28th May 2008
The BBC2 Programme 'Filth' tonight portrayed Sir Hugh Carleton Greene as a foul-mouthed libertine while trying to send up the late Mary Whitehouse.
Even the music was designed to ridiculed Mrs Whitehouse, but it was Sir Hugh who came off worst, with his character swearing, blaspheming, and belittling his employees and his family while descending into something approaching madness before resigning in the face of the curbs introduce by Lord Hill.
Stephen Green said today:
'Mary Whitehouse was a pioneer of Christian activism, paving the way first for the Festival of Light and then for today's pro-life and pro-family movement. Although she failed to stem the tide of filth on television in the long term, Mrs Whitehouse stood up for what she believed, and achieved significant victories along the way.
'There were behind the scenes triumphs as well. With Charles Oxley, Mary Whitehouse helped expose the Paedophile Information Exchange. That did not feature in the programme.
'Neither did Mary Whitehouse's successful prosecution of Gay News, although there was a reference to it as the final credits rolled.
'Congratulations to Alun Armstrong, who played the part of Ernest Whitehouse with strength and sensitivity.
'Television bears a responsibility for the way it normalised corruption and helped desensitise society to a secularist agenda in the 1960's. There is a sense in which the victims of crime of twenty-first century Britain should hold Sir High at least partly responsible for the coarsening of society which has led to a culture of death forty years later. As we sow, so shall we reap. Or, what goes around, comes around.'
ENDS
