Former Labour Councillor Eileen Kershaw dies

by Brian Bamford
Political activist & teacher first elected as a Labour councillor in Rochdale in 1964

WHEN I first met Eileen Kershaw at her home in Whitworth,  in 2014 she hesitated before letting me in saying, with a cheeky smile and a twinkle, that she shouldn't really be letting strangers into the house. 

I was there to get an interview about the then recently published book by Simon Danzcuk and Matthew Baker 'Smile for the Camera' a post-hoc consideration of Cyril Smith's life in politics in Rochdale and beyond. 

She had served for 33 years on Whitworth town council, Rossendale council and Lancashire county council.  But she had long been associated with Labour politicians in Rochdale and had been close to Cyril Smith throughout much of his political life, even after he converted to the Liberal Party and stood as a candidate for that party in the late 1960s and became the Rochdale Liberal MP in 1972, and he kept the job until 1992 when he stood down.

I met with Eileen on several occasions after that and we discussed the difficulties relating to the contents of the Danzcuk book.  Eileen had long known David Bartlett and John Walker who in May 1979, had first published in Rochdale's Alternative Paper [RAP], the revelations about Cyril Smith's role in the management of the hostel for teenage boys at Cambridge House in Rochdale.  According to the RAP account their was strong evidence that Cyril Smith had abused his powers as secretary of the hostel.  All this was well covered at the time in Private Eye, but the Eye was significantly the only main stream publication to run the story in 1979.  Even the local press; the Rochdale Observer and the Manchester Evening News managed to look the other way.

At the time Eileen Kershaw accepted that Cyril may have behaved inappropriately at Cambridge House, but she didn't accept that the more serious claims against Cyril, who had been a governor at Knowl View, had been established.

Eileen Kershaw, was the mother of radio DJs and broadcasters Liz and Andy Kershaw, was aged 85.  The former teacher who was first elected as a Labour councillor in 1964 to represent Balderstone on the old Rochdale county borough council.

Eileen also became a governor at Knowl View*, a residential school for boys, where Cyril Smith had for a time served as a governor.  She told me that she was unaware of any untoward behavour by Cyril at the school while she was serving there as a governor.

In 2014, following the surfacing of historic reports going back to the 1990s, beginning with the events covered in the 1991 report by Phil Shepherd entitled the 'Shepherd Report' about the risk of AIDS owing the alleged sexual activity between the lads and the claim of them 'cottaging' with outsiders.   

Eileen told me that she had never cared for the then Rochdale Labour MP, Simon Danczuk, and though she considered Mr Danczuk's book 'Smile for the Camera' on Cyril Smith was 'well written in a literary sense'.  She did suggest to me, correctly as it turned out, that she didn't believe Mr. Danczuk had actually written the book himself, and she did, even then, express some doubts about some details in the contents of the book.  But later she went on to write that 'much of the content is questionable'.   And she concluded in a letter to the Rochdale Observer that 'the real aim of [Danzcuk] writing such a tome seems to be financial',

In the 1950s, I had been taught science at Brimrod Secondary Modern School by Eileen's first husband, Jack Kershaw, a fan of Rugby League, and I knew something about the family second-hand through the former editor of RAP John Walker.   We could relate to each other through those experiences and she was very keen to talk about local politics, but she described herself as having Irish blood in her veins which perhaps made her more passionate than the your average English politician. 


*   Knowl View School was a residential school for boys with emotional and behavioural difficulties that opened in 1969 and, after a period of temporary closure, closed permanently in 1996. It was built and run by Rochdale Borough Council and had a Board of Governors. The school catered for boys across an age range of 7 to 16 years old. Cyril Smith was said to have been part of a local campaign to see it established and was present at its opening.
Early research identified that a report (only publicly available in redacted form) was written in 1991 by Phil Shepherd, an employee of the Rochdale AIDS Unit, who identified the fact that boys at the school were at risk of AIDS. The report (which became known to the Inquiry as the ‘Shepherd report’ {1}) detailed concerns about sexual activity at the school, including ‘cottaging’ in and around public toilets as well as boys being forced into sex with others. The report was sent to Rochdale’s Director of Education, Mrs Diana Cavanagh. These events attracted press reporting in 1995.^[1]
In 1995, the press reported that Mrs Cavanagh had asked Mr Shepherd not to circulate his report further. Press reporting also suggested that concerns about the children living at Knowl View had first been raised by a Dr Alison Fraser, a child psychiatrist at Rochdale’s Birch Hill Hospital.  There was also speculation in the press about a report (which did not appear to have been publicly available) by Valerie Mellor, a consultant clinical psychologist, which dated back to February 1992.  It was reported that Mrs Mellor had said there was no doubt that up to a quarter of the pupils at the 48-place school had been involved in serious sexual incidents, the activity had continued over a very long period of time and it was difficult to believe that this behaviour had not come to the attention of at least some members of staff.

{1}  The Shepherd report was also sent to the acting Director of Social Services and to the then Rochdale conservative councillor, Pamela Hawton in her capacity on a relevant committee.  The Mellor report was written as a result of her being sent into the school at the instigation of Diana Cavanagh in response to the Shepherd Report.

