Astonishing Political Times

We all know we're living through astonishing political times when Jon Snow live on Ch4 news tells a government minister to his face that 'his government had made us the laughing stock of the world'. But I don't want to talk about that, but rather something arguably much more serious and astonishing such as child sexual abuse and the attitude to it by our political class.

In response to the recent shocking news regarding the extent of violent and sexual abuse of young prisoners at Medomsley Detention Centre and with new victims coming forward, during a live radio interview on LBC, Boris Johnson felt it appropriate to question the use of police resources in this way:-

Boris Johnson has said that spending police budgets on historical child abuse is "spaffing money up the wall".

The former Foreign Secretary was responding to a question live on LBC on which he was asked whether cuts to the police service are linked to the rise in violent crime in London.

Mr Johnson insisted that a more sensible use of police budgets was more important - and it was his choice of words which proved most controversial.

He said: "I think an awful lot of money, an awful lot of police time, now goes into these historic offences and all this malarkey and you know £60million I saw has been spaffed up the wall on some investigation into historic child abuse?

As if this wasn't bad enough, we then had the astonishing admission by David Steel giving evidence to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse that years ago Cyril Smith had admitted abusing boys when he was asked if the Private Eye reports at the time were true, but incredibly decided to do nothing about it. At least Steel's suspension from the Liberal Democratic Party has been swift, unlike the Conservative Party who have yet to respond to calls for action regarding Boris Johnson:-

I have today written to the government chief whip @JulianSmithUK regarding the disgraceful comments made by @BorisJohnson on @LBC today. I write for @garycliffe1 @steven_walters4 and all of the other victims of child abuse in my constituency and those up and down the country. (Tweet by Laura Smith MP)

Not surprisingly there has been much anger amongst victims and my attention was drawn to an open letter to Boris Johnson and published on the BuzzFeed website, but subsequently taken down for apparently being "too political"....

Dear Mr Johnson,

Let me tell you how the comments you made on LBC felt to the millions of child abuse survivors in the UK.  A punch in the gut. A hark back to the dark ages. To a time where victims were blamed and shamed. And offenders got away with it. Oh wait, they still do, don't they. You and your government have done nothing about this.

You said investigating child abuse cases is ejaculating (“Spaffing”) money up a wall - let's address the fact you’ve used a word that means “ejaculate” and child sex abuse survivors in the same sentence. Firstly how hugely offensive and derogatory to use this word to compare money being spent helping CSA survivors to get justice. 

Secondly, you’re a highly educated man so I very much doubt this is a mistake. You have been media trained by someone like me when I worked in Government press offices. In the current political climate and - drawing on my work in Whitehall for many years - I suspect you’re using child abuse as a way of raising your profile now that Theresa May is certainly on her way out. All publicity is not good publicity - you’ve insulted 1 in 4 of the electorate who have directly experienced CSA and their families and friends. We’ll never elect you or any party you work for now. Perhaps you’re also trying to deflect attention from the mess that the government is in at this moment -Brexit. Either way how dare you victimise me and millions of other CSA survivors for your political/media game.

You keep using the word historical, as if somehow child abuse lives in the past. Almost every case of child abuse is “historical” because on average people take 40 years to report, so severe is the pain (and the shame). But it’s never historical for a survivor - we live with the pain and the way it shaped our brain and frazzled our nervous systems for the rest of our lives. We “manage” it, it’s not historical. Neither is our offender historical, they are still out there now, they don’t just suddenly stop offending Mr Johnson.

As for your assertion that bringing child abuse perpetrators to justice is a 'malarkey' not only is this a smack in the face to victims who’ve suffered for decades, it promotes a message to leave paedophiles on the streets to reoffend. However, what is a ”malarkey” is this government’s unwillingness to tackle this country’s biggest issue - intergenerational trauma. This has been left unchecked for generations and we are now paying the price for it. If we continue to ignore it, even more offenders will be “produced”.

How about the £Trillions in cost savings the government would benefit from if it stopped trauma in its tracks by funding proper treatment for survivors? The phenomenal savings you would enjoy in the areas of criminal justice system, homelessness, addiction and healthcare services, fostering and adoption, benefits system, domestic violence services, the list goes on... the savings would be so much more than you are currently spending in all these areas. Do the maths and if you really want to save money for the government; there’s your answer.

You think it’s a waste of money to prosecute CSA cases. What a horrific thing to say! But if we are talking about wasting money. Your Mayoralty cost London taxpayers over £700 million - wasted money because of poor decisions and schemes that stroked your ego. These include:

- £50 million on Garden Bridge project that never went ahead
- £321 million on Routemaster bus
- £24 million on Cable Car
- £323k on unused water cannon
- £305 million on the Olympic Stadium Conversion

And let's not forget how much this government is wasting by treating the symptoms and not the cause of the trauma cycle? The answer = £Trillions!

The way forward... your dangerous and insulting comments have caused untold harm to people who have been through hell on earth. You need to apologise to us.

Then how about you actually look at figures relating to CSA and how this government can prevent it being carried into future generations. Saving the country £Trillions is surely a better legacy than going down in history as a victim-basher and paedophile protector.

Yours,

A Warrior