When law enforcement goes wrong, one thing is straightforward: we soon find out, given the presence of uniformed services and their command structure, who is responsible. So a scapegoat is not difficult to find. But sometimes the scapegoat is a little too obvious. And after last night’s disproportionate reaction from the Metropolitan Police to a peaceful vigil held on Clapham Common in south London, there is a very obvious scapegoat indeed.
Set expression to Smirk-O-Matic
What happened can be described directly: Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old marketing executive, was walking back to her home in Brixton Hill on the evening of March 3. Her route was well-lit and traversed by lots of traffic - and other pedestrians. She did not arrive home. Her body was later found in woodland at Great Chart, near Ashford, Kent. A serving Met officer, Wayne Cousins, has since been charged with her kidnap and murder.
A group called Reclaim These Streets wanted to hold a vigil on Clapham Common, but talks with the Met broke down and it was called off. But many women went anyway. There were a lot of people in a relatively small area, but that was also true of the scenes in Glasgow after Rangers FC clinched the Scottish Premiership.
The difference with the Clapham Common vigil was that this was a peaceful act by women, and the Met decided to break it up by use of predominantly male force, the excuse advanced being the potential spread of Covid-19. But many outdoor gatherings have taken place in the past year without causing a spike in Covid-19 infections.
It is no exaggeration to say that the outcome was a truly harrowing one - and especially for women everywhere. Overnight, our free and fearless press has clearly been taking briefing from those serving alleged Prime Minister Alexander Boris de Pfeffel Johnson (himself no stranger to
the occasional domestic), with the result that Met Commissioner Cressida Dick has been made a scapegoat, London Mayor Sadiq Khan being included for good measure.
Cressida Dick
But not only does Khan have no responsibility for directing the Met, Commissioner Dick is not the one with whom the buck ultimately stops: that responsibility rests with Priti Patel, inexplicably made Home Secretary by Bozo and his pals. It is Ms Patel who will come to the Commons tomorrow brandishing a proposed Bill which will clamp down on the freedom to protest. How convenient it would be to have the media Look Over There. Even over there to Khan, with whom Ms Patel has an uneasy relationship.
Appearing on
The Andy Marr Show™, Labour’s Jess Phillips
said the cops “
got it wrong at every single turn … There are a million ways that could have been organised, but the police put their foot down before they put their boot in and at every stage they made the wrong call”. Khan “
said the scenes were ‘unacceptable’ and that he was ‘urgently seeking an explanation’ from the commissioner”. And what of Ms Patel?
Is it my fault already?
She sent her junior Victoria Atkins out to face the Marr Show grilling, and merely “
called footage on social media ‘upsetting’ and said she had asked the Metropolitan Police for a ‘full report on what happened’”. But the Sunday editions of the
Times and
Telegraph - both reliable conduits for Tory briefers - are both suggesting Ms Dick should walk the plank.
Meanwhile, the minister with ultimate responsibility for the Met, and whose Bill will bring more of those forceful crackdowns, gets away scot free.
A convenient scapegoat, indeed.
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18 comments:
Ugli Patel.
A rictus-smirking tory gett. Rotten to the core.
Dear Zelo ,
No doubt this Govt. of idiots have the potential to create a ‘full Myanmar’ , as an interim let then sack their civil service scapegoat Cressida Dick and appoint someone else , who if they’ve any sense of self-preservation will be more loathe to follow some of the more extreme measures proposed to them . Watch this space , traditionally English governments ran scared of the ‘London Mob’ , interesting times ahead ,
Derek
Victoria Atkins is also reported as saying that the Home Office is taking what happened on Clapham Common "very seriously".
So that's all right then.
Operational decisiona by the Met are not Priti Vacant's responsibility. Nor are they Sadiq Khan's (which is why Shaun Bailey's attempts to point the blame that way were laughed out of sight). Ultimately, operational matters are the responsibility of the Commissioner. Bear in mind who the Commissioner is, and her part in the murder of Jean-Charles de Menezes in 2005, and it should be clear to the people of London that they need - as it were - to get their Dick out.
Given that Vacant will bring to parliament tomorrow a bill which will kill off non-violent protest and hand even more powers to dysfunctional forces such as the Met, and that Sheer Stumer is likely to order yet another NewNewLabour 'principled abstention' to effectively put it through on the nod; and keeping in mind that Stumer was the DPP who refused point-blank to prosecute the murderers of de Menezes; his wiffling on about how dreadful the Met were on Saturday ring as hollow as the large-diameter pipes down which the millionaires' dosh is now flowing to the Labour Party now that it has dropped any remaining progressive principles.
It may be that taking to the streets will be the only way we can defend our right to take to the streets.
SARAH VINE: How wrong for Sarah Everard's death to be hijacked by men-haters ... No comments allowed ... I rather think this fat disgusting nasty frog-fucking ugly old Trollope is the one doing the hijacking ... but that’s just me of course ....
