerable in society are under attack from this millionaire’s government, the Establishment has been able to get away with murder, safe from prying eyes. Rob Sewell, editor of Socialist Appeal looks at how, under capitalism, there is one law for the rich and another for working class people.
A fish rots from the head down. It is the same for the crisis-ridden British Tory Establishment.
Once again, the whole British Establishment is mired in deep scandal. Following on from police cover-ups, bribe taking and evidence of “institutional” corruption that goes to the very top, we had the MPs expenses’ scam, the hacking phone scandal of the bosses’ press, the Hillsborough cover-up – the list goes on and on – we are now faced with new revelations about the covering up for decades of a sordid paedophile network involving top politicians and others, who all believe they were untouchable. Who knows what other scandals have been hidden from view over the years?
Whilst the poor, needy and most vulnerable in society are under attack from this millionaire’s government, the Establishment has always been able to get away with murder, safe from prying eyes. In Britain, there is one law for the rich and another for working class people.
Nest of corruption
This nest of corruption was deliberately kept under wraps but as Shakespeare once wrote: “Truth will come to light; murder cannot be hid long.” The lid has now been partially raised on this upper-class sewer, revealing the filthy goings on at the top that involved government ministers, Members of Parliament, the House of Lords, the Church and the Royal Household.
The Tory Establishment has always been up to its neck in sleaze. In a recent interview, a former senior Tory boasted how whips under Edward Heath’s government routinely collected information on its MPs and would cover up scandals involving “small boys” and other vices.
Former Tory activist Anthony Gilberthorpe told the ‘Sunday Mirror’ that he saw several underage boys performing sex acts on MPs – which he claims included Baroness Butler-Sloss’s brother, Lord Michael Havers – at a party during the 1981 Tory party conference in Blackpool. He also claimed to have supplied underage rent boys for a party during the 1983 Tory conference, a practice that must have continued for years.
Underage victims now claim they were taken to gatherings in the 1980s at Dolphin Square, luxury flats near Westminster, where they were raped and abused by senior politicians. Scandalously, these stories were covered up at the time and those with the information told not to proceed. It now seems that evidence on the activities of Liberal MP Cyril Smith was also covered up with key documents being taken away by the police. All this has come on top of the Jimmy Saville scandal exposures, as well as this paedophile’s close links with Thatcher, the tops of the Tory Party and Prince Charles. He was knighted by the Queen for his services as he carried out his exploits among the most vulnerable. it has also been noted that Rolf Harris was very popular with the Establishment, forever praising the Monarchy.
More recently, allegations of rape made against Leon Brittan, who was the Home Secretary under Margaret Thatcher, have resurfaced in the media.
Rumours were also rife during the miners’ strike in 1984-5, repeated by Denis Skinner at the time, that a leading Tory Minister was about to be exposed for sex with underage boys but the story went completely cold. Nothing was heard as the Establishment covered it up to prevent the fall of the Thatcher government during its fight with the National Union of Mineworkers. How much did Thatcher know?
Cover-up to protect those in power
Now 114 documents detailing paedophile activities involving top politicians, which were handed to Leon Brittan at the time, have conveniently either gone “missing or been destroyed.”
Norman Tebbit, a key Tory minister under Thatcher, in an unguarded moment, let the truth slip out. Speaking on The Andrew Marr Show, Tebbit revealed that:
“At that time I think most people would have thought that the establishment, the system, was to be protected and if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into it…
“…I think there may well have been [a political cover-up of child abuse]. But it was almost unconscious. It [covering-up] was the thing that people did at that time.”
Here is displayed the true cynicism of the ruling class. It should be shouted from the rooftops: They exist to protect their own: judges, police chiefs, top politicians, government ministers, bankers, Peers, press barons, Church leaders, the Royalty and all their hangers-on.
This cover-up was further reinforced by Peter McKelvie, a former child protection manager, speaking to the BBC’s Newsnight:
“I believe that there is strong evidence – and an awful lot of information that can be converted into evidence if it is investigated properly – that there has been an extremely powerful elite amongst the highest levels of the political classes for as long as I am alive, and I am 65.
