I can't figure out if Johnson is more weirdly obsessed with Cummings than Cummings is with Johnson,or vice versa. They're like a couple that have gone through an ugly divorce. Still, they'll always have Brexit to remind them of happier times.
The reality is Cummings was ditched for Carrie Johnson (in a political adviser sense, she is a former Director of Communications for the Tory Party.)
Ironically, it is one of the few occasions where Boris Johnson has been loyal to any of his wives.
I guess Carrie could give him things that Dom couldn't. No wonder Dom acts so wounded. The whole tone of Johnson's "defence" is so whiny though, as you noted. It'd be funny if it wasn't all so cheap and demeaning to the office of prime minister, and by extension to us as a country.
But Boris never grew into the role of being PM. He remained Prince Hal, never grew up to become Henry V. Dicked around with Falstaff, demeaning the office.
He never had his "I know thee not, old man...." moment to distance himself from his past.
History will say of Boris "How ill white hairs become a fool and jester."
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Yeah, but no. It's about condemning the way that more effort goes into performative gestures, rather than into actually disciplining officers who are racist, or misogynistic bullies.
It's also about condemning the way that virtue-signalling can become an excuse for ignoring serious crime, eg treating electoral intimidation or child-grooming as "cultural matters".
But so long as the Yeah is bigger than the No. This is my point.
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
Kinnock’s main problem was that by 1987 a lot of people felt that the UK was heading in the right direction and could also clearly remember when it wasn’t. By 1992, things weren’t so great but the Tories did still have some credit in the bank and Kinnock was too associated with an old school Labour that a lot of voters felt was too much of a risk to back.
Why I am less convinced about 1992 parallels than many others is that even in that election the Tories had serious, discernible, palpable achievements to talk about. The country was in a better place than it had been in 1979. I just don’t see that similar narrative for the next election.
Put it this way, in 1992, did voters feel they were better off and living in a more successful UK than the one they had in 1979? Pretty much, yes. Ask the same questions about 2010 and 2024, and I doubt enough people will be equally as positive.
At the next election, the main Tory argument will essentially be: “It could be even worse if we aren’t in charge.” The Labour one will be: “It should be so much better than the way it is. Fundamentally, Labour will be right.
The challenge is that there are 650 individual elections. To get from where the party is now to a majority means winning in over 120 more of these than in 2019. And that means everything falling right in terms of vote distribution and turnout in very different parts of the country. It’s a very tough ask.
Much more likely, IMO, are big swings in places like Wales and the North West, alongside much lower swings in the East and North Midlands and the Black Country. That’s why I think Labour most seats but no majority is most likely. Scotland becoming a proper battleground may change that, though.
I agree with your overall assessment of where we'll end up - Labour (comfortably) largest party, but NOM - but think there are other elements of both 1992 and 1997 in play.
1992 The Tories have ditched an unpopular leader (Truss) and have a "fresh face" who has ditched an unpopular policy (Poll Tax then, never ending Brexit wars now). Labour have a new(ish) leader who has seen off the horror show from the Left. I think the campaign will show Sunak in a better light than Starmer and who doesn't love the plucky underdog fighting against the odds? Readers too young to remember 1992 may not know that the received wisdom then was where we are now - Labour heading for victory, if not majority. Major's campaign played a big role in swinging things. Anyone underestimating the importance of the campaign should ask Mrs May what she thinks....
1997 The Tories look tired and distracted by infighting - while we're yet to reach quite the nadir of '92-97, give them time. While "having grown ups in charge" is nice, it should be a given. Starmer isn't Blair (few politician are, for better and worse), so it will be interesting to see who, if any, he brings forward to boost the charisma/charm quotient.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
I agree with the earloer quote about woke being one of the reasons the police has lost its way - but lost its way in a not-actually-solving-crimes sense. I don't think woke has made it more racist and misogynist. Just not evidently less racist and misogynist.
Woke is just blamed by anyone who doesn't like things. I read a BTL comment on FB under a picture of a castle - by some baby boomer male - complaining that he used to play in historical ruins as a child, climbing all over the walls, until "the woke brigade turned up".
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Yeah, but no. It's about condemning the way that more effort goes into performative gestures, rather than into actually disciplining officers who are racist, or misogynistic bullies.
