Many have known or suspected for decades that very dark things happened at the heart of the Establishment and slowly now the truth is seeping out. Paedophelia at the heart of government is the most shocking of a string of an unwelcome revelations, including phone hacking, Jimmy Saville, police corruption, sexual crimes of celebrities and the earlier discoveries of MPs on the make with their expenses, which together add up to a serious loss of confidence in the integrity of authority itself.
That the Establishment can manipulate information and knowledge to protect itself and its own has been understood by a few always, and ignored by most for as long. Lies are told about political decisions (Suez, Iraq, coal mine closures etc) and when the truth emerges decades later, nobody any longer cares. Yet the idea that those we are supposed to look up to and respect and whose rewards come mainly from the public purse and the Honours system, are engaged in the covert and organised abuse of vulnerable children, taken from care homes to a guest house in a quiet suburban street to succumb to their rapacious tormentors, chills the blood. That these very people then button up their trousers and return to the limelight to ordain how the rest of us should lead our lives, is an outrage which cannot any longer be relied upon to die away.
The Establishment knows this and for the first time in generations is running really scared. Nobody can be sure who is telling the truth. Distrust will blow like an icy chill into every nook and cranny. The danger of a witch hunt, or several of them, is acute. The truth will begin to flow out into the public arena like a fowl and oozing slime. But it will take years for the full truth to become clear and it may well be that all the truth will remain hidden. What we can say for sure is that the mystique of the Establishment is now breaking up and will take at least a generation to repair. Some, and this Blog is one, may feel it is better to break it up for good.