Councillor Richard Farnell quits Labour Party

'EL GORDO' - Richard Farnell - Suspended by Labour

COUNCILOR Richard Farnell, a former leader of Rochdale MBC, has quit the Labour Party saying he had 'no confidence he would receive a fair hearing' over his suspension in April 2018 for allegedly lying to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, over historical abuse allegations at Knowl View School.  Cllr. Farnell also added that after 44 years as a Labour member, he could no longer 'support a party led by Jeremy Corbyn'.

Councillor Farnell has always insisted he told the truth to the Inquiry, and following a long investigation by the Metropolitan Police it was found that there was 'insufficient evidence' to prosecute him for perjury.

Former Rochdale council leader Richard Farnell confirmed on Thursday (18 July) that he has resigned from the Labour Party.

The Balderstone and Kirkholt councillor said he had resigned 'some time ago' because he had 'no confidence he would receive a fair hearing' over his suspension, and that after 44 years as a Labour member, he could no longer 'support a party led by Jeremy Corbyn'.


In a series of parting shots at his old party Cllr. Farnell issued a statement to the press:
'We have the most inept and unpopular Tory government in living memory, yet Labour came a miserable fourth in the European elections and our support is down to just 18 percent in recent polls – the lowest in our history. Any decent opposition would today be polling over 50 per cent and on course for a landslide victory.
'I fear for the future as Labour is being destroyed as a credible party capable of winning power. Our country and millions of people need a mainstream Labour government. They are being betrayed by a toxic leadership making the party unelectable and in danger of extinction.
'I have no quarrel with the local party and our MP.  I will continue to support the hardworking members of the Labour Group on the council who are doing an excellent job in maintaining public services in the face of swingeing cuts from the Tory government. I will not be joining any other party.
'The second reason is that I have no confidence that I will receive a fair hearing in dealing with my suspension. The party’s disputes unit has been proved to be chaotic, incompetent and politically biased.
'My 15-month suspension is unjust and has gone on far too long. I have on three occasions asked for progress to be made only to be completely ignored. Only after a complaint was lodged by my local party did they eventually write to me. Too little, too late.
'I have 16 pages of evidence that proves beyond any doubt that I could not have been told about events at Knowl View. I told the truth to the Independent Inquiry; and the Metropolitan Police’s decision to clear me of allegations of perjury vindicates this.
'I am grateful for the support I have received from scores of party members over recent months.  In many ways, I feel I am letting them down by resigning, but for me, I have reached the end.
'Enough is enough.  Like thousands of others right across the Labour Party, I cannot remain a member of an intolerant and hard left party led by an incompetent leader.'

Councillor John Blundell, a spokesman for the Rochdale Constituency Labour Party, said: 'I am sad to see Councillor Farnell resign.  We wish him well.'

Others in the local party and elsewhere were unhappy about his staggeringly poor performance at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse, and thought he may have departed sooner.  But Cllr. Farnell has followed in a recent tradition of local politicians like the notorious former MP Simon Danczuk, who hang on well past their sell-by date.

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Just a Thought

by Les May

UNLIKE many Labour supporters in Rochdale, I found it difficult to get too excited about whether Richard Farnell did or did not know of the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View School in the early 1990s.

Having spent a good deal of time in unpicking the facts from the fantasy in Simon Danczuk’s book ‘Smile for the Camera’, I concluded that whether he knew or not would have made not the slightest difference to the outcome.   I saw no evidence of a ‘cover up’ by officers of Rochdale Council and felt that they had acted appropriately in a very difficult situation.  This is what I told the Police when I was interviewed as part of Operation Clifton.

I had a second reason for my lack of excitement.  Much of the public discourse failed to distinguish carefully between what the solicitors had to say both in, and especially outside the Inquiry and its official findings.   Just because a solicitor says something does not make it true however often it is repeated.

Had Farnell not stepped down as Leader of the Council in December 2017 the way that Councillor ‘Two Votes’ Rana was dealt with might have been different.   Although this councillor admitted committing two electoral offences the present Leader did not seem to think it was necessary to ask for his resignation from the council, though it should be said that an honourable man would have realised that this was the correct course of action without being asked.

After all Farnell ‘has form’ on dealing with councillors who do not come up to scratch.  Although Danczuk praised his help in the book and he loyally stuck with Danczuk long after the latter had passed his ‘sell by’ date.  it is reported that he had a quiet word with Danczuk’s wife when she proved to be less assiduous in her role as a Councillor than she should have been.

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Richard Farnell case 'insufficient evidence’!

THE police investigation into allegations that the former Rochdale council leader Richard Farnell committed perjury when he appeared at the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse (IICSA) have now said there is 'insufficient evidence’ to take any criminal action against him.

Initially a report from the inquiry alleged Councillor Farnell had ‘lied under oath’ as he gave evidence about the town’s notorious Knowl View school, where children had been abused during a period of over than 25 years.

