Thread by @MarkWatts_1

1. Day 10 of Westminster hearings at #CSAinquiry – my round-up in two parts. Part 1 in 24 tweets. Part 2 tomorrow.

Back on Day 6 we went into MI5’s #PaedoFiles, as revealed @FOIACentre: foiacentre.com/news-CSA-inqui…

Today, inside the ‘dirt book’ of the Conservative whips’ office…

2. First up Ken Clarke, a whip in Sir Edward Heath’s government, told #CSAinquiry that he was UNAWARE of Tim Fortescue’s infamous comments about “scandal involving small boys” until inquiry raised it with him.

Background @FOIACentre from earlier in month: foiacentre.com/news-CSA-inqui…

3. On Tim Fortescue’s comments re helping MPs in trouble, such as over “scandal involving small boys”, Ken Clarke to #CSAinquiry: “I have no idea what he’s talking about, because I don’t remember a problem with any member of parliament with small boys in my time in the office...”

4. Ken Clarke told #CSAinquiry: “I think the allegations about Leon Brittan and Ted Heath were just ludicrous,”

His comments triggered one abuse survivor in public gallery to shout out: “It’s not ludicrous, actually. I was there.”

5. “The school I was at had one teacher who, every pupil knew, was a paedophile. I mean, he never molested me,” Ken Clarke told #CSAinquiry.

“To somebody in 2019, it is utterly inexplicable, that a very smart school… upright school, did nothing whatever about this man…”

6. Ken Clarke continued at #CSAinquiry: “I don’t think people appreciated quite what lasting damage it did to the victims.

“But it wasn’t a cover-up exactly. It wasn’t a conspiracy. But it was just not- the law was, for some peculiar reason, not enforced properly…”

7. “I don’t think Parliament would have been very attractive to a paedophile to join,” Ken Clarke told #CSAinquiry.

“Cyril Smith, there is undoubtedly quite sufficient evidence that he was. But I’m sure there were more who went undetected, but not many.”

8. Next…

Michael Jopling, now Lord Jopling, chief whip from 1979 to 1983 for Margaret Thatcher’s government.

Turns out he kept his dirt book, ie ALL “whips notes” written by whips for him at the time.

And #CSAinquiry lawyers searched through them for relevant material…

9. Lord Jopling told #CSAinquiry that after Margaret Thatcher became PM in 1979 she wanted to know who would be alone at Christmas because of divorce or death so that she could invite them to Chequers.

This was why whips gathered, eg, info on MPs’ marital problems, he said.

10. One of Lord Jopling’s whips notes says: “[Name redacted] affair: Serious implication against background of Dickens. Real undermining of establishment.”

Jopling confirmed that it referred to Geoffrey Dickens MP.

[Dickens, of course, notably campaigned against paedophilia.]

11. Same whips note to Lord Jopling #CSAinquiry, says: “Hayman affair: Tim Raison [home office minister] v concerned about Sunday Times report.”

Paper did not run story at the time, I understand.

Note was about Peter Hayman. See MI5 #PaedoFiles on him: foiacentre.com/news-CSA-inqui…

12. Another of Lord Jopling’s whips notes, about “Geoff Dickens”, dated 13.4.81, and produced at #CSAinquiry: “According to Brian Mawhinney [then a backbench Tory MP], G.D. is ready to start his anti-child porno bandwagon again, this time he intends to name people in Show-Biz.”

13. Next in Lord Jopling’s whips notes, dated March 18, produced at #CSAinquiry, records: “Nick Budgen very angry about Dickens. I suggested the All Party Motion. He said he would think about this.”

Note probably 1981, when Nicholas Budgen, the late Conservative MP, was a whip.

14. Another of Lord Jopling’s whips notes, also dated March 18, at #CSAinquiry, says: “Anthony Grant [then senior backbencher]: Unhappy that the Hayman/Dickens affair not handled too well by Havers. Seemed too quick to cover up!!”

Bg on Michael Havers: foiacentre.com/news-Playland-…

15. Yet another from Lord Jopling’s collection of whips notes, produced at #CSAinquiry, records: “Gordon Greig [lobby journalist] told me that [Private Eye] has a little snippet in it suggesting that there is a sex scandal in a sauna bath which involves a Cabinet minister” ...

16. On the whip note re the cabinet minister “in a sex scandal in a sauna bath”, Lord Jopling said at #CSAinquiry: “I did wonder who it was.”

Andrew O’Connor, counsel for Westminster investigation at inquiry, replied: “You may not be alone in that.”

17. Asked what he did about the whip note re cabinet minister in “sauna bath”, Lord Jopling told #CSAinquiry: “I can’t remember what I did about that.” He thought that he talked to attorney general or cab sec or both. Attorney general – Michael Havers: foiacentre.com/news-Playland-…

18. Yet another of Lord Jopling’s whips notes, produced at #CSAinquiry, written by Tristan, now Lord, Garel-Jones records: “[Robert] Rhodes James was being particularly offensive about Peter Morrison during his wind-up [speech] tonight.

“Alan Clark asked if he was mad.”

19. Another of Lord Jopling’s whips notes, produced at #CSAinquiry, under the heading of a Labour MP (name redacted) says that John Heddle, Tory MP, saw the Labour MP in a van “accompanied by a young person of indeterminate sex”. /mf…

20. This whip note written for Lord Jopling, produced at #CSAinquiry, continues: “[Labour MP] drove off without paying and had to be chased and stopped.

“Sadly, they gave him the benefit of the doubt.”

21. Another of Lord Jopling’s whips notes, produced at #CSAinquiry, says that a Conservative MP (whose name was redacted) “was in the lower office with his secretary and two others. All rather pretty young men – not quite 16 annas to the rupee.”

22. And this from Lord Jopling’s whips notes at #CSAinquiry: “Telephone call from Michael Havers to tell the Chief Whip that it would be likely to break within 48 hours that [MP’s] present woman, a call girl, also a letter of homosexual nature in existence from [MP] to a boy.”

23. On whip note in tweet 22, Lord Jopling told #CSAinquiry: “Shock and horror went through the entire office at that time, having read that… because we were into the business of paedophilia.”

He thought that police or DPP told Michael Havers. Whatever it was, it never broke.

24. Tomorrow, more whipping boys.

And a clash at #CSAinquiry that exposes how Alexis Jay and her panel are being steered away from key evidence.

All covered in part 2 of my tweet summary tomorrow of Day 10 of Westminster hearings at #CSAinquiry.