Fat fucking verminous scum child-abusing cunt Cyril Smith dies. Hopefully, the whole story of this vile bastard will come out in time to skewer his old mucker David Waddington too.

NHH wrote:

"Fat fucking verminous scum child-abusing cunt Cyril Smith dies. Hopefully, the whole story of this vile bastard will come out in time to skewer his old mucker David Waddington too."

Maybe,

"BIG FAT CUNT"

would be an entirely appropriate epitaph to inscribe on his gravestone. Hell, gravestone, they'd need a mausoleum. They could build it in the middle of Rochdale. As large as the Taj Mahal.

He found himself embroiled in further controversy through his association with Turner and Newall, a Rochdale-based company involved in the manufacture and marketing of asbestos. Smith was its consistent advocate in parliament, even after a clear link between asbestos and the cancer mesothelioma was established. A year after speaking in support of the firm in 1981, he declared the ownership of 1,300 its shares

It seems like the story came out in 1979 but I know what you mean.

I suspect in raising the spectre of Lord Waddington, NHH is referencing the bit where everyone is still allowed to say anything like "Men giving sexual pleasure to each other is something that is frankly distasteful and should be refrained from" with no threat of prosecution.

(Section 29JA of Schedule 16 of the Public Order Act 1986, introduced by Mr. Waddington and still on the statute book).

Kind of irrelevant but it's sad that 'fat' is an insult on a par with 'cunt' and 'scum' etc.

Yes. And 'verminous'.

Vermin get a bad enough press as it is.

I understand Waddington declined to recommend the CPS push forward a prosecution into Smith for child abuse when he was home secretary on the grounds that it would not be in the public interest. Here's the original RAP story from 1979 (see comment 3). But maybe Waddington concluded, like David Steel, that this was 'just a case of a few smacked bottoms'.

We can also look into the whole sorry Lesley Molseed case, where Waddington was the astonishingly poor defence QC who let him down so badly, Cyril called for Kizsko to be hung, and the real killer turned out to be a member of a longstanding Rochdale Liberal family. We can also look at how Cyril might have benefitted personally from the 'regeneration' of the town in the 60s when he was (Labour) chair of the planning committee and his good mate red Ratcliffe, builder of the parish, did lots of blowing things up to build brutalist monstrosities. Then there's a ringroad that was half-finished, but not before a newsagents in its path was compulsorily purchased, a boon for the proprietor who had recently bought it, one Councillor C Smith.

Regarding the child abuse allegations, have there been any coded 'come on, we know he did it' type references in the obits?

Until I read this thread walking home last night I was under the impression that the best word to have described him was avuncular.

The scales have been falling from my eyes.

Kevin Macguire in the Mirror this morning covered some of the ground above and finished with this flourish - "Nice one, Cyril? No."

This guy was a "Blankety-Blank" stalwart even when it was pretty common knowledge (you know, apparently) that he was an absolute shit?