That allegation branded Councillor Farnell – who has always strongly denied he misled the inquiry – as ‘shameful’ in refusing to take responsibility for the abuse that happened under his watch when he was leader of the council from 1986 and 1992.

It said, at the time, that ‘defies belief’ that he was unaware of the events involving the school.


In May 2018 the Metropolitan Police received a referral from the Greater Manchester Police requesting the force reviewed an allegation of perjury by a witness to the IICSA.

Now after a long investigation the Metropolitan Police have told Councillor Farnell that they will not be taking matters any further following a ‘full review’ of the evidence.

The letter, signed by Acting Detective Chief Inspector Gail Granville states:   'Having carefully considered all the material gathered that was subject to review, I have concluded there is insufficient evidence to demonstrate to the criminal standard that you wilfully, that is to say deliberately and not inadvertently or by mistake, made a statement that you know to be false or did not believe to be true.

'As a result, no further action will be taken by the Metropolitan Police in relation to the allegation.'

Councillor Farnell, who stood down as council leader just weeks after giving his evidence to the inquiry, has welcomed the decision.

He said:  'I am really pleased that following a thorough 12 month investigation by the Metropolitan Police they have decided not to prosecute me for perjury.
'I have always maintained I told the truth to the inquiry and the Metropolitan Police’s decision vindicates this.
'There is not one scrap of evidence that I knew about the failings at Knowl View almost 30 years ago. The council’s most senior officers at the time  – the chief executive and directors of education and social services – all told the inquiry they did not inform me.
'The inquiry examined  over 100,000 pages of letters, reports and documents and not a single one was addressed to me or informed me about Knowl View.'

Referring to Operation Clifton, which NV took part – an investigation into the alleged cover-up of child sexual abuse at Knowl View, Councillor Farnell added:
' A previous two-year inquiry by Greater Manchester Police into allegations of a cover-up of Knowl View found there was absolutely no evidence to support this.
“The inquiry was handed a 16 page report of evidence proving beyond any doubt I was not informed about Knowl View which, bizarrely, they ignored.”
Councillor Farnell, who continues to represent the Balderstone and Kirkholt ward, said it has been "extremely stressful" to have the allegation hanging over him for twelve months, but thanked the police for a ‘thorough investigation’.
He added: “I was always confident it would come to nothing because I told the truth to the inquiry and all the evidence supports this.
'However, we must never, never forget the victims in this tragedy. It was only under my leadership that the council apologised for its failings at Knowl View.'

When he stood down as council leader Councillor Farnell blamed a ‘small minority’ of Labour members for ‘undermining’ his leadership following the hearing.

He was later suspended by the Labour party and still awaits reinstatment.

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David Steel: MP's assault on lads in Rochdale

by Brian Bamford

LORD Steel, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats, has today been suspended by the party owing to his admission made to a child abuse inquiry about how he handled allegations about the late Rochdale MP Cyril Smith in 1979.

Yesterday the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) heard that no formal inquiry was held by the Lib Dem party into the claims against Smith, which were investigated by the police in  1969 but no prosecution was ever brought.

Addressing the the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse on Wednesday (13 March), Lord Steel said he discussed the allegations with Smith in 1979, after reading a report claiming Smith had abused boys at Rochdale’s Cambridge House Hostel when he was a Labour MP.
Lord Steel said:  'What I said to him was, "What's all this about you in Private Eye?", and he said, rather to my surprise, "It is correct", that he had been in charge of - or had some supervisory role in a children's hostel, that he'd been investigated by the police, and that they had taken no further action, and that was the end of the story.'

[Editor:  Lord Steel is wrong in describing Cambridge House as a 'children's hostel'; it was in fact hostel for teenage lads of working age]

At the time he was abusing his powers over the lads at Cambridge House, Cyril Smith had also been serving as a prominent and influential Labour councillor in Rochdale in the 1960s before later becoming the Liberal and then Liberal Democrat MP for the town between 1972 and 1992.

Labour Councilor assaulted lads at Cambridge House

The claims that Smith had abused his powers by inflicting corporal punishment upon some teenage lads at Cambridge House Hostel in the 1960s innitially appeared in the monthly paper Rochdale's Alternative Paper in May 1979, and these claims were later given national prominence in Private Eye.  In 2012, these allegations  got extensive media coverage after Northern Voices and John Walker former editor of RAP, and Paul Waugh of the Politics Home website, prevailed upon the then Rochdale MP, Simon Danczuk to include Smith's activities at Cambridge House in his planned parliamentary speech on the sexual grooming of young girls.


Lord Steel also described how he recommended Smith for a knighthood in 1988 and said that he did not pass on any allegations about the sexual abuse of children because 'I was not aware of any such allegations other than the matter referred to…which appeared to have been fully investigated'.
And he said it had not occurred to him that children could still have been at risk from Smith.

'He admitted to me that the report was correct in that he had been investigated by the police at the time and no action taken against him.
'I had already told the inquiry in writing that in my opinion he had been abusing his position in Rochdale Council [that is to gain access to council-run children's homes], but that had been properly a matter for the police and the council, and not for me as he was neither an MP nor even a member of the Liberal Party at the time.
'I was in no position to re-open the investigation.'

