Category Archives: media

How Leon Brittan lost his job as home secretary – Charles Moore’s fascinating account 30 years on

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Leon Brittan when he was EU commisisoner in late 1980s

Leon Brittan when he was EU commissioner in late 1980s

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While the  Met police continue to investigate  now into whether top figures were involved in a Westminster paedophile ring in the 1980s a fascinating account of the beginning of the fall of Leon Brittan in British politics has appeared in the second volume of Charles Moore’s authorised biography of Lady Thatcher. Amid all the rows over the miner’s strike, Westland and Europe, are three pages describing the events that led effectively to the demotion of Leon Brittan and how rumours of child sex abuse reached the ears of Lord Armstrong, the Cabinet Secretary, and Lady Thatcher herself.

They explain probably why even today there is controversy over Leon Brittan – such as the recent row over Tom Watson’s intervention over whether the Met Police should have quizzed him over an alleged rape. It also explains why they are still today disputes between those like David Aaronovitch and Dominic Lawson who say he has been unfairly maligned for years and those who are convinced that he was involved in hidden sexual activities.

Charles Moore- who is meticulous in researching every fact  from Thatcher’s private papers – reveals that Leon Brittan – was heading for the chop as home secretary  in the September 1985 reshuffle. He is described as ” the weakest link.”

His book – Everything She Wants – shows that without any rumours Brittan had no Parliamentary following,was seen as a bad TV performer, and even suffered from anti-Semitism from some Tory backbenchers.

He writes: ” He also suffered from rumours that, though married,he was homosexual and even that he had been a child abuser (too often in those days the two were conflated in the minds of man). No one produced actual evidence for either accusation.”

Opinion in the press and government was divided. Michael Jopling, a former chief whip,said: ” I never heard a whisper about Leon at the time”. Sir Bernard Ingham, her press secretary said: ” He always seemed as quaint as a coot to me”- but he had no evidence.

However The Mail on Sunday – contrary to  the view of the Mail today – took a different line and all this is reported to Thatcher by Lord Armstrong.

Jonathan Holborrow, an associate editor of the paper, had met Richard Ryder now Lord Ryder, then a junior figure in the Treasury and according to Ryder told him the paper was ” on a very good thing” about Leon Brittan’s private life.

According to Charles Moore though the memos did not spell it out ” they seem to have involved accusations of child sex abuse, including an alleged relationship with a boy in his early teens said to live in Brittan’s constituency”.

He goes on; ” Its sources was a reliable one, Holborrow said, but ” their investigations had run into the sand, and they really had no usable evidence.”

An attempt was made to say Michael Bettany, an MI5 officer caught trying to spy for the Russian in 1984, had got wind of this and had tried to use for blackmail. But this was knocked down by MI5 who said Bettaney had said no such thing.

The book  reveals that Thatcher did not believe the allegations but did believe that they were troublesome for a home secretary responsible for MI5.

But whatever the truth the knives were out for Brittan. John Wakeham, the chief whip, thought Brittan had been ” promoted a bit high and too quick” and ” wasn’t up to the job.”. And Brittan was moved to the Department of Trade and Industry – a post that he regarded as a demotion in the ” pecking order”. He was later to leave altogether to become a trade and industry commissioner at the European Commission.

All this is worth noting because of a sense of deja vu – even after his death. He again faces similar accusations – though this time it is part of a  full scale police investigation into other figures – and again there is a ”  reliable ” source -a survivor of abuse who came forward.

The outcome is still not known – but the divisions about whether Brittan was involved in such unsavoury activities is as strong as it was 30 years ago.

Is Corbyn’s Labour already cutting the mustard with local voters?

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Tommy Gray- Labour's biggest by-election winner in Chorley with a 12.7 per cent wing

Tommy Gray- Labour’s biggest by-election winner in Chorley with a 12.7 per cent wing

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One interest I found I share with Ukip’s leader Nigel Farage is that both us every week check the Twitterfeed of @britainelects – which provides details of every local council by-election in Britain.

Our exchange at the book launch of Lord Ashcroft’s Call Me Dave unauthorised biography revealed that both of us have a healthy scepticism of opinion polls but a mutual interest in seeing how real voters are turning out to vote in by elections across the country.

Corbyn’s mauling in the mainstream media coupled with distrust among the Parliamentary party one might expect no one in their right mind to vote Labour and for evidence in advance of the Oldham Parliamentary by-election that he is already in trouble.

In fact the reverse is true which might explain why the same mainstream media has been rather quiet about it. Three by-elections in totally different seats have seen huge swings to Labour. I write about this in Tribune magazine this week.

