The nation has got itself in a right lather over Mr Saville, an odiously, evil little man by all accounts. Abusing physically and mentally disabled children ought to be beyond anyone’s moral boundaries no matter how libertarian they claim to be. But the more they delve into Saville’s past, the more the spotlight shines on Britain’s hidden culture, a culture of rampant child abuse, of hypocritical moral standards, and of a culture of deeply ingrained misogyny and exploitation. I’ve quoted elsewhere, I think, Marx’s famous adage that the level of any civilisation can best be judged by how it treats its women. If this is true, then global society, east and west, north and south, is damned both in the past and in the present.

For everywhere you look women are either treated as economic slaves and second class citizens, or mere sexual objects to be bought and sold in the market place. Even if there has been an element of consensual agreement about women’s objectification there is no doubting that such objectification is a result of a long standing patriarchy that has been grafted onto capitalist culture in the never-ending pursuit of profit. Capitalism itself could be argued is neither racist nor sexist but it has been relentless in exploiting these ancient prejudices in its carefully constructed strategy of divide and rule.

We in the ‘civilised’ west are quick to point to the barbaric practises of the Taliban and their ilk in their feudal repression of women. But when the spotlight is shone closer to home it is an equally unedifying picture. Hundreds of thousands of women trafficked each year across Europe and the America’s for the ever expanding global sex industry, an industry that seeks to rival the arms and drugs industries in its size, brutality and profitability. How can human trafficking occur in such gigantic numbers, across so many countries, without high officialdom being complicit all along the way? How can illegal brothels, where women are brutally kept as sex slaves, operate in developed western nations, without the connivance of police forces and government officials? And how can the international pornography trade carry out its highly exploitative business without tacit approval from our moral guardians?

The answer to all these questions lies in our misogynistic hypocrisies. On the one hand we love to fantasise about our moral righteousness and religious wholesomeness, but on the other hand we tolerate, condone or simply ignore the institutionalised exploitation and abuse of women and children that surrounds us. The Jimmy Saville saga is just but one graphic example. But Saville is just the tip of an iceberg. Take for example our beloved tabloid press. On one page there will be a hand-wringing account of a cruel rape or a vile story of child abuse, and on the very next page, a provocative and exploitative picture/ story of a naked young model or a sex obsessed celebrity . So common has this become that we have become immune and desensitised to the absurdity of this daily pornographic journalism.

Don’t be a prude say our tabloid owners it’s just a bit of harmless fun. But when a generation of young men, brought up on this toxic daily fare, casually slip from fantasy to brutal misogynistic reality, our corporate guardians unleash a fake moral storm of indignation. And a generation of young women too are indoctrinated into believing that they must comply with their own demeaning objectification. But it’s not about the sex, of which I’m enlightened enough to believe is a healthy and enjoyable part of our human condition, between of course, consenting adults. No, it’s not about the sex at all, it’s all about the profit margins, both in the criminal underworld and the legalised corporate world. Two worlds incidentally, that are much more intertwined than we care to admit.

The inquiries into Saville, the BBC and the other culpable institutions will come and go but the pornographers, the people traffickers, the sex industry mafias and the media barons will remain untouched, free to carry on their nefarious trade aided and abetted by people in very high places. Remember that two high flying pornographers recently bought West Ham Football Club and they very soon will be likely to be handed the keys to the Olympic Stadium. Now that’s what I call a real East End sporting legacy. If Jimmy Saville were still alive they would probably draft him in to launch the new sporting era. Maybe John Terry will be brought in instead to give a little speech about racial harmony.