The Schofield List

Thank God for Philip Schofield!  There's something I never thought that I'd say.  After spending the past couple of days effectively dead in the water traffic-wise, mainly thanks to the US Presidential elections which saw US visitors virtually vanishing, I posted a new story on The Sleaze about Tories and sex scandals that I thought would be a sure-fire winner.  However, even after it auto-posted at eight o'clock this morning, traffic remained dead.  Then, thank God, Philip Schofield chose to hand David Cameron a list of alleged high profile sex offenders - some of them supposedly top Tories - on This Morning.  Traffic suddenly exploded as people searched the web for that list of top Tory peadophiles - and it hasn't stopped since.  Not, of course, that anyone reading Dishonourable Members will be any the wiser as to these miscreants' identities.  Indeed, the story is meant as a riposte to the way in which this whole 'story' about the alleged involvement of public figures in the North Wales peadophile scandal has been handled by the press - all innuendo but very few facts.  Just like the Savile business, actually.  Such an approach reduces a serious story to the level of a lurid gossip column.

So, I just made up the most ludicrous and unsubstantiated allegations involving Tory-supporting celebrities and Tory ministers from the eighties (all dead to avoid legal action), and put it out there in the form of a supposed exclusive newspaper expose. Who needs actual facts when we can have an unverifiable - but salacious - testimony from an alleged witness, instead?  To be fair to Cameron, he handled the This Morning business reasonably well, refusing to look at the list - which was apparently culled from various completely unsubstantiated internet rumours.  Then he blew it all by telling us he doesn't want to see a 'witch-hunt against gay people' as a result of these allegations.  Really, Dave?  I'm more than mildly disturbed that you seem to equate peadophilia and homosexuality.  As far as the rest of the world is concerned, the only groups that might suffer a backlash are peadophiles, Tories and clapped-out almost forgotten seventies celebrities.  Speaking of which, I see that Ray Teret - described as Jimmy Savile's former flat-mate and chauffeur - has been arrested by police investigating Savile.  Personally, I remember Teret - who served six months for sleeping with an underage girl in 1999 - as a local radio DJ and presenter of Saturday morning kids' TV programmes for ITV in the 1980s.  ITV?  Surely that can't be right?  I thought only the BBC employed nonces to work around children - at least that's what the Tories and the Daily Mail claim.  Hmmm.