They are Euxton North ward in Chorley, Lancashire; South Camberwell in London  and Banbury in Oxfordshire..

In Chorley the party recorded a 12.7 per cent swing –taking the seat with 57.3 per cent share of the vote and winning with 697 votes. The big loser was UKIP whose share of the vote dropped by 12.4 per cent – getting just 76 votes. The Tories were second and saw their vote drop by 0.3 per cent with 443 votes.

In South Camberwell, in the London Borough of Southwark, Labour recorded a 9 per cent swing – winning with 1,244 votes – and taking a 57.9 per cent share of the vote. The party’s nearest rival, the Greens, saw a 1.3 per cent drop and the Tories were down 1.4 per cent. Only the Lib Dems, who were third, recorded a small increase of 2.3 per cent but polled just 200 votes.

In Banbury, Oxfordshire, saw Labour take a seat from the Conservatives on a 5.9 per cent swing –taking 45 per cent of the vote in the Grimsby and Castle ward in the town. The Tory vote fell by 7 per cent and the Lib Dem vote fell by 1.5 per cent. UKIP’s share of the vote did rise 5.6 per cent – but the party only got 150 votes. Labour polled 781.

The results are not mainly good  for UKIP whose plan to oust Labour as the party of the Opposition in the North is plainly not working as their council candidates are taking a mauling in some seats and making no progress in others.The Tories are very resilient. their vote is going up from a low base in Scotland and they have made four gains  this autumn – three from the Liberal Democrats and one from Labour. They also put in a credible performance in Barrow where they gained 23 per cent in a traditional Labour seat  almost ousting the UKIP opposition candidate. And Labour are still falling back in Scotland.

The one bad result for Labour in England has been Bury where the Tories took a seat from then with a swing approaching 14 per cent – but other parties also lost votes.

The Lib Dems seem to be reviving in rural areas – running the Tories close in one seat and taking a Sussex seat – but they are still declining in urban areas. They can boast one landslide result in Torbay when their former MP Adrian Sanders held a seat on a 39 per cent swing. But the same night they lost their third seat to the Tories in Aberdeen.

All this suggests that there is still a lot to play for – but Labour which had a huge rise in membership following Corbyn’s victory is more than holding its own and getting some spectacular swings.

The Tory narrative put forward by Cameron and Osborne is also still hitting a nerve – otherwise they would not be gaining seats. All this makes  the December 3 by-election in Oldham the more interesting.

Stormin’ Corbyn a hit in Korea (No Mail-on-Line not North Korea but the capitalist South)

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Jeremy Corbyn - a hit in Korea

Jeremy Corbyn – a hit in Korea

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While the British media has been uniformly hostile to Jeremy Corbyn – his victory has led to some completely different  coverage abroad.

One TV station “News Tapa”   – a nonprofit online investigative reporting organisation  in South Korea – decided to devote  a half hour programme to what they called the Corbyn Syndrome- for viewers in their country.

The  TV station –  unusual because it is crowd funded by over 35,000 people using a principle also used for byline.com for individuals decided that Corbyn was an interesting phenomenon precisely because he was an example of  a popular rebellion in a mainstream party challenging conventional politics.

According to the broadcasters it hit a nerve in South Korea because politics is seen as remote, dominated by big business and career politicians and not exactly squeaky keen. Sounds familiar? They were also fascinated how a backbencher representing a working class constituency could suddenly capture the minds of so many people and propel themselves to the leadership of a major party.

As Seon-Ju Choi, the London co-ordinator for the programme’s production said :”In S. Korea, the conservative party has been in power for many years now since our president Noh who committed suicide.  In a way, it has been very depressing all the public funds have been radically cut, and many people are struggling due to lack of public service and many of privatisation, etc.  We would love to feature the amazing and exciting story about Jeremy Corbyn’s story, how the left-wing politician has received overwhelming support from the public, and became a leader of Labour Party.”

It The film is in Korean but there are enough British people interviewed – including me- for people to follow most of it.

For those interested the link is here http://newstapa.org/29509 .

It makes interesting viewing.

Why let your good smear campaign be spoiled with the facts, David Aaronovitch

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David Aaronovitch: Abuse Conspiracies at Westminster? Image Credit: BBC

David Aaronovitch: Abuse Conspiracies at Westminster? Image Credit: BBC

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As the author of Voodoo Histories David Aaronovitch is an expert on modern conspiracy theories. So it is not perhaps surprising that he would treat a story about a  historic Westminster paedophile ring involving VIPs as the latest manifestation of mad conspiracy theorists fuelled by deluded people.