It's also about condemning the way that virtue-signalling can become an excuse for ignoring serious crime, eg treating electoral intimidation or child-grooming as "cultural matters".
But so long as the Yeah is bigger than the No. This is my point.
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
It's become a shield - "Look at all the officers with rainbow face paint at Gay Pride!"
I can't figure out if Johnson is more weirdly obsessed with Cummings than Cummings is with Johnson,or vice versa. They're like a couple that have gone through an ugly divorce. Still, they'll always have Brexit to remind them of happier times.
The reality is Cummings was ditched for Carrie Johnson (in a political adviser sense, she is a former Director of Communications for the Tory Party.)
Ironically, it is one of the few occasions where Boris Johnson has been loyal to any of his wives.
I guess Carrie could give him things that Dom couldn't. No wonder Dom acts so wounded. The whole tone of Johnson's "defence" is so whiny though, as you noted. It'd be funny if it wasn't all so cheap and demeaning to the office of prime minister, and by extension to us as a country.
But Boris never grew into the role of being PM. He remained Prince Hal, never grew up to become Henry V. Dicked around with Falstaff, demeaning the office.
He never had his "I know thee not, old man...." moment to distance himself from his past.
History will say of Boris "How ill white hairs become a fool and jester."
Or the problem is the opposite actually.
I think Boris being Boris and not Prime Minister would have been quite sceptical about the notion of lockdown. Especially later on when we were still locked down despite the vulnerable being vaccinated.
Boris on the backbenches pre-PM I suspect would have been more tempted by the ultimately far superior Swedish model of giving people advice but letting them choose for themselves, rather than the draconian restrictions imposed under Lockdown.
The problem is he went native as PM and agreed to the authoritarian suggestions pushed rather than rejecting them. That then led ultimately to his demise, as well as being the wrong thing for the country, and was a karmic kind of justice.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Yeah, but no. It's about condemning the way that more effort goes into performative gestures, rather than into actually disciplining officers who are racist, or misogynistic bullies.
It's also about condemning the way that virtue-signalling can become an excuse for ignoring serious crime, eg treating electoral intimidation or child-grooming as "cultural matters".
But so long as the Yeah is bigger than the No. This is my point.
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
That's like saying that too much financial box ticking isn't one of the main causes of poor regulation, when it was.
When box-ticking replaces sound judgement, then you allow fraudsters/racists to get away with it by ticking the "I will not embezzle/discriminate" box and then you don't take the serious action needed for proper reform.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
No. I mean that they think the performative bullshit = proof there is no problem.
So they think they don't need to anything about the racism, homophobia etc.
Bit like the banks obsessing whether 99% of staff has clicked through the exams on Not Being A Criminal.
They are probably less racist than, say, in the 1960s. Simply because society as a whole has got less racist.
It's a perfectly reasonable observation but only by way of an aside. There's no way that a major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynist is that their people are always being told not to be racist and misogynist. It might be a factor but if it is it's a pretty marginal one. So let's not get too involved with it, is my point. Let's not make it central to the debate. Leave that to the likes of the Daily Mail.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Yeah, but no. It's about condemning the way that more effort goes into performative gestures, rather than into actually disciplining officers who are racist, or misogynistic bullies.
It's also about condemning the way that virtue-signalling can become an excuse for ignoring serious crime, eg treating electoral intimidation or child-grooming as "cultural matters".
But so long as the Yeah is bigger than the No. This is my point.
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
That's like saying that too much financial box ticking isn't one of the main causes of poor regulation, when it was.
When box-ticking replaces sound judgement, then you allow fraudsters/racists to get away with it by ticking the "I will not embezzle/discriminate" box and then you don't take the serious action needed for proper reform.
Indeed.
You only have to look at the first excuse that comes up - "All our staff have completed training on Not Being Criminals..."
EDIT: Way back I worked, in the banks, with a Russian who'd lived through the end of Soviet times. When we did the seminars/classes on the various things, he commented on the performative nature of the training. He also noted the way I would parrot the correct answers, and suggested I would have made a fine Political Officer's pet.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
I agree with the earloer quote about woke being one of the reasons the police has lost its way - but lost its way in a not-actually-solving-crimes sense. I don't think woke has made it more racist and misogynist. Just not evidently less racist and misogynist.
