[DanaC]

Fernbridge was set up after Labour MP Tom Watson raised the issue of child abuse at Prime Minister's Questions in October 2012.

He spoke of "clear intelligence suggesting a powerful paedophile network linked to Parliament and No10".

The revelations come amid a series of other sexual allegations centring on Westminster.

It emerged over the weekend that Lord Brittan himself has been questioned by police in connection with a rape allegation.

He was understood to have been interviewed under caution last month after a woman claimed she was raped in London in 1967. The peer is believed to strongly deny the allegation.

Last month, police searched the Westminster office of the Labour peer Lord Janner of Braunstone in connection with historical child sex abuse allegations.

The search was part of an ongoing inquiry linked to children’s homes in Leicestershire and came after officers searched the 85-year-old politician’s home in Golders Green, north-west London, in December.

The peer has not been arrested.

It is understood more than 10 current and former politicians are now on a list of alleged child abusers held by police investigating claims of a Westminster paedophile ring.
MPs or peers from all three main political parties are on the list, which includes former ministers and household names.

Several, including Smith, are now dead, but others are still active in Parliament.

Another is said to be Sir Peter Morrison, the former MP and parliamentary private secretary to Mrs Thatcher, who died in 1995. He was linked to allegations of child abuse at homes in North Wales.

Mr Danczuk is leading a campaign for a public inquiry into historical child abuse in public life and has the support of 139 MPs.

He in a Sunday newspaper yesterday: “Among the higher echelons of party politics, where the real power resides, my impression is that there is little appetite to confront the abusers in their midst.
“Quite the opposite. The mood is defensive, the approach is dominated by silence. ‘Move along, nothing to see here’, or ‘what’s the point of raking all that up old boy?’”.

Former Conservative cabinet minister Lord Tebbit, who also served in Mrs Thatcher’s Government, said there "may well" have been a political cover-up over child abuse taking place at Westminster in the 1980s.

"At that time I think most people would have thought that the establishment, the system, was to be protected and if a few things had gone wrong here and there that it was more important to protect the system than to delve too far into it,” he said.

"That view, I think, was wrong then and it is spectacularly shown to be wrong because the abuses have grown."
Asked if he thought there had been a "big political cover-up" at the time, he said: "I think there may well have been."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...blishment.html

These men were not muslims. They were powerful men who had easy access to vulnerable young people.

The key factor is not ethnicity. It is access to victims.

A lot of criticism is levelled at the muslim community for not coming forward, for 'harbouring' those in their midst who commit such crimes. And maybe that's a fair criticism. Though, with reactions like yours it's easy to see why. But what about the political community? Coverups and protection. Another common feature of large scale child abuse cases.