This month he published a detailed article in The Times (behind pay wall) saying the whole VIP paedophile ring scandal at Elm Guest House was in effect one of these fantasies. He said the story had been ” largely created and reiterated by a  former Labour councillor and convicted fraudster,Chris Fay”.

He accused me of spreading this  incredible story ” that I always wanted the public to know”. He concluded  by asking journalists like me ” Why am I doing this? And am I sure I’ve got this right.”

This is my answer to why David Aaronvitch has got this wrong. First it is not true that Chris Fay, who worked for an organisation helping children in care, is my sole source. He should know me better that that. I never rely on sole sources. Nor do I rely or refer to this list of VIPs – which appears to be notes from the  wife of the Elm Guest House’s long dead owner, Carol Kasir. I know it is not accurate. I have  seen part of the log of who stayed at this guest house which , of course, tells you nothing because people booked in under pseudonyms.

Second even Chris Fay does not claim the list is accurate.. Indeed in an article on The Needleblog he says almost the opposite saying he compiled a list of victims who claimed they had been abused at the Elm Guest House not abusers.He rightly casts doubt on that list – saying they may have been guests not abusers of children. Given that in 1982 it was not as acceptable as it is now for people to be gay, this is hardly surprising since people also used Elm Guest House as a rare haven for consenting adults to meet each other as well as paedophile activity.

So what is the evidence? There are two separate sources. First my original source – not Chris Fay – who a colleague met – was a former local government officer on Richmond Council. It was he who led me to investigate why Elm Guest House was raided in the first place in 1982.

It wasn’t complaints from survivors but the residents who lived on this smart Barnes street. They were fed up with people coming at all hours, seeing children going into the guest house, and having posh chauffeur driven cars drawing up there. Most ordinary people do not have large posh cars or chauffeurs at their beck and call. It was one of the then residents who identified Leon Brittan not a survivor. Separately in answer to a direct question from a Dispatches investigation, the police confirmed that Sir Cyril Smith visited Elm Guest House and contrary to reports,have not withdrawn it.

The second stream of sources came from either people who stayed at Grafton Close children’s home or were other former staff on Richmond Council who had responsibility for the home. Here the main allegation was that children were taken there and abused at Elm Guest House and elsewhere. Not everybody was, One was rescued  from that fate by a vigilant social worker.

It is a FACT that there was abuse at Elm Guest House. Why? Because one child was taken from Elm Guest House by Richmond Council  to Grafton Close was given a medical examination which revealed horrific abuse. This is confirmed by two former senior officials from the council and the Met Police may have the medical file. The person has long since left the country, has a new life abroad, and has decided in view of the furore over this, not to testify.

Also if John Stingemore, the former deputy manager of Grafton Close, had lived to face trial at Southwark Crown Court, he would have faced a conspiracy to commit buggery charge, which was linked to taking children to Elm Guest House. His friend, Father Tony McSweeney, was convicted  and sent to jail for three years. Evidence was given that showed children were taken by Stingemore and McSweeney from the home to Bexhill and abused,without their parents knowledge.

And Stingemore, it would have emerged, was a convicted paedophile , having sexually assaulted Peter Bornshin, another resident of Grafton Close  said to have been taken to Elm Guest House.  Richmond Council  paid him compensation. He later committed suicide.

Finally it will be a little premature to assume that the Elm Guest House investigation is over.It is not. There are links to the Operation Midland investigation and there are a number of unfinished leads. But that would be tantamount to speculating on a current police investigation.

Am I right to pursue this? Yes. I don’t have the certainty that commentators like David Aaronovitch to make a polemical point. But I am still certain enough that something went very wrong in the London borough of Richmond at that time and it could still be linked to other inquiries in Westminster.

The BBC Panorama child sex abuse fall out: No one yet knows the truth

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Elm Guest House: One of the alleged venues which Panorama debunked

Elm Guest House: One of the alleged venues which Panorama debunked

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Investigating allegations of historic child sex abuse is the most difficult job I have ever undertaken as a journalist.

Normally in an investigation you can get documents, find trusted sources, and corroborate information.

 Child sex abuse is  by its nature a private act between two  people-one who is not capable of giving consent.

 The person who is abused is likely to  be damaged for life by such an experience and could find it difficult to relate to other people. So prior to the Jimmy Savile expose hardly anybody believed them.

 The perpetrator  who would suffer huge damage to his or her reputation if found out  will go to any length to cover their tracks -including, if the current  Met Police criminal investigation , Operation Midland, is to be believed, murder.