 Lord Steel also described recommending Smith for a knighthood in 1988 and said he did not pass on any allegations about the sexual abuse of children because 'I was not aware of any such allegations other than the matter referred to…which appeared to have been fully investigated.'

The allegations that appeared in RAP and Private Eye in 1979, to which Lord Steel appears to be refering to, focused on claims of assault against the lads at Cambridge House rarther than the sexual matters that have been more recently developed in relation to Knowl View.

Lord Steel's nomination of Cyril Smith for Knighthood

In a statement released on Thursday afternoon commenting on the media reporting of the Inquiry, Lord Steel said::  'I am reinforced in my view by reading the previous report of the inquiry sent to me today, which says inter alia 'the Crown Prosecution Service found that the advice which had previously been given could not be faulted (given the law and guidance in place at the time)' and that the honours scrutiny committee had seriously considered his nomination for a knighthood and sent a 'warning of risk' letter to Margaret Thatcher as PM, and that 'clearly she took a similar view' as he was granted the knighthood.
'It is unfortunate that some sections of the media have chosen to extract certain passages of evidence and present them without the full context.
'The inquiry has a serious and sensitive job to undertake and spinning evidence to generate sensationalist headlines only serves to distract from panel's search of the truth.'
 
Lord Steel became the Liberal MP for Roxburgh, Selkirk and Peebles in 1965, and became the party's leader in 1976 after the resignation of Jeremy Thorpe, who later stood trial on charges of conspiracy and incitement to murder.

He was elected as an MSP when the Scottish Parliament opened in 1999, and was appointed as the parliament's first presiding officer.  He has been a life peer in the House of Lords since 1997.

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Knowl View School: A mother complains

ON Tuesday the 12th, March, the mother of a lad who was resident at Knowl View School, commented on a post entitled 'Midsummer Murders & Knowl View School'.

She wrote: 
'I AM that mother and I can guarantee that story is TRUE.the names of the 2 staff members are available on request. I have minutes of a meeting on 8/5/1992 which clearly states "ASHWORTH JUNIOR UNIT INVOLVED IN SMITH STREET TOILETS " and at the side of this sentence is the comment "KEEP QUIET" the IICSA report found no cover up in Rochdale.
'Of that's not a cover up I'll eat my hat..or yours' 

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 On the 13th, March, she followed up by drawing Les May's attention to an error in his account and today Mr May's original report was ammended:

'Plus an incorrect part of the comment by Les May ( who I have never met) is where he states the second member of staff backed up the perpetrator..  I never said this, and the man was never involved in any discussion I had with the school about the incident.
'So any information Les May has about me or my son is relayed to him through another person..chinese whispers.  He has never contacted me directly to hear the story or look at my documental evidence...  I guess it's easy to come to the wrong conclusion when you're hell bent on putting forward your own agenda.  Has he ever thought why I would continue my fight for justice for the knowl view boys for 25 years if what I say isn't true?  If he thinks it's about financial compensation that path could have been trodden 25 years ago, that has never been a consideration in my fight.'

Les May gives his reply to the mother concerned below:

MANY of the claims about what happened at Knowl View school are based upon assertions by individuals with no good evidence to back them up. The 2014 book by Danczuk and Baker is a prime example of this.   As I had no intention of falling into the same trap I made clear in my article that the account I gave had been relayed to me by third parties.  I also made it clear that I was not asserting that it was incontrovertibly true.

It would appear that my caution in doing this was justified as the accuracy of the account I gave of what I understood had been said has now been disputed. Nothing in what I wrote could possibly lead anyone to believe that I was suggesting that there was any financial motivation behind this story.

Had I not believed that the story recounted to me was essentially true I would not have gone to the trouble of writing a piece pointing out that when the word abuse is mentioned there is an immediate assumption that it should always have the word ‘sexual’ in front of it, and that this assumption is not always correct. There are other things which constitute abuse.

I will repeat what I said in my piece:  ‘If this story is true and if it is typical of what was going on at the school, then this is the real scandal of what happened at Knowl View, not some vague innuendo about Cyril Smith being involved in sexual abuse at the school.   We will never know whether events like this were commonplace, or even if they happened, unless men now in their later thirties are willing to break their silence.  If they feel they want justice it will be too late when the perpetrators are dead.’ (my emphasis)

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Midsummer Murders & Knowl View School

by Les May

THE TV land of Midsummer is a fictional place of pretty villages and dark deeds. People who always like to grab the moral high ground may complain there aren’t enough non-white faces, but no-one can complain that the stories are not intricate with a wealth of suspects.

Blood Will Out, which was episode 4 of season 2, involved an ex-military landowner, a bunch of Travellers led by another ex-military man who obviously had a grudge against the landowner who in turn was determined to drive the Travellers from the village and a man, who had in the past exchanged wives with the landowner.   His daughter had followed her mother.  When the landowner is found dead from the blast of a shotgun Barnaby and Troy have the task of sorting through the list of suspects.

