Thread by @MarkWatts_1

1. Day 7 of Westminster hearings at #CSAinquiry – my round-up in 25 tweets.

Today, somewhere between a farce and a comedy... somewhere between, ‘Yes, Minister’ and ‘Just a Minute’.

A former MI5 boss, a former cabinet secretary – and GYLES BRANDRETH.

2. Sarah Hogg, diary secretary to Peter Morrison in Department of Employment, told #CSAinquiry: “He clearly had an alcohol problem. He used to start drinking at lunchtime and he’d drink a bottle of vodka quite easily by teatime. And then he’d start drinking whisky.”

3. “Sir” Peter Morrison “moved in very high circles,” Sarah Hogg told #CSAinquiry, saying that his friends included the Duke of Westminster and Prince Charles, and his sister was (and still is) lady-in-waiting to the Queen...

4. Sarah Hogg told #CSAinquiry about Peter Morrison’s “temper”, saying: “He used to get very upset. He was regularly called on by Buckingham Palace to escort Princess Margaret, and he used to get very distressed at that. And he’d be in a bad mood most of the day.”

5. Sarah Hogg, speaking at #CSAinquiry, recalled the day in around 1984 that Downing Street summoned Peter Morrison: “It was clearly something very serious because he was demanded. He had to go to Downing Street instantly, and he came back in a very foul mood.”

6. Sarah Hogg, telling #CSAinquiry about a bad day at the office for Peter Morrison in 1984, said: “Shortly afterwards, I recall that he was then taken in to see Sir Michael Quinlan, who was the permanent secretary… at the Department of Employment.”

7. Sarah Hogg, continuing to testify about Peter Morrison, told #CSAinquiry: “I also remember quite clearly… within days of each other, him having to go to see the chief whip.

“So it was clear something had happened, but we weren’t knowledgeable as to what had happened.” ...

8. So why was Peter Morrison in such a “foul mood”?

The documents do not say. But most likely b/c he was being asked whether he had sexually abused a 15-year-old boy in the loos of Crewe railway station.

He need not worry, though.

Nothing happened to him, #CSAinquiry heard.

9. Counsel to #CSAinquiry produced a startling letter today (and yesterday, but I forgot to mention it then, sorry). MI5’s then director general, Antony Duff, wrote to cabinet secretary, to say that a key fact supported rumours re Peter Morrison and the boy in the loo in Crewe…

10. On the claim re Peter Morrison and boy in the loo in Crewe, MI5 chief told cab sec: “It was said that a Labour MP had been charged with a similar offence at the same time. It appears that Dr Roger Thomas, MP for Carmarthen, was indeed arrested at the end of September 1983.”

11. Nothing more has been said at #CSAinquiry about the late Roger Thomas MP beyond that bombshell letter of 1986 about Peter Morrison from MI5 chief to cabinet secretary.

He was convicted of “importuning” in a public loo, but I think that he was importuning a man not a boy.

12. MI5 boss Sir Antony Duff wrote to cab sec Sir Robert, now Lord, Armstrong: “A member of my staff was told last month by Donald Stewart, the Conservative Party Agent for Westminster, that he heard from two sources that MORRISON has a penchant for small boys.” #CSAinquiry

13. Eliza Manningham-Buller was the MI5 officer who picked up info on her personal friend, Peter Morrison, and reported it up within the domestic spy agency, #CSAinquiry heard. She then worked in secretariat, and later became MI5’s director general.

14. MI5’s former director general, Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, was called to testify to #CSAinquiry.

Unlike every other witness, she entered hearing room through same door as panel.

No doubt a “security” arrangement, but it looked like unbalanced treatment by inquiry.

15. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller told #CSAinquiry re Peter Morrison: “The difficulty is, this is the one and only time I can recall that I reported on a friend of mine, so I didn’t know what to expect because I wasn’t clear how this would be handled.”

16. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller to #CSAinquiry on Peter Morrison: “A concern I developed… that he was suggesting to people that I was his girlfriend, when I wasn’t.”

17. Baroness Eliza Manningham-Buller, MI5’s former director general, told #CSAinquiry that she decided to stay away from Peter Morrison’s funeral.

By then, she said, “my friendship with Peter Morrison was withering.”

18. “These allegations, which I didn’t know the truth of, but made me feel uncomfortable…

“I wasn't sure that I liked him much. He had a serious drink problem. He was abusive about his public servants.”

Eliza Manningham-Buller to #CSAinquiry on Peter Morrison.

19. Sir Robert, now Lord, Armstrong was called to #CSAinquiry.

Asked whether there was a cover-up of Peter Morrison by political establishment, he said: “I was certainly not aware of any cover-up.”

“Peter Morrison had emphatically denied the truth of any of this stuff.”

20. Gyles Brandreth, who followed Peter Morrison as MP for Chester, was called to #CSAinquiry, but was stopped by counsel after launching into a long explanation of selection process.

“If there is deviation,” he said, “just press the little button there, okay?”

cc @GylesB1

21. There was plenty of repetition at #CSAinquiry as panel member, I mean, witness Gyles Brandreth said *several times* that Margaret Thatcher could not have known that Peter Morrison was “in any way a paedophile or abuser of children”.

“It is inconceivable to me,” he said.

23. As #CSAinquiry spent second day on Peter Morrison, Gyles Brandreth said: “Mrs Thatcher was not judgmental when it came to people's private lives, so that ‘irregularities’, to use Lord Armstrong's phrase, might be tolerated.

“But criminal activity would not be tolerated.”

24. Gyles Brandreth to #CSAinquiry, on discussing Peter Morrison with Baroness Thatcher: “She remembered him with affection… knew that he was a heavy drinker.

“I think she assumed that he was gay… She did say that he’d rather ruined himself, by which she meant the drink.”

25. Tomorrow in Westminster hearings of #CSAinquiry, a day on “Sir” Cyril Smith.

We are due to hear from David Steel, aka #LordTittleTattle, Des Wilson and Baroness Brinton.

I revealed all that earlier in the month @FOIACentre: foiacentre.com/news-CSA-inqui…