(no subject)

From yesterday's Times:

A Labour peer now at the centre of a police investigation into claims that he abused 20 boys was reported to have cultivated an extremely close relationship with a teenager over a two-year period starting in 1975.

A series of letters to the boy on parliamentary notepaper, several signed “love from”, show the then MP arranged to meet him repeatedly, including at a Holiday Inn. Police have raided his office at the House of Lords and his home but have not questioned him because he claims to be suffering from dementia. [The Times]

You read that right. A peer is claiming that his dementia debars him from answering questions regarding allegations of abuse, but leaves him sufficiently competent to legislate in the country's second chamber.

Incidentally, the Times appears to be going out of its way not to suggest that this Labour peer having his office in the Lords raided by police over historic child abuse allegations is in any way connected with this one (Daily Mail link, sorry), so I'm not suggesting it either.