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0214950/?ref_=ttfc_fc_cl_i74

We finally discover that it was landowner’s step daughter who had pulled the trigger. Her motive, she was being abused. But there was a twist in the tail. Barnaby assumed, as you probably did, that it was sexual abuse.  It wasn’t.  The victim got his way in the family by beating her with a leather belt.   He tried to do it once too often and got shot.

After the publication of the book Smile for the Camera by Simon Danczuk and Matthew Baker.  in April 2014 I devoted much of the next two and a half years to untangling the truth and falsehoods in stories about Cyril Smith that this pair were telling.   My basic concern was that they were conflating two separate issues.   Smith’s antics at Cambridge House hostel in the early 1960s with the goings on at Knowl View school in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Solid evidence of Smith’s antics at Cambridge House was published in 1979 in Rochdale's Alternative Paper (RAP) when Smith was very much alive and able to sue if RAP got it wrong.  He never did.  The unsavoury events at Knowl View were sexual activity between the boys, some of it coercive.

These were detailed in a report to Education and Social Service officers, the ‘Shepherd report’ and confirmed in the ‘Mellor report’. The significant contents of the former were later published in an article which appeared in the Independent on Sunday in September 1995.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/customer-reviews/R3A7XZP51EW0A6/ref=cm_cr_pr_rvw_ttl?ie=UTF8&ASIN=1849548757

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2015/10/nv-review-of-smile-for-camera.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2015/10/our-long-running-crique-of-smile-for.html

https://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2016/10/old-news-from-knowl-view.html

https://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2016/10/dodger-danczuk-doesnt-deliver.html

https://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2016/10/tonightm-danczuk-in-lions-den.html

Danczuk and Baker muddied the waters about what really happened at Knowl View.   As a result any subsequent ‘evidence’ from individuals is tainted.  They did it by conflating two separate issues, Cyril Smith’s antics at Cambridge House and the reports about what went on at Knowl View. Long before their book was published we had TV documentaries based on Danczuk’s unsubstantiated claims about Smith’s involvement at Knowl View, claims which were not made in the Independent on Sunday in September 1995, though in both cases the source seems to have been the same.   Without throwing in the Knowl View connection they had only the stories that we already knew about Smith’s antics at Cambridge House when he was a member of the Labour party.  This story, regurgitated from the May 1979 edition of RAP, would not have filled a book and without a book there would have been no lucrative contract.

We are seeing this same conflation again. It is happening in the local press where lazy journalists, who cannot be bothered to sort the fact from the fiction simply recycle the same old stuff ad nauseum, Cambridge House, Knowl View, Cyril Smith equals a story to fill a corner of the paper.

And it is happening again with a local parents group which are managing to conflate Cambridge House, the grooming and sexual abuse of girls by a group of asian men, and the unsavoury events at Knowl View.

https://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2018/10/the-curse-of-gesture-politics.html

Danczuk’s book muddied the waters about Knowl View. Has this led us into making the same mistake as Barnaby made in the Midsummer Murders drama? Have we been led along the path of assuming that any abuse by adults at Knowl View was sexual in nature?

I am prompted to ask this because of a story which was passed to me by two people I have known well for many years. It was recounted to them by the mother of a boy who had been a pupil at Knowl View.

He had run away from the school and made his way home.   She telephoned the school and said she would take him back in a little while.  Before she could do this two burly men appeared at her door. When she opened it her son ran upstairs. The men said they had come to take her son back.  One man went upstairs. The boy screamed.   When she looked her son was being held by his legs and dragged down the stairs.   She complained to the school.  Nothing was done about it.

If this story is true and if it is typical of what was going on at the school, then this is the real scandal of what happened at Knowl View, not some vague innuendo about Cyril Smith being involved in sexual abuse at the school.  We will never know whether events like this were commonplace, or even if they happened, unless men now in their later thirties are willing to break their silence. If they feel they want justice it will be too late when the perpetrators are dead.

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BOLD & the local media

How much freedom of speech do we really have?
John Wilkins

THIS article summarises the problems a local campaigning group BOLD (Building Our Local Democracy) based in Middleton, has encountered with regard to freedom of speech.

It is an issue which is central to much of what the group is about as illustrated by the first two aims of the group:

1. Encourage more people to exercise their democratic rights, in order to bring power and decision making closer to the people.

2. Promote more democratic accountability and transparency in central and local government, public and private bodies.

Our last but one meeting focussed on the latest of a catalogue of scandals involving Rochdale councillors.  This being the caution accepted by the now Councillor Faisal Rana for casting votes in two different constituencies in the last round of Council Elections. Individual members of our group have contacted the Council, Heywood & Middleton Labour CLP and even the Local Government Ombudsman.

The last meeting concentrated on why many local people in Rochdale Borough will be oblivious of this and earlier scandals as there is inadequate coverage of local politics in the media here.  The local printed papers rarely print a letters column these days which was a way of getting more exposure on local issues.  Until recently Rochdale On – Line was an outlet for those wanting more political stories being put into the public domain.  A prolific contributor on politic issues as well as some of our members have complained about the dearth of comments from residents being published now as well as the archive of previous letters being deleted.

