In the BBC Newsnight and Tory child abuse claims scandal, has the real victim, Steve Messham, been forgotten?

[Michael B]

That is probably true but irrelevant to what matters. Being eaten by a noble tiger is no better, for the prey, than being eaten by a smelly jackal.

The really interesting thing about the way this story developed is the uncritical acceptance by a large number of people, some of them (in politics and the media) whose lives should have taught them caution. The magic words for them (apart from 'paedophilia') were 'Tory' and 'Thatcher-era.' For very many in the magic circle of the BBC and the liberal-left that was enough; more evidence was not needed. Nothing was too bad to be said of them, and the dirt-hounds were not sad to believe the very worst without even asking the question: is it true? They whipped up, by innuendo and insinuation, an hysterical witch-hunt without pausing to ask whether there were in fact any witches to discover, or if there were, in which party and in which profession they were really to be found.

There will of course be some - not many, I hope and believe - guilty of this offence in more than one subculture. The proper people to investigate where necessary are the police. Perhaps we could now leave it to them.