Rack this up and say you wish to uncover acts more than 30 years ago- when mobile phones  and the internet were science fiction- involving very, very powerful people in high places who can pull strings and you have made it doubly difficult.

That is why it is absurd  for the BBC to put out a documentary claiming to reveal the truth about the Westminster paedophile ring when the story is only half complete, when the police haven’t finished their investigation, and nobody has tested the evidence.

The result was a documentary that probably left the public confused, the police visibly annoyed because it could have put off new people coming forward to help them complete their investigations and the survivors who were interviewed by the BBC worried they had been traduced.

The programme was right to show that closed cases including paedophile teachers and headmasters , celebrities and other powerful people had been found guilty because brave survivors had come forward, been believed, and won justice in the courts.

They were also right to raise the questions of when a suspect should be named publicly – because of the damage it could cause to their reputation. But I have little sympathy for Harvey Proctor, the ex MP who protested too much, because he put into the public domain what the allegations were against him before an investigationhas concluded whether they could be true or false. He is no shrinking violet.

At the moment information about this dark side of British history is coming to light in a piecemeal fashion. So the BBC cannot possibly know the ” truth ” about events in the past. It would have been far better if the Panorama team, who say they have spent a year on this, had waited another year before promising to come forward with a considered judgement.

 I would like them to concentrate on how the BBC has come to terms in tackling its own problem in handling the culture that allowed paedophiles like Jimmy Savile and Stuart Hall to thrive unchecked. They have a big report from Dame Janet Smith which will eventually have to be published – and they have already looked at the damage Jimmy Savile caused in the NHS. That would be a Panorama worth watching.

An important read: Why Exaro director Tim Pendry feels we should continue to investigate the Westminster paedophile ring

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JusticiaI am reproducing this comment from  Tim Pendry one of Exaro’s directors, following the BBC Panorama programme last night. It tries to put into context the current investigation into child sex abuse. I have my own views and may do a blog myself later.

PERSONAL STATEMENT ON EXARO AND THE CURRENT MEDIA WAR OVER THE REPORTING OF CHILD ABUSE

[This personal statement on the current ‘smear campaigns’ being undertaken against the Founders of Exaro and against Exaro itself was published on my Personal Blog at the weekend. There may be more to say on the innuendo employed in that smear campaign but not at this time. Exaro must be allowed to continue its investigative work, as must the police, into allegations of child abuse by significant persons without further distraction. If the allegations are not true, then Exaro and the Police will eventually find out and say so. And if they are true … ]

When I created ExaroNews I had no idea of where it would lead. Its purpose was simply to ‘hold power to account’ through investigative journalism under the leadership of an honest editor … a type in our society who is as valuable as an honest cop. We found that honest editor in Mark Watts.

The next stage was to get funding and this we did. What few seem to understand is that the funding came with a condition on our part – no interference by the shareholders in editorial decision-making. There was no quarrel with this and I signed away my own ability to tell Mark what to do, neither to cajole nor to threaten.

A risk was taken by us that he would continue to maintain the highest journalistic standards and not be frightened by the brute weight of the political establishment, of the dark forces to be found in every society or of rival media embarrassed that Exaro would achieve what they had signally failed to do – hold power to account – despite their massively greater resources.

Exaro does not have massive resources but it has had sufficient resources to follow through on what has become one of the biggest investigations of our age – allegations that child abuse and worse (if anything can be worse) were covered up by the powerful. This was the decision of the editorial team and no one else.

Those who followed the Kincora Case are fully aware of what very small groups of people within the system are capable of. One should not ever assume that institutions are necessarily acting in our interest simply because that is what they claim that they are doing. To me (as an outsider), it was always reasonable that they should investigate this matter much as they have investigated many other matters.

At no time (to my knowledge) has Exaro pre-judged the issue in regard to the child abuse allegations – the police once used an unfortunate turn of phrase but that is not the responsibility of Exaro. Exaro appears to have listened to claims and undertaken what investigation it could, reasonably publishing the results. Even to suggest (as one blogger appears to have done) that Exaro had the power or influence to initiate police investigations is almost comically absurd.

The mainstream media’s initial approach to Exaro was to try and kill it by ignoring it. Its ability to set the agenda has emerged as a result of editorial persistence. The police make their own decisions on what is worthy of investigation from their perspective and what is not. The allegations have clearly been taken seriously by the police who, despite the ragged and sensationalist reporting of the mainstream media, have reiterated their own high professional standards in an important statement.

That article is well worth re-reading because it makes it very clear that the police are very concerned about the reporting of witness statements and the risks that the media might prejudice their investigations and later court cases while still managing to assert their belief in the importance of the responsible media in assisting investigations.