We have to speculate on the reasons behind this weakening of political expression. Could it be that the financial problems reported to be afflicting this news outlet means they are even more dependent on advertising finance from adverts placed by the Council?

In some ways this is not a new issue as a member claimed the child abuse scandal at Knowl View only became covered properly after exposure in 1979 with articles in Private Eye and later The New Statesan.

One member directly asked a local journalist why there was less coverage of public's letters in the local media.  His response was to the effect that there was little enthusiasm from management for printing views that were challenging to local politicians!  Some members regretted the loss of a political reporter for the local papers who was always willing to publish views from them.  One can only guess that his career change might have been due to the stifling of freedom of expression.

With regard to the national media there has long been an in-balance in newspapers with a more right wing agenda being pushed in 80%.  The BBC was also felt not to be always neutral and quite selective of issues it promoted.  A few years ago I asked the organiser of a meeting on TTIP (Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership) which such an important topic rarely got coverage.  The response was he had asked the same question of a senior BBC presenter to be told 'they 'were leaned upon' not to give the topic much exposure!

An example of the suppression of freedom of expression had been experienced by a member who edits a more left wing periodical.  The paper edition was blighted by the deliberate lack of distribution by the two conglomerates who have a virtual monopoly of it. Since then he has struggled to get just a few on-line editions out having suffered from a vendetta instigated by a local politician and taken up by the blogger Guido Fawkes. Unfounded insinuations of anti-Semitism have resulted in extensive abuse and also death threats to many contributors including a local MEP!

We explored some solutions to this impasse, one of which was more use of social media which is where most of the younger generation got their news.  Northern Voices kindly offered us space to put our views out.  Following a jocular observation that we could fly-post our views on lamposts another suggested the group could produce newsheets to give out in the town centres, particularly as the older generation still often preferred a written format to digital.  The member editor of the paper, The WORD, suggested a leaflet on local issues could be inserted in his paper when it gets back into print again. 
 

It is ironic that as we come up to the 200th. anniversary of Peterloo, an event that captured the attention of newspapers at that time and led indirectly to the creation of the Manchester Guardian, that we are in such a situation now.  We might in the interim return to the spreading of ideas through being like the 'Pamphleteers' of previous centuries!

Follow us on Facebook at BOLD = Building Our Local Democracy or for more information on our group e-mail j.wilkins248@yahoo.com

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The Curse of Gesture Politics

by Les May

THE decision to posthumously strip Cyril Smith of his ‘Freedom of the Borough’ is unlikely to change the impression that Rochdale is a town where some strange things are allowed to go unchecked.

What it demonstrates is that Rochdale councillors are far happier with a symbolic gesture against a dead man who, more than 50 years ago at Cambridge House hostel, took an unsavoury interest in the genitals of a number of young men, than censuring a fellow councillor who has admitted to a ‘corrupt practice’ at the local election six months ago.

I don’t make reference to Smith in regard to Knowl View because the Danczuk book so muddied the waters that I doubt we shall ever have a true picture of Smith’s involvement, if any, in the unsavoury goings on at the school.  What we do know is that both the reports submitted to RMBC in the early 1990s dealt with sexual activity between the boys, some of it coercive in nature.

What will be of interest is whether the people behind the recent move against the memory of Smith will feel that they have to call upon Richard Farnell to be thrown out of the Labour party when the bill for ‘compensation’ falls on the desk of the Chief Executive, as it surely will.  Because of course that’s what the character assassination after Child Sex Abuse inquiry of Richard Farnell, was all about, upping the compo!

I remain unconvinced about Richard Farnell’s culpability as I don’t think whether he knew or did not know about the goings on at Knowl View would have made the slightest difference to the action taken to try to sort it out.  The same goes for Paul Rowen.  Hindsight is such a wonderful thing!

******** 

Tini Owens and Cliff Richards

Tini Owens and Cliff Richards

By Les May

That’s not the sort of juxtaposition of names you would expect. In case you don’t know who Tini Owens is, I will explain that she is a 68 years old lady who has separated herself from her husband for the past three and a half years, and wishes to be divorced from him without further delay. Under the present law she will have to wait another 18 months or so. Refusing her application to the Supreme Court the judges commented that the decision was made ‘with reluctance’ and was ‘very troubling’ but that it was not for judges to make the law, that responsibility lies with Parliament.

The news that Parliament makes the laws and the judiciary interprets them came as surprise news to some journalists who evidently thought that in matters of privacy they made the rules. As the BBC has learned to its cost, £800,000 and counting, they don’t.

The reaction to both these cases display our broadcast and print media at their worst. Columnists and editorial writers have suddenly discovered the UK’s divorce laws are ‘archaic’. One can almost hear the chant, ‘We want no fault divorce: when do we want it? Now!’

Where were these same columnists and editorial writers last year or the year before that, as the accumulated evidence of the past forty years pointed to the fact that one of the unintended consequences of ‘fault’ based divorce was that it frequently increased animosity between the parties?