Woke is just blamed by anyone who doesn't like things. I read a BTL comment on FB under a picture of a castle - by some baby boomer male - complaining that he used to play in historical ruins as a child, climbing all over the walls, until "the woke brigade turned up".
Many of those complaining about the woke brigade are, ironically, themselves members of said brigade. They will be the first ones to complain and sue if their kids should fall off one of the walls and hurt themselves.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
No. I mean that they think the performative bullshit = proof there is no problem.
So they think they don't need to anything about the racism, homophobia etc.
Bit like the banks obsessing whether 99% of staff has clicked through the exams on Not Being A Criminal.
They are probably less racist than, say, in the 1960s. Simply because society as a whole has got less racist.
It's a perfectly reasonable observation but only by way of an aside. There's no way that a major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynist is that their people are always being told not to be racist and misogynist. It might be a factor but if it is it's a pretty marginal one. So let's not get too involved with it, is my point. Let's not make it central to the debate. Leave that to the likes of the Daily Mail.
A major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynistic is that the difficult decisions needed to tackle racism and misogyny (like disciplining or terminating officers who are racist and misogynistic) is declined in favour of gesturism. Gestures have an Opportunity Cost of the actions not taken because they were taken instead of them, rather than as well as them.
If you're serious about wanting reform, which I am, then you need to be thinking "no more gestures, what are you actually going to do about it"?
I see Boris has in the very first paragraph of his committee submission about misleading the house, decides to be misleading. It opens by saying he takes full responsibility for what happened on his watch even though he has nudged and winked on that front in his recent statements about Grey. He has at least been smarter than his key supporters and not to my knowledge outright claimed it was all phoney, so once again he treads the line.
I do enjoy him referring to the 'discredited Dominic Cummings'.
He seems to be suggesting that it cannot have been obvious rules were broken because others were there and also did not think it obvious. I dont really follow how 'others were big idiots too' is the defence he thinks it is.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
I see Boris is using the 'I was ambushed by a cake' defence and in fairness he and Rishi, on the face of it, do have a pretty reasonable defence for this one. It's all the other stuff Boris that matters in particular all the misleading of Parliament and saying you believed everything you said. That just makes you look like either a liar or a fool. Guess he is hoping they believe he was a fool.
I can't figure out if Johnson is more weirdly obsessed with Cummings than Cummings is with Johnson,or vice versa. They're like a couple that have gone through an ugly divorce. Still, they'll always have Brexit to remind them of happier times.
The reality is Cummings was ditched for Carrie Johnson (in a political adviser sense, she is a former Director of Communications for the Tory Party.)
Ironically, it is one of the few occasions where Boris Johnson has been loyal to any of his wives.
I guess Carrie could give him things that Dom couldn't. No wonder Dom acts so wounded. The whole tone of Johnson's "defence" is so whiny though, as you noted. It'd be funny if it wasn't all so cheap and demeaning to the office of prime minister, and by extension to us as a country.
But Boris never grew into the role of being PM. He remained Prince Hal, never grew up to become Henry V. Dicked around with Falstaff, demeaning the office.
He never had his "I know thee not, old man...." moment to distance himself from his past.
History will say of Boris "How ill white hairs become a fool and jester."
Or the problem is the opposite actually.
I think Boris being Boris and not Prime Minister would have been quite sceptical about the notion of lockdown. Especially later on when we were still locked down despite the vulnerable being vaccinated.
Boris on the backbenches pre-PM I suspect would have been more tempted by the ultimately far superior Swedish model of giving people advice but letting them choose for themselves, rather than the draconian restrictions imposed under Lockdown.
The problem is he went native as PM and agreed to the authoritarian suggestions pushed rather than rejecting them. That then led ultimately to his demise, as well as being the wrong thing for the country, and was a karmic kind of justice.
"the ultimately far superior Swedish model" is still up for debate. Hindsight may have been very kind to Sweden. It certainly didn't look like it at the time, especially when compared with Norway.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
I agree with the earloer quote about woke being one of the reasons the police has lost its way - but lost its way in a not-actually-solving-crimes sense. I don't think woke has made it more racist and misogynist. Just not evidently less racist and misogynist.
