I find it all rather sinister.
The history of this is that before the 1970s, attitudes toward The Sin That Dare Not Speak Its Name, i.e. homosexuality, were about the same as they are today in sub-Saharan Africa. In the 1960s, there were a number of sexual liberation movements, gay rights being one, and paedophile rights another. At that time, there was little to distinguish them all. Their opponents considered them all to be depraved and needed wiping out and replacing with the moral certainties of the 1950s. The supporters considered it part of a civil liberties issue, and so they were all lumped in under one banner. It was only in the 1970s that they seriously addressed the whole topic of sexual liberation, deciding which previously deviant sexualities were to become acceptable, and which should face a far stronger taboo. Today, any hint of a criticism of homosexuality is considered "homophobia" and is almost an arrestable offence, whereas any hint of support for paedophilia is sufficient to get you banned from polite society for life.
Knowing Harriet Harman to be in the vanguard of what can only be described as an Orwellian anti-sex league, and nicknamed Harridan Harperson for her feminist views, I would be very surprised if she expressed any sympathy whatsoever for PIE, regardless of her membership of NCCL. It would be completely out of character. I also accept her insistance that she and her husband joined NCCL after PIE affiliated itself to it, and were instrumental in arguing for their removal at the time. Considering the raft of anti-paedophile policies that came in under New Labour, I cannot accept PIE had any favoured influence over either Harriet Harman or Patricia Hewitt. I do even suspect that these two might have been instrumental in deciding that homosexuality was acceptable and paedophilia was not.
As for Savile, most of what he did was before their time, and he had much more influence over Margaret Thatcher than he had over anyone that succeeded her. Is the Mail is suggesting that Harridan regularly entertained PIE campaigners for Christmas dinner? If they want to rake up historic muck, then what about Savile and Thatcher's relationship?
The Mail article is one of a series of fairly crude smears against senior Labour politicians. I remember an old story about Ed Miliband's father that did the rounds last year. They are very probably orchestrated by someone in Conservative Central Office, and is certainly in character with a shady special adviser, who seem to be setting how we are to be governed, rather than anyone elected by the public.
I find all this rather irritating, especially since other quite important Parliamentary activities, such as the proposed closure of good hospitals such as Lewisham General in order to fund corrupt PFI contracts is being completely unreported except by 38 Degrees. This particular policy, started by Major, continued by Blair and Brown and on into the Coalition seems to be unrelated to who is actually elected to govern, and confirms in my mind that British democracy has been perverted. Is this not a rather more important news story than some taboo organisation that was wound up more than thirty years ago?
There are plenty other unmandated and deeply damaging things being pushed through Parliament that we are simply not being told about. Instead, we get day after day of this sort of rubbish, such as the PIE / NCCL non-story.
I expect this sort of behaviour from the Mail, but not from the BBC. Criticising Harman for refusing to admit to any involvement with PIE in the 1970s, to the extent that she appears to be judged by our national broadcaster to be guilty of denial, is far more serious.
I would not be surprised if the BBC be taken to court by Harman for what they suggested today, let alone the Mail. I think she and the Labour Party are showing astonishing restraint - probably because after the Gagging Act has now been passed, they know the electorate must now get most of its information from organisations such as the BBC and the Daily Mail.