Previous posts had led me to believe that Zelo Street was not in favour of large gatherings and the breaking of lockdown rules.
President fatbolloks keeping a very low profile on this one, obviously not wanting to fuck up spend this evening in Dylan’s basket while the dog helps ever righteous Carrie in To pick the correct shade of purple flock for the downstairs loo.
Anon @13:34
Sarah Vine of the Daily Mail is not related to the Trollope family. There is another Sarah Vine who is a QC and is connected with The Chambers of Andrew Trollope QC and Richard Christie QC.
David @13:34
Previous posts on Zelo Street lead me to believe that Tim is not in favour of strong-arm tactics being used by police at peaceful demos.
"Labour to oppose bill giving police more powers to crack down on protest"s
"Announcement comes amid anger over how officers handled London vigil for Sarah Everard"
- The Guardian. Sun 14 Mar 2021 13.38 GM
So the police reclaimed the streets from women reclaiming the streets.
Just think.....there are still a lot of people who fool themselves Britain didn't turn down the road to fascism years ago. Which is why this latest horror is unsurprising.
Dystopia is here and now. But zombies don't even notice.
Was downright disturbed in the newsagents this morning. Somehow the media had managed to turn a vigil against the most repulsive of male violence into a PR coup for the lovely Princess Kate.
Noticed online that no comments were allowed on the DM's article about the event last night, but comments were allowed on their Kate coverage and they all mentioned how lovely and amazing she is.
This is North Korea-level shit and it's not fucking funny.
So the government of Boris in the space of just over a year has...
- Fucked up the Coronavirus fight and given us the worst death rate in Europe.
- Fucked up the economy due to their viral ineptitude. A decline in performance not seen for several centuries.
- blew billions on nonsense to enrich their mates while people die.
- fucked up Brexit whilst tanking international trade thus dragging out the downturn.
- infested the BBC with Tory placemen.
- said nothing about their Tory chums running herd immunity-style campaigns in their newspapers thus making everything worse and more dragged out.
- are allowing new Fox News-style propaganda channels.
- reward burned out NHS staff with an insulting 1% rise.
- had to be shamed into feeding kids during a pandemic by a footballer.
- attacked women at a vigil with the fuzz.
- have so far had zero resignations.
- currently polling at near record levels.
WHAT IS GOING ON!?!?
By the way, noticed some independent media type person talking to the red-haired lady from last night after she was released from custody. She was a really good speaker and am sitting there thinking 'Hang on, young, well-spoken, intelligent woman who was in the middle of a catastrophic policing debacle and yet she's talking on someone's Twitter channel and not the BBC/ITV or any other mainstream media.'
We're in a dark place.
Trollop
Dear Anonymous at 18:04 ,
Absolutely right ! My largely temperamental wish is that it means so many people feel so little connection with the current ‘stated’ situation that they have ‘disengaged’ almost entirely . The local elections due in May could be significant . If as I see hinted at , the results show widespread apathy , it may be yet that a Left Wing agenda forces it’s way through the miasma of fascism and collusive Blairism , still I’ve been waiting for nearly fifty years for people to ‘twig’ about neo Liberalism , neo Colonialism , and the establishment state . Who knows I might live to see it !
Derek
@18:04
Don't forget that 'Snooper's charter' surveillance tests are underway. If you think it is only to protect us from criminals and terrorists, then you think wrong. Everything you browse can be used to profile you and be used against you. The government can use it to blackmail you. The government can use it to blacklist you. Don't matter which side of the political spectrum you belong. No one is safe.
We are now living in a Stasi State.
I'm one of millions of decent Scots who are totally disgusted by the shit that went down in Glasgow last week. A couple of thousand right-wing single-digit IQ bigots pissing on and obliterating war memorials and singing vile sectarian shite while the police did nothing to stop them and even joined in the celebrations is light years behind what Scotland is. Looks bad for the SNP and any hope for independence, though. Precisely what the Tories want.
And I'm one of millions of decent UK citizens who are totally disgusted by the fact that an organised, socially distanced vigil held by peaceful women in honour of a bright young woman who was brutally murdered, was handled so horribly by an authoritarian police hit squad. The hateful, misogynist, brainwashed gammonati will be overjoyed, though, and the much sought after ending of 'woke' peaceful protests will bring us one step closer to basic slavery. Win x3 for the Tories.
And the whole lot of it stage-managed, in my justifiably paranoid opinion.
A dark place indeed.
Update: the media finally got round to interviewing the arrested woman, who is called Patsy.
Had a quick look on social sites to what people think and... in the space of a few hours she's receiving the combined hatred of Meghan and Greta Thunberg. The usual types are losing their minds, how dare this person protest! She's a crisis actor, a lefty plant, blah blah blah.
Lots of support from normal people but holy shit, the way social media can be pivoted to make anyone into a hate figure is straight out of 1984.
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