“There has been sufficient reason to investigate it over and over again, certainly for the last 30 years. There has always been the block and the cover-up and the collusion to prevent that happening…”
“…We are looking at the Lords, we are looking at the Commons, we are looking at the judiciary, we are looking at all institutions where there will be a small percentage of paedophiles and a slightly larger percentage of people who have known about it but have felt that in terms of their own self-interest and self-preservation and for political party reasons it’s been safer for them to cover it up rather than deal with it.”
This clearly shows the degenerate nature of the ruling class and their representatives. These “defenders” of so-called “Family Values” are morally debased and rotten to the core. They attack non-stop the “morals” of the working class in parliament. in the courts of law, in the press and in the church pulpit. Yet they are far more guilty in every way.
Inquiries established, but the truth will remain hidden
The Government, despite resistance, has been forced to set up two inquiries into child sex abuse. However, they then appointed one of their own, Baroness Butler-Sloss, to preside over one of them. The fact that she is the sister of Lord Havers, who was the attorney general under Margaret Thatcher and was allegedly involved in a cover-up at the time, never seemed to bother Cameron and Co.
It also became known that she herself had had the name of a bishop allegedly involved in child abuse withdrawn from her 2011 report into abuse in the Church of England “to protect the Church”. Only after a public outcry, was the government forced to back down and Lady Butler-Sloss was forced to relinquish her new role.
Even if they tried, the Establishment could not have given a better example of a scandalous cover-up. The latest revelations only serve to reinforce the stench emanating from this upper-class elite – a stench that reveals how much the whole capitalist system is rotten.
The Tory government will move heaven and earth to keep the truth under wraps. They are experts at white-washing facts away.
After all, they have overseen a whole swathe of scandals, in which their friends amongst the rich and powerful have avoided prosecution, from the tops at ‘News of the World’, to the police involved in the Stephen Lawrence and Mark Duggan cases and, of course, the countless MPs who have evaded punishment for fiddling their expenses. This latest scandal is a further nail in the coffin for the Tory Establishment. The government inquiries will be a sham – the crocodiles investigating the reptiles. At best, they will find a few (deceased) scapegoats in order to protect the rest of the gang. It will do nothing to placate the anger felt by the majority of people towards this upper-class filth.
Anger and injustice
Added to this is the general sense of anger and injustice that now pervades the vast majority of ordinary people, disgusted by the bonus-hungry bankers, the stock market speculators, the billionaire tycoons, the idle super-rich, who live on another planet, while workers have seen the biggest cuts in living standards for more than 100 years. Now the “morality” of the Establishment in all its true light is exposed for all to see.
Of course, we should make very clear that all manner of scandals involving the rich and powerfull are routinely covered up all over the world. No country is excluded. In truth for capitalism, politics and corruption are one and the same.
Over 100 years ago, the Dreyfuss scandal rocked French society and threatened its overthrow. The levels of disgust and hatred in present-day Britain are reaching explosive levels.
On this issue alone, the Labour Party could sweep to power in the next general election but they are also tainted and seen as part of the Establishment due to their failure to fight on a socialist programme and show that they are not part of the Westminster “club” consensus. They need to show which class they stand behind.
Everything cries out for a fundamental change in society. We need to put an end to this sick society. Depraved capitalism, with private profit as its god, acts as an enormous brake on development, as millions are forced to “live” on the dole or forced to work for slave wages. The capitalist Establishment is degenerate, sick to the marrow, like all the old ruling classes of the past who had outlived their use. It is time they were shown the door.
Only the socialist transformation of society can offer a way out of this morass. The economic levers of society, the giant banks and corporations, must be taken out of the hands of big business and placed in the hands of working people. Then we can democratically plan the resources of society in the interests of the majority and not those of a billionaire class and their hangers-on. Join us in this fight!