The publication by Exaro of this police statement in full (which no other media have done despite their public interest claims) is taken by me to mean that Exaro is in in agreement with it. Subsequent public comment by the Editor of Exaro on Twitter suggests that he remains concerned about the conduct of other media in relation to the witnesses and any pre-judgment of investigations. He must speak for himself – I cannot.

The allegations are also taken seriously by some prominent and rather politically brave politicians – it is gratifying that their courage has not halted their careers. Being taken seriously by police, leading politicians and Exaro does not make allegations true but it does make them worthy of investigation in a free and open society. If not, we may as well be in a closed dictatorship.

It must be made clear that at no time (despite my own close interest in the subject of which the Editor knew nothing) have I had any say or influence in the subject matter of the investigation. Neither I nor any Director were consulted on the investigation at its inception or since. I have no idea whether the allegations are true or false. I consider it reasonable, by the very nature of things, that mistakes may have been made or could yet be made but also that the allegations are far from being easily dismissed.

Everything I have read to date (noting that this has been going on now for some two years or so) suggests that Exaro and, entirely separately, the investigating police officers have cause to be interested in the allegations, have no political angle whatsoever, are professionally committed to what they are doing in their very different spheres and are utterly right to reveal any possibility of wrong-doing in the public interest in order to explore the evidential base for claims.

One is not naive – I am aware of past scandals such as the absurd satanic abuse claims of several decades ago. The possibility of such phenomena as false memory or political manipulation has to be taken into account but the right approach is not to walk away but to investigate even these possibilities rationally and in an evidence-based way, especially in the wake of the Jimmy Savile Scandal which the BBC signally failed to investigate adequately while it was happening on its very door step. In my opinion, the BBC lacks all credibility in this area and should stand down.

My own interest is now simply as an observer while others are engaged in serious professional struggles that might have equally serious reputational consequences for them if they do get it wrong. That is their risk – I don’t actually share that risk. But let me give one solid reason why I suggest that the investigation may have merit and it is this.

If the investigation had no merit, I would not personally be subject, over many months, to repeated and aggressive internet attacks on my integrity based on half-truths and failures to obtain the facts directly from me (it is not as if I am hidden on the internet), including attacks on relatives of mine using innuendo.

The flow of false claims about Exaro and the individuals involved in Exaro suggest that we are seeing a campaign of deliberate attempted destabilisation of the investigations in which some mainstream media have now found themselves to be ‘useful idiots’. These mainstream journalists too must investigate but they should equally investigate the sources for the claims against the investigation. In this world of smoke and mirrors, this is becoming a test case about the sort of journalism we want in our country and so of the sort of politics and justice we are prepared to tolerate.

I am personally subject to these attacks simply because I founded Exaro News and own a minority stake in the Holding Company that owns it. That is all. It is a form of political terrorism because the aim is to create fear and anxiety surrounding reputation. The attackers seem to believe that, by attacking me, they can destabilise Exaro. They do not seem to realise that, no matter what they say about me or members of my family or my businesses or my politics, I have no power to stop any investigation even if I wished to do so – and I do not.

The nature of those personal attacks – which it seems involved hiring private investigators (who seem to have done a very poor job) to build a dossier on me (and others) which included family members – indicates that someone is rattled by these investigations. It suggests that the investigations are dangerous to someone. It suggests, on that basis alone, that the investigations are worthwhile.

Here, I write in a wholly personal capacity. I do not speak for Exaro Holdings, I do not speak for Exaro News. I speak only for an individual who has no regrets whatsoever in having kick-started an organisation, now wholly editorially independent of me and which has been so since its formation as a Company, that is prepared to turn up stones to see what lies beneath them.

I cannot take responsibility for the investigations which means I cannot take either the blame or the credit for what happens next. What I will do is say that, on the balance of probabilities and on the very fact of the attacks on me in the undergrowth of the internet, Mark Watts seems to have struck a nerve. I hope that he and his hardworking team continue to refuse to be brow-beaten as I will refuse to be brow-beaten.

Child Sex Abuse Inquiry: Correcting a misleading report in the Guardian

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On September 23  my old employer The Guardian published a report on developments in the Westminster paedophile inquiry.

The article examined the big pressures facing ” Operation Midland” the Met Police criminal investigation into claims against prominent people accused of child sex abuse. and also raised issues by survivors about the role of Exaro, – I am a freelance contributor – in the setting up of the child sex abuse inquiry.

The passage affecting me said :

“Others have raised concerns about Exaro to senior Home Office officials over its role in the setting up of what eventually became the Goddard inquiry.

