SPOTLIGHT ON ABUSE... The Dirt Book

How the sexual abuse of children is used for political gain

In 1995, the BBC showed a Michael Cockerell documentary 
called Westminster’s Secret Service about the role of the 
chief whip, whose task it is to ensure MPs attend important 
debates and vote as the party leadership desires. It was 
revealed that the chief whip kept a little black ‘dirt book’ 
which contained information about MPs, and this was used 
as a method of political control.

Tim Fortescue, who was 
Ted Heath’s chief whip 
from 
1970-73, said:

For anyone with any 
sense, who was in trouble
would come to the whips 
and tell them the truth, 
and say now, I’m 
in a jam, can you help? 
It might be debt, it might 
be…..erm…
…erm, a scandal involving
 small boys, or any kind of 
scandal in which, erm er, 
a member seemed likely 
to be mixed up in, they’d 
come and ask if we could 
help and if we could, we 
did. And we would do 
everything we can because 
we would store up brownie points……., and if I mean, that 
sounds a pretty, pretty nasty reason, but it’s one of the 
reasons because if we could get a chap out of trouble then, 
he will do as we ask forever more.

Edward Heath - serial torturer and killer of children

In short, the chief whip would cover up any scandal, even if 

it involved “small boys”, child sexual abuse, child rape, 

whatever you want to call it. They wouldn’t report the crime 

to the police, although they may use their contacts with the 

police to make sure to make sure the matter went no further

. This means that a paedophile would be the ideal 

candidate for promotion within the party, easily blackmailed 

and bought, loyalty and discretion guaranteed.

An example of how the dirt book may have been used is 

the case of Sir Peter Morrison, who was Conservative MP 

for Chester from 1974-1992, as well as being Margaret 

Thatcher’s Parliamentary Private Secretary. Morrison has 

been linked to a notorious paedophile ring that sexually 

abused children in North Wales care homes. Chris House, 

who worked as reporter for the Daily Mirror, twice received 

tip-offs about Morrison being caught abusing underage 

boys which resulted in just a police caution, but libel threats 

stopped the newspaper from running the story. Peter 

Connew, the former editor of the Sunday Mirror, said “such 

was the hush-up that nobody could get hold of a log of the 

arrest”.

Edwina Currie, who was a Conservative MP at the time, 

said “Peter Morrison has become the PM’s PPS. Now he’s 

what they call ‘a noted pederast’,’ with a liking for young 

boys; he admitted as much to Norman Tebbitt when he 

became deputy chairman of the party, but added, ‘However,

 I’m very discreet’ – and he must be!”

It seems possible that Morrison was given the job of PPS 

precisely because he was a paedophile; the party had ‘dirt’ 

on him so they could rely on his loyalty. Morrison was an 

alcoholic, famously incompetent, and often found asleep at 

his desk, so I can’t think of any other reasons for his 

promotion to PPS. Not a thought was given to the poor 

children who he abused, and nobody in his party went to 

the police to stop him committing these crimes. Edwina 

Currie was quite happy to save this ‘gossip’ about child 

rape to boost her book sales.

If an MP’s ‘indiscretions’ became too public to cover up, 

they were demoted or exiled to an obscure position. Mike 

Hames, who was head of Scotland Yard’s Obscene 

Publications Branch, talked of a raid on a brothel during 

which a man in pinstriped suit announced that he a cabinet 

minister. “That was before the end of Communism and, 

through a politician friend, I informed the PM, Mrs Thatcher.

 I noticed that the man, a junior minister, was quietly 

dropped later in a reshuffle.”

Elm Guest House would have been well known to Margaret 

Thatcher, having been raided by 60 police and then covered

 up by the DPP and the Attorney General, who stopped the 

press from reporting on it. It is thought that at least 7 

Conservative MPs were visitors to the paedophile brothel. 

Were any of these MPs later promoted to ministerial 

positions?

Ted Heath is credited with introducing the dirt book:

The most significant changes in the role of the whips 

appear to have taken place during the late 1950s and early 

1960s. Heath as chief whip from 1956 to 1959 brought a 

new professionalism to the job; he was the first holder of 

that position to routinely attend cabinet meetings,although 

neither he nor his successors have been full cabinet 

members. More significant was the way he systematically 

gathered information about every member of the party, and 

developed the art of using this to maximum advantage. He 

was after all responsible for piloting the Conservative party 

through the Suez crisis and its turbulent aftermath. When 

Edward Short became Wilson’s chief whip in 1964 he found 

that it ‘had been the practice to keep a “dirt book” in which 

unsavoury personal items about members were recorded’, 

and he immediately ordered this to be discontinued. It is 

probable that such stories arose simply out of the 

thoroughness with which Heath and his successors had 

gathered information. Heath himself explained his 

rofessionalism: ‘I acted on the principle that the more you 

know about the people you ae speaking for, and the more 

they know about you and what you are being asked to do, 

the better.’ (extract from ‘Churchill to Major: The British 

Prime Ministership Since 1945′ by

Donald Shell)

So the chief whip would proactively look for ‘dirt’ on MPs, 

not just wait for them to get into trouble. This might explain 

how the child abuse campaigner Geoffrey Dickens MP was 

so quickly exposed for having an extra-marital affair after 

he named the paedophile diplomat Sir Peter Hayman.

Although the Labour chief whip, Edward Short, claims to 

have discontinued the dirt book system, it seems obvious 

that both Labour and the Liberals would have continued to 

use it. The Liberal MP Cyril Smith would have needed his 

own book given his record of child sex offences stretching 

from the 1960s to the late 1990s, which makes it all the 

more staggering that former Liberal leader David Steel 

claims never to have received a complaint about him. 

Smith, as an Elm Guest House visitor, a friend of Jimmy 

Savile, and an associate of both Peter Righton and Sidney 

Cooke, would have been impossible for the chief whip to 

control, as he would have been able to bring most of 

Westminster down with him.

Fleet Street also have their own version of the dirt book, 

used to exercise control over politicians. What other 

explanation could there be for the Sunday Times/News 

International not using the leaked Operation Ore list, 

despite there being enough VIP paedophiles on the list “to 

fill newspaper front pages for an entire year”?

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