Woke is just blamed by anyone who doesn't like things. I read a BTL comment on FB under a picture of a castle - by some baby boomer male - complaining that he used to play in historical ruins as a child, climbing all over the walls, until "the woke brigade turned up".
Many of those complaining about the woke brigade are, ironically, themselves members of said brigade. They will be the first ones to complain and sue if their kids should fall off one of the walls and hurt themselves.
I have a notion that there was a legal change at some point - possibly HASAWA 1974 - which made any accidents to children the direct responsibility of the site manager, because children couldn't be deemed to be responsible etc. But how that fits in with having mummy and daddy with them?.
I see Boris is using the 'I was ambushed by a cake' defence and in fairness he and Rishi, on the face of it, do have a pretty reasonable defence for this one. It's all the other stuff Boris that matters in particular all the misleading of Parliament and saying you believed everything you said. That just makes you look like either a liar or a fool. Guess he is hoping they believe he was a fool.
Don't get sidetracked by Johnson's smoke and mirrors.
He was PM. He held regular - often daily - press conferences on Covid measures. He did not need anyone to tell him what the rules were.
Cummings and Johnson both regard rules as 'for other people'.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
I can't figure out if Johnson is more weirdly obsessed with Cummings than Cummings is with Johnson,or vice versa. They're like a couple that have gone through an ugly divorce. Still, they'll always have Brexit to remind them of happier times.
The reality is Cummings was ditched for Carrie Johnson (in a political adviser sense, she is a former Director of Communications for the Tory Party.)
Ironically, it is one of the few occasions where Boris Johnson has been loyal to any of his wives.
I guess Carrie could give him things that Dom couldn't. No wonder Dom acts so wounded. The whole tone of Johnson's "defence" is so whiny though, as you noted. It'd be funny if it wasn't all so cheap and demeaning to the office of prime minister, and by extension to us as a country.
"Don't forget me," I beg. I remember you said "Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"
I see Boris is using the 'I was ambushed by a cake' defence and in fairness he and Rishi, on the face of it, do have a pretty reasonable defence for this one. It's all the other stuff Boris that matters in particular all the misleading of Parliament and saying you believed everything you said. That just makes you look like either a liar or a fool. Guess he is hoping they believe he was a fool.
Don't get sidetracked by Johnson's smoke and mirrors.
He was PM. He held regular - often daily - press conferences on Covid measures. He did not need anyone to tell him what the rules were.
Cummings and Johnson both regard rules as 'for other people'.
The fact of the matter is that he was the political leader of the country in a time of crisis and it was his duty and responsibility to lead by example.
Ken Marsh, chairman of the Police Federation, said: “I think it is a bit disingenuous to say there could be another David Carrick or Wayne Couzens in the Met police.
“I don’t think we will see another person like that in the police.”
He added: “We absolutely accept the findings but we have to be a little bit careful here. Are we saying every Met police officer is racist and homophobic? That is quite dangerous.
Lovely example of a false argument here in bold. The report of course says no such thing about every officer. So 'report is dangerous' is brought into play with no foundation.
The report describes the Met as institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic. It is a short step from there to every police officer. Whatever Casey's intended meaning, we know from the Macpherson Report into the Stephen Lawrence murder that the extended inference is easily drawn, and also that it can mask corruption.
I see Boris is using the 'I was ambushed by a cake' defence and in fairness he and Rishi, on the face of it, do have a pretty reasonable defence for this one. It's all the other stuff Boris that matters in particular all the misleading of Parliament and saying you believed everything you said. That just makes you look like either a liar or a fool. Guess he is hoping they believe he was a fool.
Having read all 52 pages (not 500, as we were told yesterday) I think his evidence can fairly be summarised as:
(a) you're only supposed to be investigating breaches of the rules not the guidance (b) only one event was deemed by the police to be a breach of the rules (c) even this was a dubious decision - I didn't think at the time it broke the rules and I still don't understand why police said it did (d) any other event automatically wasn't a breach of the rules because it fell below the (dubious) standards they were using (e) if I thought I was breaking the rules why would I have had official photos taken (f) why on earth are you believing Dominic Cummings now, you never took his word as gospel when he still worked for me.