One complaint came last November over the presence of its journalist, David Hencke, a former Guardian reporter, at a private meeting for survivors and their representatives. A second complaint was made to another senior inquiry official three months later, alleging that the role Exaro was playing – “seemingly with the assistance of panel members” –was “causing havoc” among some survivors.”

The facts are these.

My attendance at the meeting in question was approved by the then secretariat of the  independent panel following a request by a panel member. The meeting was not about establishing the inquiry but a consultation exercise involving survivors and other people interested  and concerned about the issue of child sexual abuse. At the meeting I was completely open, stated who I was, and agreed, because some of the accounts given by people there were very harrowing, never  to report anything that was said. I never have. No  one raised  any objections at the time. and I was thanked by the secretariat for making my position clear afterwards.

If there have been any complaints afterwards no one from the Home Office has raised them with me. I am sure they would if it was regarded as a serious matter.

I  want to put the record straight because in an entirely different capacity I am  a member of an independent panel dealing with very sensitive issues and I would not like people to think that I had gatecrashed meetings on child sex abuse without being invited in the first place.

I asked The Guardian to correct this misleading point but its Readers Editor declined. That is their prerogative. But it is also my right to put the record straight on my own blog.

Right On: A warning to the national press over Operation Midland – the murder and child sex abuse investigation

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JusticiaCROSS POSTED FROM BYLINE.COM

I am not surprised at all to see this warning from the Attorney General’s Office to the national press and social media sites not to try to identify ” Nick” the survivor in the Operation Midland  murder and sexual abuse inquiry.

It seems that some papers wanted to close down this inquiry and one of the people interviewed twice by the police, Harvey Proctor, was completely irresponsible in revealing and naming people who may or may not be the subject of investigation,

So just in case the national press don’t have room tonight to cover this statement here it is in full:

The Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is currently investigating allegations made by a complainant that he was sexually abused by a number of men including various high profile figures.

The Solicitor General, Robert Buckland QC MP, would like to remind editors, publishers and social media users that where an allegation of a sexual offence has been made, no matter relating to the complainant shall be included in a publication if it is likely to lead to members of the public identifying him. Publishing such material is a criminal offence and could be subject to prosecution.

In addition, while the Solicitor General recognises the legitimate public interest in the press commenting on cases of this nature, he wishes to draw attention to the risk of publishing material that gives the impression of pre-judging the outcome of the investigation and any criminal proceedings that may follow, or which might prejudice any such proceedings.

The Attorney General’s Office will be monitoring the ongoing coverage of Operation Midland and editors and publishers should take legal advice to ensure they are in a position to comply with their legal obligations.

My Back Story: Podcast with Byline on past Westminster scoops and scandals and future reporting

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byline_j4ReGUE.jpg.320x320_q85As part of launching my blogs on Byline I have done a podcast on past stories and how I got to Westminster on the Guardian and I suggest some tips for people trying to get into journalism.

You can get the podcast here : https://www.byline.com/column/3/article/247

This is the text of the interview:

Nick Mutch (NM): Tell us about how you got started, how you got into the Guardian and what that was like, and what you’ve been doing since you left.

David Hencke: I went to Warwick University when it first started, and if you wanted to do anything whether it was play football, chess, bands, or run a newspaper, you had to set it up yourself! After 10 days I found myself editor of their first student newspaper, and I’ve always said that it’s all been downhill from there as I’ve never been asked to edit anything again!

After that I did the conventional route and worked for the Evening Telegraph in Northamptonshire for several years, went to the Western Mail and did a stint at the Times Educational Supplement and then got to the Guardian. In 1986 I was moved to the lobby. I was sent by the then editor Peter Preston not to do the day-by-day reporting, but to investigate behind the scenes. The editor thought ‘parliament is an amazing place for contacts and information, but 80% of it is never reported.

I made an alliance with the National Audit Office because they are like me; they want to find out where things have gone wrong in Whitehall. As a result, I got a really good scoop, which was the Rover sweeteners deal. This was when Rover car company was sold by the government for British Aerospace and I discovered the Government had been dishonest about the about of money they had given to help BAE buy it. That produced a huge row because the memorandum I got was from the auditor general himself. Me and the editor were dragged in front of the standards and privileges committee to explain that we’d done this absolutely appalling thing, leaking a parliamentary document. They had an ancient rule which could have committed me to the Tower of London. But they thought that the idea of a journalist being jailed for revealing £33 million worth of spending wouldn’t have been a very good look.

