This is all of the redacted correspondence I could find released by the National Archive concerning Jimmy Savile. Does anyone know if the 40 years starts from this year or from 1982 ?
Looking at the correspondence I find it very hard to understand why these passages could have been redacted. What may have been slightly embarrassing revelations will now be the subject of intense speculation.
If I were to guess I’d say that Jimmy Savile lobbied hard for a Government donation to Stoke Mandeville Hospital, a change to the law on charitable covenants and perhaps for a knighthood (though he wouldn’t get one for another 8 years.) and perhaps Margaret Thatcher may have given some slightly improper personal undertaking that she would make it happen but considering what we know about Jimmy Savile now and the questions raised about Margaret Thatcher’s association with high profile paedophiles both inside and outside of Government, the inevitable speculation as to what actually has been censored and redacted could be far more damaging to Margaret Thatcher’s reputation than simply publishing all the documents in full.
See you here october 2052 then ! The idea that there is any transparency in government is laughable, we are continually treated like fools.
But this is the same day that we are expected to accept that no one else was involved in the death of gareth williams who locked himself in a sports holdall !
By redacting these documents, the Government has potentially shown an audit trail of deceit and corruption relating to paedophilia right up to the steps and through the door of 10 Downing Street.
That said, I would suspect that a legal challenge could be mounted citing that it WOULD NOT be in the public interest for the Coalition to hide documents that are inextricably linked to Operation Yewtree.
It may well be that government in their infinite wisdom and/or through legal advice has decided that these documents are so inextricably linked to an ongoing Police investigation that it would be sub-judice to disclose the evidence contained within them.
If that’s the case, then the Coalition should come clean and declare the reason for redacting vital documents that are without a shadow of a doubt, tied to Operation Yewtree. They could at least do that and stop the endless and needless speculation.
They must be or am I being too hopeful? I sincerely hope there’s a moral, ethical and legal reason for their redaction. On this basis, their complicity in past and present crimes cannot possibly be questioned.
I guess we can only hope that truth and justice will prevail.
Pattinson writes to Thatcher as though she has the level of understanding of a child. One can only assume she encouraged that style in her Private staff. Agree with nina about the transparency of government – but it must be something pretty important and moreover current to require withholding for another 40 years. Trying to look logically at the placing of the redacted parts, it could be hiding the involvement of another person (in this case, apparently not a McAlpine).