Paedophile Info Exchange: different time, different values

Daily Mail's war against Harriet Harman is based on misconceptions, says Chris Moores

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(Image credit: 2008 Getty Images)

THE DAILY MAIL has been exploring the relationship between the National Council for Civil Liberties (NCCL, now known as Liberty) and the Paedophile Information Exchange (PIE) in the 1970s, and has embroiled deputy leader of the Labour Party and former NCCL legal officer Harriet Harman in a bitter war of words. Clearly and perhaps unsurprisingly, the exchange is much more about politics than history, and it has been characterised by piecemeal historical knowledge and shallow research.

To the Daily Mail and other media outlets, PIE’s affiliation with the NCCL and its presence at the organisation’s annual general meetings is incomprehensible, and is enough to condemn the NCCL and its members. If we accept this framework, no further analysis is required. But of course, it is highly problematic to identify and criticise the relationship without considering the history of the two organisations, issues regarding civil liberties politics more generally, and the context of 1970s sexual politics.

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