Smoke and mirrors...again.

Sometimes it is advantageous to take a step back and think about the big picture.

Take the current hot news topic that is the Welsh care home paedophile allegations that have followed on from the Jimmy Savile storm.

Up close there's no real difference between the two.

Powerful people are being accused of the most heinous and perverse behaviour, and in general the public are quite rightly horrified.

We do appear to be seeing two distinctly different approaches in how the accusations are being dealt with though, and we should all be thinking carefully about why this is.

When the news broke about Jimmy Savile the press weren't slow in naming names and dropping very heavy hints about those who may or may not have been involved.

The blood was in the water and it was feeding frenzy time on Fleet street.

Headlines screamed at us on a daily basis about how stars of the seventies where quaking in their platform shoes.

Now cast your mind back a few weeks and ask yourselves if you remember any great push to dampen down the flames, or even a whispered plea to halt the hysteria and focus on facts.

Personally I don't recall any such thing.

Now jump into the present and it's a whole different story.

Philip Schofield has been slapped down for handing over a card with some names on it to the prime minister, even though no names were mentioned and no one could really see them.

Newsnight has been dragged through the dirt along with the BBC for 'not' naming someone.

This has now led to the Director General resigning.

The reaction from the establishment when considered in this light does seem to lean towards suppression of information doesn't it?

A push to move the attention away from the actual abuse claims

To me it also seems to scream that some people in society are fair game while others are certainly not.

Now to consider the big picture for a moment.

Who is really overly concerned about the Schofield incident, and who really thinks that Newsnight are guilty of more than poor judgement in thinking that as the establishment would have treated a hint about one of their own in the same way as they have the heavy hints in the Savile case?

How can any of these headline grabbers be considered more serious than the allegations of child abuse?

Lets consider some of the other water muddying exercises.

Who harboured any thoughts that allegations could have turned into a gay witch hunt?

I didn't.

I have a clear distinction in my mind between homosexuality and paedophilia.

There's already been a few mentions about how those investigating the allegations need to be careful that some are not made falsely to secure financial compensation.

Isn't that just a pre-emptive strike in sowing some seeds of mistrust as to what may be revealed?

It's akin to saying 'well whether guilty or not we will never really know'.

I think we should all be very careful to what we subscribe to and as I've said take a bit of a step back and look at the big picture here.

My view is that a can of worms is in the balance and those in power are doing their level best to ensure that it doesn't hit the tipping point because if it does then there's no way back for them.