As well it might. If the you can persuade a court to rule that other party is to blame all sorts of goodies fall into your lap. You get the moral high ground. You’ll get your legal costs paid. If you have children and you are so inclined, you have the perfect excuse for demonising their other parent and shutting them out of their and your children’s lives.

Although I have written the above in a ‘gender neutral’ fashion the reality is that for much of that forty years it was usually men who paid the legal costs and lost contact with their children. To stand beside the Trini Owens case I will mention that a man I have known all his life has not seen his son for forty years and when the bill for the costs of his wife’s lawyers fell through his door he literally shit himself because he did not know where he was going to find the money.

To judge by some of comments I have read about the decision in the High Court by Mr Justice Mann to rule against the BBC and in favour of Cliff Richards one would think that we are moving to an era of secrecy where nothing about an individual can be reported, and governments and corporations can hide their dastardly deeds.

It is being argued that the Mann decision rebalances the two articles in the European convention on human rights that deal with ‘respect for private life’ (Article 8) and ‘freedom of expression’ (Article 10). But this interpretation relies upon equating ‘freedom of expression’ with the public’s ‘right to know’. Not at all the same thing!

It should not be forgotten that had the BBC simply reported that the police had executed a search warrant at a Cliff Richards property it is unlikely that he would have taken the matter to the courts. As is so often the case the intent seems to have been not to report the news, but to make it.

I lost any faith I had in the BBC as a news organisation in 2014 and 2015 as I watched how it dealt with the fallout from Simon Danczuk’s book ‘Smile for the Camera’. Anyone who has actually read the book with a mildly critical eye soon realises that it is a very unreliable document and, as we now know, contains material that is untrue. But that did not stop the BBC seemingly taking it at face value and running a story which made it appear that RMBC had tried to cover up a report about unsavoury goings on at Knowl View school by Aids worker Philip Shepherd. Anyone seeing the BBC TV piece would not have known that the report largely refers to sexual activity between the boys.

Seemingly the media’s belief about ‘the public’s right to know’ did not include reporting Cyril Smith’s antics at Cambridge House which came to light in May 1979 in a long and well researched article in Rochdale Alternative Paper (RAP). To the best of my knowledge only the Rochdale Observer has had the good grace to apologise for this failure.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.com/2015/10/our-long-running-crique-of-smile-for.html

Attempting to equate ‘freedom of expression’ with ‘the public’s right to know’ is treading on dangerous ground. Freedom of expression applies to an individual’s right to tell others what they do not wish to hear. It applies to things that are true, e.g. ‘the Nazis murdered six million Jews’, and to things that are false, e.g. ‘the Holocaust never happened’.

It is implicit in the media claim about ‘the public’s right to know’, that what is being disseminated is true. I don’t want to know things about Cliff Richards, police raids or MPs, which are not true. But if the print and broadcast media are going to rely upon ‘freedom of expression’ as their justification for publishing a story they should not be surprised if we begin to think they are using it as a guise for pushing fake news.

John Walker challenges Les May's analysis

DEAR LES (MAY),

I defer to nobody in my admiration for your dogged and forensic analysis of Danczuk and his book. Were others more aware of it, we could have been spared the adulation that he received as he dragged his collecting tin around TV studios and newspaper offices promoting both it and himself.

However, I would disagree with your analysis in this article - and, for once, think that Danczuk called it right about the role of prominent Liberals, nationally and locally - in their silence over the matters that the Child Abuse inquiry examined.  Indeed, the inquiry itself was critical of the role of later LibDem MP Paul Rowen, when he was leader of Rochdale council.

Where I think Danczuk hit the nail on the head, in particular, is about David (now Lord) Steel.

Steel was leader of the Liberal Party at the time RAP published its allegations about Smith in May 1979.  We (I was co-editor of the paper), on legal advice, wrote to Steel for his comments on the story, prior to publication.  We published the response of his press secretary - 'nothing much to see here - move on' was a paraphrase of that response.

I have challenged Steel about this publicly, over recent years - on the airwaves (World At One) and in print (Private Eye).  His responses have wavered between: 'I didn't know', to 'nobody else took the matter up, so it couldn't have been important', to it 'it was just tittle tattle that didn't merit investigation'.

Well, clearly all three of those explanations can't be right.

At the time RAP published the story, the Liberals former leader Jeremy Thorpe was facing trial on conspiracy to murder (a docu-drama on this will be shown by the BBC soon), and another of the handful of Liberal MPs (Peter Bessel) was in severe financial and other difficulties, on both sides of the Atlantic, that eventually caused him to stand down from Parliament.  There was not a national political journalist in Westminster who was not aware of the RAP story.

It is inconceivable that the leader of a party with only a dozen or so MPs, with two of them up to their neck in serious trouble would not have taken rumours about a third very seriously and attempted to establish what was going on.  Either that, or Steel was a seriously deficient party leader - and few people have accused him of that.

Two postumous biographies of Jeremy Thorpe have made it very clear that Thorpe's solicitor was very aware of the RAP/Smith story and were fearful that it would adversely impact on their client at his trial.  They went to considerable ends to ensure that Fleet Street did not touch the story - including using the considerable weight and influence of Harold Wilson's then 'Lord - fixit' Arnold Goodman to keep the papers quiet.

