Should a blue plaque in honour of the paedophile politician Lord Boothby in Eaton Square be removed?
The Rt. Hon. The Lord Boothby KBE (1900 – 1986) was up there with Jimmy Savile and Rolf Harris. He liked little boys and hung out with such delights as the Christian pop singer Cliff Richard and the Kray twins and after his death it took decades until he was exposed for what he truly was: A fat bully and a paedophile.
Nicknamed “Bob” in polite circles and “The Palladium” (because he was “twice nightly”) elsewhere, a Blue Plaque was erected outside the insignificant politician’s home between 1946 and 1986 at 1 Eaton Square in Belgravia, London, SW1 after his death. It remains there in spite of the fact that Boothby is someone who, given what he did to innocent children, does not deserve to be remembered in any positive way.
Some will cite the row in Oxford over demands to remove a statue of Cecil Rhodes in support of keeping the plaque in Boothby’s honour, but that is an invalid comparison. Rhodes, like or loathe him, was a figure of international historical relevance and Boothby simply was not. Anything Boothby achieved in his lifetime in the public arena can only be described as unimportant whilst what he did in private was utterly vile. It is, I suggest, time to erase memories of Boothby in the same way that Leeds has sought to eliminate anything and everything relating to Jimmy Savile: The plaque to Boothby simply must go; there is no reason to keep it.
Vipers in Hollywood
Elijah Wood shows courage in speaking out about child abuse in Hollywood
Elsewhere yesterday, the actor Elijah Wood suggested “Hollywood has its own Savile scandal” in an interview with The Sunday Times. Wood told the paper:
“You all grew up with Savile – Jesus Christ it must have been devastating”.
“[There are] a lot of vipers in this industry… There is a darkness in the underbelly… Victims can’t speak as loudly as people in power”.
Mr Wood must be saluted for speaking out but in Britain such activities have and continue to be covered up also. The public must not forget this and in spite of claims of a witch hunt, we must never allow abuse to be swept under the carpet again. Victims of abuse by the powerful, whoever they may be and whatever drugs or criminal activities they may have subsequently turned to due to their damaged mental states, deserve justice and it is time that it was done.
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