Lord Greville Janner: 1928-2015

Former Labour MP, peer of the realm, loyal friend of Israel, Match Of The Day presenter, always ready to extend a helping hand to boys and young men, got quite forgetful in his twilight years, bit of an old perv, really.

LET'S PUT HIS CORPSE ON TRIAL!!!

PS Please bear in mind most of what's been alleged - and what else will be, now he's dead - by Exaro News and Simon Danczuk MP is still utter, utter bollocks.

PPS And it's safe to assume anyone who tweets about 'The Establishment' has a wide selection of hats made of tinfoil.

The Telegraph sums up his life in one line.

Matthew Parris: On Public Prosecutions

Last weekend my former parliamentary colleague Harvey Proctor published in a Sunday newspaper a moving statement. You may remember that two months ago the police raided his home in Leicestershire, spending 15 hours there and taking away his mobile phone, his laptop and all his personal records. They told him (and still tell him) he is not a suspect in their Operation Midland inquiry into historical child abuse; but they tipped off the media anyway, and a storm broke over Harvey’s head.

Declaring his complete innocence, and ignorance of anything about the fabled “Westminster gay paedophile sex ring” and anxious to put this on the record he has begged for an early interview, but the police keep postponing it. Now he has lost his home and his job. Desperate to resume his life, he challenges the police to “put up or shut up”.

I know Harvey. We talked on Monday. I’m convinced he had nothing to do with any MPs’ paedophile ring and doubt it existed. My guess is that the police have realised this too but won’t climb down and admit that by turning a routine search into a nationally publicised raid they have shattered a life and impugned a reputation. So they leave an innocent man to rot, until the interest they stirred up has faded.

From Matthew Parris' Times Diary.

Mr Parris does not mention this, but in a sympathetic profile in Friday's Independent, Proctor says that a supportive phone call and dinner invitation from Matthew stopped Harvey from killing himself.

Last week, Parris had this to say about Lord Janner...

I have no brief for (Lord) Greville Janner. I found him ingratiating and a bit of a bully. And I haven’t the least idea of the truth of allegations against him, nor any view on whether today he’s fit to plead.

But in attacking the judgment of Alison Saunders as director of public prosecutions, the behaviour of senior politicians, from the PM and home secretary downwards, was disgraceful. As for (Lord) Ken Macdonald, in post as DPP when it was decided not to prosecute Janner — to criticise his successor in print was offside.

DPPs are independent, they make decisions on the information they have, and the whole idea of their office is that they should accept no interference from politicians, peers or newspaper editorials. They must stand outside what some prattling MP has called — in that sinister phrase — “the court of public opinion”. This general election is corroding the judgments of people who ought to (and, worse, do) know better.

How strange so many journalists have remained silent on these two very different, but equally rum cases.

And how sad so many politicians have spoken out for the posturing populism of overturning the DPP's Janner decision.

The Sun: We Never Forget

'Ex-CPS head Sir Keir Starmer (right) in London on Saturday'.

Great to see The Sun (On Sunday) covering yesterday's Save The Black Cap protest.

Strange they only mentioned it in a piece about their current whipping boy, the former Director Of Public Prosecutions, Keir Starmer, now standing as a Labour Party PCC.

A FORMER chief prosecutor piled pressure on his successors last night as he blasted their £20 million witchhunt against journalists.

Sir Keir Starmer and CPS chief Alison Saunders were accused of making an “error” by hauling reporters into court.

Their predecessor Lord Macdonald spoke out after three more Sun newsmen were cleared of paying public officials.

It means 48 charges against Sun journalists probed by Operation Elveden as part of would-be Labour MP Sir Keir and Ms Saunders’ crusade have resulted in ZERO convictions...

The comments risk overshadowing Sir Keir’s bid to become Labour MP for the London seat of Holborn and St Pancras.

Yesterday he joined locals protesting at the closure of the Black Cap gay pub in Camden.

Poor show by The Sun for not managing to shoehorn in another mention of Greville Janner this time, though.

Only connect...

Or am I reading too much into this?

The Sun: It Was The Sun Wot Won It!

The Sun.

Why oh why are the Crown Prosecution Service spending millions of public money going after decent honest journalists in pursuit of the truth and letting establishment nonces off the hook!!??? etc etc.

PS: This piece by Katie Hopkins, I'd Use Gunships To Stop Migrants, hasn't gone down very well...

Cue inevitable/intended Twitterstorm - Do people not realise that controversy is the currency of columnists like Katie?

Hopkins, Dinsmore and Murdoch must be pissing themselves.

Sack her? Bet she got a pay rise.

Oh, and comparing this appalling attention-seeking article to the Nazi holocaust or the Rwandan genocide is a little bit OTT.

Update...

Sun On Sunday: You couldn't make it up etc etc.

Lord Janner: Justice?

No comment...

PS Oops!

PPS The nation's moral guardians, the Daily Mail, go overboard/sail close to the wind (select most appropriate nautical metaphor).

PPS It's not the evidence, but who you are that matters, the great Neil Clark on RT.com.

PPPPS Double oops! Jay Rayner on media silence on Janner in the 90s.

Greville Janner: Innuendo

Daily Mail.

Mr Janner is 86 and has advanced dementia so presumably the Mail assumed he won't sue.

Photocaption/clarification of the day?