NM: About this alliance with the national audit office, whom would you advise journalists to team up with to get stories that they might not necessarily get otherwise?

DH: Westminster employs 5000 people, of which 600 are MPs and 900 or so are peers. Now my sources were not the people who others didn’t think of speaking to. Rather than glamorously entertaining Cabinet Ministers and others, who would tell you a story they wanted to see, I took to MP’s for instance who sat on the Public Account Committee, which was involved in scrutiny. I talked to staff in Westminster such as political researchers. I found if I went to Whitehall functions I could talk to civil servants; officially you cant talk to them but if I’ve got a drink in my hand and I ask for a quiet word its going to be rather difficult to trace them isn’t it?

NM: One thing I’ve been surprised about is that often you don’t think people want to talk to a journalist. Actually often people quite like talking to journalists, it makes them feel that what they’ve got to say is important or relevant

DH: That is quite a crucial thing. The people at the top are trying to control journalists and limit what they will say. Other people are quite keen to talk to you in great detail because they think ‘great; I’ve got a journalist on to things that I’m interested.’ Some of it might actually be in the public domain, burying in a boring report. A recent example; I discovered that the Ministry of Justice had set up a commercial arm called Just Solutions which was selling British legal expertise to Saudi Arabia, where they lash bloggers and behead people and I got this because one of my contacts drew my attention to a six-monthly report from the Ministry of Justice, which just happened in a few paragraphs to disclose that this organization was bidding for contracts, and that the then Justice Secretary, Chris Grayling, had signed a memorandum of understanding with the Saudi’s to ‘share’ legal expertise. Of course this was buried in a many page boring report on a day when hundreds of other reports came out. It wasn’t a state secret, but in a boring pile of information.

NM: How do you know where to look, are often these things hidden in plain sight where people won’t think of looking?

DH: An Auditor-General once told me, ‘when you get a public report, read it backwards.’ You’ll find in the appendices and in the latest information, there will be information that MP’s have asked but that hasn’t appeared in the hearing of the public accounts committee and sure enough you find all sorts of information that is in the public domain, but no one looks at. A great story I got that at the end of ministry accounts, they put their write offs. There was a write off from what is now the Culture Media and Sport ministry because there had been an exhibition called Royal Britain, but this said they had written off the money. I made some inquiries and it turned out that it was a company owned by Charles Branliff who happened to be at the time Norman Lamont’s Parliamentary Private Secretary at the Treasury. I got a brilliant story that the Treasury Ministers Private Secretary had to be bailed out by a government office. He assumed I got it because someone who didn’t like him leaked him when I actually got it from an obscure report.

NM: You mentioned about how you first went into local journalism and then into national journalism and slowly moved up the ranks. That’s not really an option marketed to young people these days, what advice do you have for people trying to break into the industry?

DH: Well journalism, even on my conventional route, is very difficult to get in even on the bottom. I wrote to 30 odd local newspapers before I got my first job. If you are determined then still go for it as there are new ways to get in; websites like the Huffington Post or Byline, so you can join those and then get a reputation for doing good work and then you might well get onto one of the nationals. You don’t have to necessarily go straight to the Telegraph or the Guardian. If you work for a specialist publication or you get in online, which is of course the future. You wont get a lot of money to start with, but you never did. Its old money but I started on £16 a week.

NM: People like to talk about the ‘golden ages of journalism’ but if you actually look at those golden ages, people had just as many problems then.

DH: It’s just a different agenda; we’ve got a different set of priorities. It’s always been a pretty low wage, and that’s how everyone had to start, it’s only later that they made more money. I’m lucky because I’ve got an established reputation and can afford to branch out. I’ve still got contacts that come to me because they’ve trusted me in the past, which is how I get my information still today.

NM: One thing a Guardian journalist told me in the past is that don’t think that all you need are new technical skills, but the actual skills of getting stories are very similar to what they used to be. The fundamentals still haven’t changed since the start of the profession.

DH: That’s absolutely true. I don’t have any technical knowledge and actually if you want to be a good journalist its still exactly the same skills. The problem is that people aren’t digging into things, they’re seeing something on Facebook and just saying ‘oh I’ll do a story on that.’

NM: Everyone is talking about the extraordinary popularity of Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign, what do you make of that? For many people I know, it’s strange to hear that the Labour party will be ‘unelectable’ under him; but isn’t the Labour party unelectable now, that’s why they weren’t elected? Why is there absolute terror at this prospect?

