RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Tom Watson should be in handcuffs

RICHARD LITTLEJOHN: Tom Watson should be in handcuffs for this witch-hunt – not the House of Lords

Tell us something we don’t know. That was my immediate reaction to the utterly predictable findings of the Paedos In High Places inquiry.

After spending shedloads of public money, the inquiry concluded that there is not a shred of evidence to support Tom Watson’s allegations that a VIP paedophile ring had been operating at Westminster.

I could have told you that for nothing. In fact, I have been telling you that for the past eight years. Back in 2012, when his spiteful, deranged campaign began, at the height of the Jimmy Savile hysteria, I dubbed Watson the Nonce Finder General.

 If there was any justice in this world, Labour’s former deputy leader Tom Watson (pictured) would be sharing a cell with fantasist Carl Beech, writes Richard Littlejohn 

He falsely accused leading Conservatives and other distinguished public figures of being serial child molesters, and worse.

No purpose will be served revisiting every cough and spit of his disgusting, politically motivated allegations, which were comprehensively discredited even before the official inquiry delivered its verdict this week. Watson’s victims have suffered enough.

Suffice to say that lives were destroyed, reputations ruined, careers disrupted and, in some cases, ended. Some of the accused died before their names could be cleared.

The fantasist Carl Beech, Watson’s vehicle for this wicked vendetta, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison. If there was any justice in this world, Labour’s former deputy leader would be sharing a cell with him.

Carl Beech (pictured), Watson’s vehicle for this wicked vendetta, has been sentenced to 18 years in prison although no one would ever have heard of him had it not been for Watson

Beech is doing hard time, although no one would ever have heard of him had it not been for Watson. Yet not only has the Nonce Finder General escaped scot-free so far, he has — incredibly — been recommended for a peerage by Jeremy Corbyn.

We are told that the commission which decides on the suitability of candidates for a seat in the Lords is hopelessly split.

That suggests there are members who seriously think Watson is a ‘fit and proper’ person to sit in the Upper Chamber.

Nominees are supposed to be vetted to verify that potential life peers ‘ensure the highest standards of propriety’.

They must also satisfy the commission that ‘the past conduct of the nominee would not reasonably be regarded as bringing the House of Lords into disrepute’. Watson fails on both counts.

This is a man who was in cahoots with a fantasist — subsequently himself convicted of paedophilia — and a dodgy Left-wing ‘news’ agency in an attempt to smear blameless men as rapists and murderers.

He abused his position to put pressure on Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service to pursue these unfounded allegations.

Watson exploited Parliamentary privilege to assert that he had seen ‘clear intelligence’ of a high-level sex abuse ring.

We now know this was untrue. No such intelligence ever existed. If you saw the recent Profumo drama on TV, you’ll be aware that lying to Parliament was once a career-ending offence.

Yet not only has the Nonce Finder General escaped scot-free so far, he has — incredibly — been recommended for a peerage by Jeremy Corbyn (pictured)

Yet Watson suffered no sanction before he stood down from the Commons ‘for personal reasons’ before the last election, which would almost certainly have seen him ejected from his West Bromwich East seat by the Tories.

Still, it should be sufficient to bar him from elevation to the Lords.

Frankly, though, I don’t believe that denying him a peerage is punishment enough. In the past, I’ve wondered why Watson hasn’t been investigated for conspiracy to pervert the course of justice.

At the very least, I’m sure he could be charged with ‘misconduct in a public office’ — that hoary old chestnut the Old Bill has regularly wheeled out to arrest journalists and civil servants accused of passing information to the papers.

Let Watson suffer the indignity of having his front door kicked in at six in the morning; his loved ones terrorised; his home turned over by a couple of dozen coppers; his computers confiscated; his most intimate correspondence and his bank records trawled through for evidence of wrongdoing.

He richly deserves to be left twisting in the wind for years on end while the authorities try to find something with which to charge him.

Plenty of people should be ashamed of themselves over their complicity in this tawdry affair.

First and foremost: the police, the CPS and those, especially on TV, who continue to indulge Watson and have allowed him to reinvent himself and pose as a victim.

But this column isn’t about the Old Bill, or the CPS, or anyone else. It’s about the one man who manufactured and masterminded this monstrous manipulation of justice.

The Nonce Finder General shouldn’t be given a seat in the House of Lords, he should be in the dock at the Old Bailey.

Heartfelt thanks to all of you who wrote wishing my Great Auntie Gladys a happy 100th birthday. Mail reader Janis Adam even spotted a family resemblance. ‘I thought it was you, Richard, in a wig and frock.’

Nah, Janis, Gladys is much better looking than me!

One minute the Duke of Markle wants to be a full royal, the next it’s Call Me Harry.

Make your mind up, H. You can’t have it both ways. You’re either a Sussex Royal or common as muck, like wot we are.

Maybe he only wants to be a blue blood in America, to maximise his earning potential, and a man of the people back home.

How long before the crowd at the next Invictus Games are singing: ‘Harry Markle, he’s one of our own!’

The obsession with ‘rewilding’ Britain is gathering pace. It’s part of the reason half the country is under water, as vast areas are allowed to flood to encourage species like our old friend the Depressed River Mussel.

Now Natural England wants to reintroduce lynx, which died out 1,300 years ago. As if we don’t have enough trouble with foxes.

The good news is that lynx are natural predators and will help keep the deer population down.

How! Let’s pow-wow on trade 

First, it was the EU demanding we return the Elgin Marbles to Greece in exchange for a post-Brexit trade deal.

Now it’s the turn of Native Americans, who want us to hand over sacred items brought back to Britain by the Pilgrims.

To mark the 400th anniversary of the Mayflower’s departure from Plymouth, the Wampanoag Nation would like hundreds of ‘spoils of war’ returned.

These include a wampum belt which once belonged to King Metacom and is currently being kept in the British Museum.

Let’s hope this heap bad medicine doesn’t hurt our prospects of a ‘yuge’ trade deal with America.

We’ve got enough trouble with chlorinated chicken.

I’m all in favour of anything which might get rid of the muntjacs in my back garden. I wonder if lynx do badgers, too.

The only problem is that once you’ve taken care of the deer and the badgers, you’re still left with the lynx. Apparently, coyotes prey on lynx . . .

Elsewhere, some landowners are bringing back beavers to dam flooded areas.

And in the Channel Islands, chickens have taken it upon themselves to do a bit of rewilding of their own. Jersey is being terrorised by feral hens and cockerels attacking anyone who intrudes on their ‘turf’.

They have formed themselves into several gangs with up to 100 members each and will pick a fight with anyone.

‘Oi, you looking at my bird?’

The chickens are able to run free because there are no foxes on the Channel Islands. Here’s a plan. Why don’t we round up all the foxes in London and parachute them into Jersey, like Operation Market Garden during World War II?

We could also send Wile E. Coyote, once he’s seen off the lynx seeing off the badgers in my garden.

He’d give the cockerels a run for their money. Never mind Wilder against Fury. Bring on Wile E. Coyote versus the Roadrunner, live from Jersey. Beep, beep! 

The obsession with ‘rewilding’ Britain is gathering pace. It’s part of the reason half the country is under water, as vast areas are allowed to flood to encourage species like our old friend the Depressed River Mussel

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