So in in a calculated gamble - Steel just braved it out.  Nobody picked up the story, and his party was saved further embarrassment.

One result of no action being taken against Smith is that others with deviant interests in under age boys would have been emboldend to think that they too could get away with inappropriate behaviour. The terrible trail of abuse at Knowl View is one possible outcome.

To return to David Steel. The Child Abuse inquiry is critical of the process by which Smith was knighted in 1988, and is critical of Thatcher (the awarding Prime Minister), and the Political Honours Scrutiny Committee - PHSC - (the body responsible for vetting the appropriateness of nominees)for allowing his name to go forward to the queen, to appoint.

I have written elsewhere ('The Queen Has Been Pleased - 500 years of corruption in the British Honours System' - Secker and Warburg 1986) of the supine, establishment white-washing nature of the Committee.  So their turning a blind eye to the Smith knighthood was simply par for the course for them at the time.

The Child Abuse Inquiry rather missed the point about Smith's knighthood.  The nomination for a political honour - for that is what it was - would have had to have come from the recipient's party leader. In this case - David Steel. Despite what was known in the Liberal Party about Smith and Cambridge House - Steel was still prepared to nominate Smith.  The inquiry's opprobrium about Smith's knighthood should have been directed at Steel and not Thatcher or the PHSC.

Why should Steel have nominated Smith at that time, for that award? Well, his party was in a delicate stage of negotiations with the SDP about a merger - Smith was always a loud mouthed maverick.  The offer and award of a knighthood could be used to shut him up and get one potential obstacle our of the way for Steel, as he sought to cement the merger.  And as we know: Smith got his knighthood, his silence was achieved and the Liberal Democratic Party was born.

David Steel was the teflon man as far as the Child Abuse Inquiry was concerned - not a witness, nor a feature of its report.

I think the report had many deficiencies - and the void around Steel was one of them.

For once - I agree with Danczuk on the Liberals escaping blame. But I won't be taking up his offer of a drink, to celebrate!

John Walker:  former joint editor of Rochdale's Alternative Paper (RAP)

Same Old Danczuk!

by Les May

A week ago in an article for Northern Voices, I wrote:

‘OSTENSIBLY Simon Danczuk’s 2014 book ‘Smile for the Camera’ is about the sexual peccadillos of his predecessor Cyril Smith. But a careful reading shows that the intent was to so closely associate Smith’s antics with the Liberal-Democrats that the party became permanently unelectable in Rochdale so securing a safe Labour seat for Danczuk for as long as he wanted it.’

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2018/04/the-benefits-of-20-20-hindsight.html

A recently ‘leaked’ letter from Danczuk to the Chairwoman of the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) tends to confirm my view.  Danczuk wrote:

‘Finally, I would like to point out that both local and national Liberal Democrat activists/representatives would have been even more aware of many of the issues regarding Cyril Smith though your inquiry appears, so far, to have been quite limited in regard to investigating such matters.  I was wholly convinced that key Liberal figures were well aware of Cyril Smith’s abuse but chose to do nothing. Perhaps this is something that deserves more attention.’

This is typical Danczuk.  As with his assertions in the same letter regarding whether Richard Farnell knew about the unsavoury goings on at Knowl View it represents only Danczuk’s opinion.  Just when did his conversations with Farnell about abuse at Knowl View take place?  Were they after November 2012?   If they were then should we not ask whether Danczuk only found out about Knowl View after he was contacted by someone who had been hawking around his story about a ‘cover up’ for years and had suddenly discovered someone to believe him?   As always he offers us no facts only vague generalisations implying that Farnell knew about Knowl View when what was actually commonly spoken of was Cyril Smith’s antics at Cambridge House.

I find Danczuk claim that he ‘thoroughly examined what went on at Knowl View as part of my research for the book’ difficult to take seriously, because the book is full of assertions made without evidence and when asked in October 2016 to provide real evidence he could not do so.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2016/10/

As for his attempts to smear Jim Dobbin with, ‘Relatively new to this town, I found these attempts to cover-up abuse very strange.  I was puzzled as to why local politicians like Jim [Dobbin], but also others, had not raised concerns when they had the power to do so.   At an appropriate time, I did put on record the abuse that Cyril and others committed.’  I find them beneath contempt because Danczuk’s idea of ‘an appropriate time’ was two years after Cyril Smith died, 33 years after his behaviour had been reported in Rochdale’s Alternative Paper (RAP) and a year after Danczuk had applauded enthusiastically at the unveiling of a Blue Plaque to him in 2011.  As for ‘the others’ we are still waiting.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5iL2dDSyl0

If asked to choose between believing Richard Farnell’s version of what he knew about Knowl View and believing what Simon Danczuk’s says he knew, I’d believe Farnell every time.

If you want to know why follow the links below.

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2017/03/operation-clifton-further-discredits.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/nv-review-of-smile-for-camera.html

http://northernvoicesmag.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/our-long-running-crique-of-smile-for.html