DH: If you asked any lobby journalist or shadow minister, they’re horrified at this! So far as they were concerned, Corbyn was a minor person who was just a relic from the past, had a very small influence that didn’t count for anything. What has come as a shock is that it’s like what has happened to the Labour party in Scotland, what happened in Greece with the rise of Syriza. It’s because they’re not in touch, they’ve no idea what people on the street think. They’ve been told that ‘they are all entrepreneurs that want to make lots of money who want to be rich or really famous. They aren’t interested in out-dated things like socialism.’ Everyone thought someone like Andy Burnham would get it.

NM: A lot of problems I’ve heard from people is that people just care less about the specific policy but the fact that they were very uninspired by the mainstream candidates. They want someone who will be a genuine alternative.

DH: The bizarre thing on this will say that if you ask people who take the opposite view, they’ll say ‘these three boring people know the responsibilities of government’ but they forget the point your making. They might vote for someone who offers a genuine alternative who says ‘I’m not happy with the society I’m living with, I want a different society.’ Nigel Farage has also tapped into this from people who want to see a society like what we had in the 1950’s; he has a following because he appeals to something different to the establishment. Although everyone portrays Corbyn as out-dated, there is actually a strong reaction to what this government is going to do. I’ll give you one example; we have for decades had a consensus that Britain doesn’t believe in capital punishment. But they’ve just announced that Britain is not going to campaign for the repeal of the death penalty abroad. The reason is that some Tories would actually quite like to bring it back; it’s not in the manifesto but they see it as a possible populist thing like the attack on scroungers. They’d say it was for terrorists for paedophiles or people like that. Its incredibly short-sighted because the terrorists they’re targeting would actually welcome the opportunity for martyrdom.

NM: One thing I’ve noticed in particular is something like trying to ban any form of encryption. Or like the psychoactive substances bill that wants to ban any form of drug regardless of harm. They are being incredibly authoritarian. One of the good things about Corbyn is that people feel they want an actual opposition, not a party who will abstain because they don’t know how they should feel about something like the welfare bill.

DH: That’s exactly the case. It is rather peculiar that Theresa May is talking about arresting people who don’t have ‘British values’. But look at the history of Britain; look at the Peasants revolt! It’s dangerous because it drives these things underground. This encryption thing is just mad. I heard the other day about this encrypted email service called Proton, which is based in Switzerland, outside the EU. How the hell is government going to ban that? Are they going to make it a criminal offense to use that, well how will they know you are using it? Are they going to demand the Swiss government hand over everything?

NM: The problem with heavy-handed approaches is that, especially with the Internet, people just find a way around it so quickly. One last thing I wanted to talk about is that you are very respected for your work on the child abuse allegations against high profile figures. What do you make of the recent allegations about Ted Heath, and how did British society seem to have a culture where this seemed to be accepted at high levels for such a long time?! If you’d said ten years ago that there was a secret Westminster paedophile ring, it involved cabinet ministers and even a Prime Minister, people would think that you were a crackpot!

DH: There is some suggestion that there was some of this was in the Netherlands and Belgium, but has changed is that after the Jimmy Savile revelations. When it finally came out what he had been doing, and the scale of it; it’s going to be a real shock when the BBC report into his activities comes out. It is quite clear it will be a game changer; after Savile, people thought my god, what is going on in this country!? The police have released the Ted Heath allegations to see who comes forward, but it’s an extraordinary situation that no one would have thought possible.

NM: Thanks very much for talking to me, and good luck with your Byline project.

DH: My pleasure!

Expanding the reach of the David Hencke blog: Now to appear on Byline

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From this month I am expanding the reach of this blog by linking up to a new venture called By Line.

This is an independent news platform set up by two young thrusting entrepreneurs Seungyoon Lee and Daniel Tudor.

You can read about it here.

Basically I am joining forces with. other independently minded journalists like Julie Bindel, James Doleman, Beatrix Campbell, Peter Jukes and Martin Hickman to put up stories which are not necessarily being reported by the conventional media or, even if they are, miss some of the more interesting issues.

I shall be concentrating on an area I know well, Westminster and Whitehall revealing, i hope, the sort of story senior mandarins and Cabinet Ministers would rather you did not read about. The details about my Inside Westminster and Whitehall column are here.

The move also marks the first step to raise money for my blog which has been a labour of love since it was first launched over five years ago. I have never been keen on financing it from advertising – it raises very little cash, clutters up the page and more importantly I will never know whether I might want to investigate one of the advertisers  and I won’t want to be inhibited. Instead  I will be seeking crowd funding for some projects that I want to investigate. My existing blog will continue alongside but there will be some cross posting on issues.

Change is hitting the media industry at a fast and furious pace. This is just one of the new type of ventures that are sweeping the country.