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The Sunday Cyril: One in Four Not One in 300
Here's another ten-minute instalment of the Yorkshire TV documentary that was broadcast in 1982. Sandwiched between Sir Cyril Smith's ludicrous 1981 and 1983 speeches in the House of Commons, the latter slagging off the documentary in terms. "Shame!" shouted Hon Members, and well they might.
Among the revelations is the suppression of risk assessments from the scientific community that updated the risk of fatal illness from one in 300 to a rather different one in four. Two orders of magnitude higher than the TBA/Cyril Smith/Rochdale Lib Dem propaganda. Paul Rowen was a politically active 27-year-old when the documentary was aired. What was he thinking? What does he suggest that drawing attention to this matter is smearing Sir Cyril Smith?
There is no getting away from the fact that in 1982 and 1983 - and perhaps ahead of this, if TBA did brief him honestly to be "responsible" - Sir Cyril Smith chose to IGNORE and VILLIFY this documentary rather than SOUNDING THE ALARM and getting the death factory closed at all costs.
3 comments:
And nothing yet from the Rochdale LibDems apart from Rowen's initial and incredibly stupid frist statement (we can only guess who was advising him on that - but any professional credibility they had must be in tatters by now).
I suspect it is well worth looking back before 1981 regarding Cyril's roilw in the whole of this. The problems with asbestos were known about in Hebden Bridge from the late 60s and early 70s - and I very much doubt that some knowledge hadn't reached Rochdale before the YTV documentary. Wasn't RAP mentioning Cyril's links with TBA and the whole Rochdale business nexus shortly after his election if not before. Did Cyril say anything on the matter in the process of getting elected, or were the Liberals too busy with other dirty tricks at the time.
You can bang on about somebody having 'blood on their hands' - as you do.
You can demand that Alastair Campbell be brought back into front-line politics - as you do.
But you really, really, really can't do both.
What are you on about? I have never said your man has "blood on his hands" which you kindly put in quotes as if I had said that. It should be noted that the mistakes he made with those lads 40-50 years ago did not stop him enjoying a career in politics. And the mistakes he made over asbestos - basically becoming a spokesperson for a wretchedly irresponsible employer under the cover of being a "responsible" MP did not stop him continuing to be feted nay hero-worshipped by the shower of shite that claim to be the Liberal Democrats of Rochdale.
As for the idea of a professional journalist being brought back to work for Number 10 this is (a) sensible enough given the current problems with news management; (b) highly unlikely given how Brown and Campbell get on; (c) nonetheless a little riff that I like to play.
Many people in the Labour Party, myself and my MP (and 138 others in the 2003 PLP) did not support the war. In fact we opposed it vehemently despite it being our leader and PM's policy. We - unlike most if not all of the bibulous and fibulous and self-righteous Lib Dems of Rochdale, and for that matter Withington and most of the western world - marched and organised against the war.
Stick to the story Anon. It's Cyril Smith being an irresponsible, shoddy MP in the pocket of big business.
Two wrongs do not make a right. And where are the Lib Dems and Liberals opposing St Cyril's dodgy dossiers and shocking smacking antics?
This is as pathetic a line as comparing asbestos to coal. Try it on the people of Rochdale as they wake up to the facts of Cyril's cover ups and bullying.
Cyril may have done XXXX, Y and Z and 1000s may have died as a result but that's OK 'cos there was a war in Iraq wasn't there. So he's let off. He has not yet even shown the slightest sign of admitting that "I were wrong, young Hennerghan, I were wrong".
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