Tom Watson - Not Saying Sorry

The Daily Mail’s legendarily foul mouthed editor Paul Dacre has personally mounted his high horse and ordered an all-out assault on Labour deputy leader Tom Watson, for the heinous crime of doing the job that he was elected to do. The Murdoch Times has also gone for the MP, but so far there has been no word from the Sun. The chosen subject of the obedient Dacre doggies is the case of the late Leon Brittan.

This is because Watson is on record saying “I’ve spoken to a woman who said he raped her in 1967. And I’ve spoken to a man who was a child when he says Brittan raped him. Today, one survivor said to me ... that Brittan was ‘as close to evil as a human being could get’ … Leon Brittan stands accused of multiple child rape. Many others knew of these allegations and chose to remain silent. I will not”.

Note that Watson did not make any accusation himself: that would have been grounds for him to apologise. And that is all the Mail has offered in support of its thundering front page demand “NOW SAY SORRY, MR WATSON”. For doing his job, Tom Watson should submit himself to be disciplined by a foul-mouthed, righteous, unprincipled, bullying hypocrite who has never submitted himself to the judgment of the electorate. Well, thanks, but no thanks.

That this is a preposterous and pointless demand is not allowed to enter: instead, there is a supporting editorial - Daily Mail Comment being, as ever, the authentic voice of the Vagina Monologue - which again demands “Will you not now say sorry Mr Watson?” before admitting “this paper accepts the difficult position of being damned if they don’t pursue allegations of sexual abuse and damned if they do”. But about the Police.

And, for anyone still doubting that this is an organised hit, along has come the Mail’s tedious and unfunny churnalist Richard Littlejohn to pontificate “Why the Nonce Finder General Tom Watson won't ever say sorry and is as unfit for high political office as the bearded Trot Corbyn himself”. Dicky Windbag, pronouncing on others from the London suburb of North Vero Beach, Florida, is as careless with facts as ever.

“Watson made lurid allegations of sex abuse at a North Wales children’s home, which sparked a media frenzy and emboldened soppy Sally Bercow, the Speaker’s wife, to name on Twitter the former Tory treasurer Lord McAlpine as one of the guilty men … Watson has never apologised for lighting the blue touchpaper. While he personally hadn’t named McAlpine, he might just as well have led a torch-lit procession along Whitehall”. Bullshit.

It is the duty of MPs - any or all of them - to bring claims of abuse into the light. Because one of them turns out to be wrong does not entitle the more righteous of those who scrabble around the dunghill that is Grubstreet to dismiss all those claims out of hand, while demanding any politician of whom they disapprove pay fealty before them. Paul Dacre and Richard Littlejohn are the last to lay claim to the moral high ground.

Tom Watson has only done his job. That is not a reason for him to apologise. End of.