The Jimmy Savile witch-hunt sets us on a path to paranoia | Simon Jenkins

In our rush to apportion blame for the actions of an individual, we risk becoming blind to the real issues of the day

Is Jimmy Savile and the BBC the biggest story on Earth? Apparently so. Today the British media placed it above Romney versus Obama, above the implosion of Lebanon and above the birth of the world's largest oil company. Savile was bigger than killer drones in Lincolnshire, bigger than Cameron's prison policy, bigger than the sensational Birmingham terrorism trial. The mere "stan...