All of which are decent points, but it won't matter. The committee - and, more importantly, the public - has made its mind up already. It looked bad, and that's all that matters.
Standard stuff from Boris' stuff so far - basically if the committee did not agree with his previous legal opinion that means they have ignored evidence, and reliance on very rigid interpretations of specific words like regulations and guidance. It can work, sometimes reasonably - those are different things - but is a very common over analytical reliance on matters which are often judgement calls.
He repeats about working tirelessly several times. Probably a counter to people who call him lazy.
I actually would have been with No 10 being exempt from general social distance guidance at the time, but they didn't do that.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
No. I mean that they think the performative bullshit = proof there is no problem.
So they think they don't need to anything about the racism, homophobia etc.
Bit like the banks obsessing whether 99% of staff has clicked through the exams on Not Being A Criminal.
They are probably less racist than, say, in the 1960s. Simply because society as a whole has got less racist.
It's a perfectly reasonable observation but only by way of an aside. There's no way that a major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynist is that their people are always being told not to be racist and misogynist. It might be a factor but if it is it's a pretty marginal one. So let's not get too involved with it, is my point. Let's not make it central to the debate. Leave that to the likes of the Daily Mail.
I think the point is that the Met seems to be unwilling to admit to the scale of the problem. The excuses they use, whether it's "just a few bad apples" or "we are already carrying out diversity training", aren't really relevant. First they need to recognise the scale of the problem. If the leadership is unwilling to do this then they need to be replaced with leadership that is willing.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
I see Boris is using the 'I was ambushed by a cake' defence and in fairness he and Rishi, on the face of it, do have a pretty reasonable defence for this one. It's all the other stuff Boris that matters in particular all the misleading of Parliament and saying you believed everything you said. That just makes you look like either a liar or a fool. Guess he is hoping they believe he was a fool.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
A lunchbox? The cops taking punishment of rapists into their own hands?
{J.J. LaRoche has entered the chat, looking for the contents of his safe}
I was disappointed when Red John turned out not to be Prescott.
The only thing about the resolution of the Red John plot line done right was Bertram instantly changing from Affable Politician to Affable Scenery Chewing Villain in an eye blink.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
I am reading Boris Johnson’s response to the Partygate inquiry: https://committees.parliament.uk/writtenevidence/119498/default/ It’s not a good look when your defence is not, “I’m innocent,” but rather, “There’s this loophole, so I didn’t do the specific thing you want to get me for.” That does work in a court of law (if you’re right about the loopholes), but this isn’t a court of law.
Other parts are pure whataboutery and sophistry. You don’t read this and think Johnson is contrite or really cares about anything other than himself. I realise that will not come as a surprise to most.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
No. I mean that they think the performative bullshit = proof there is no problem.
So they think they don't need to anything about the racism, homophobia etc.
Bit like the banks obsessing whether 99% of staff has clicked through the exams on Not Being A Criminal.
They are probably less racist than, say, in the 1960s. Simply because society as a whole has got less racist.
It's a perfectly reasonable observation but only by way of an aside. There's no way that a major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynist is that their people are always being told not to be racist and misogynist. It might be a factor but if it is it's a pretty marginal one. So let's not get too involved with it, is my point. Let's not make it central to the debate. Leave that to the likes of the Daily Mail.
A major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynistic is that the difficult decisions needed to tackle racism and misogyny (like disciplining or terminating officers who are racist and misogynistic) is declined in favour of gesturism. Gestures have an Opportunity Cost of the actions not taken because they were taken instead of them, rather than as well as them.
If you're serious about wanting reform, which I am, then you need to be thinking "no more gestures, what are you actually going to do about it"?
Analogies with banking and financial services are indeed excellent. Every financial services institution has reams of ethical policies and training on ethics for staff, and yet, the same types of unethical conduct come up time and time again.
It's all a case of "the louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons."
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
The detection rate for rape is now so low in London that “you may as well say it is legal”, one Met officer told a landmark review.
The damning report by the crossbench peer Baroness Casey found examples of bad practice in the way sexual cases were handled including freezers holding vital forensic evidence being too crammed to close and even breaking down.
A lunchbox was found in the same fridge that rape samples were being kept in which would have contaminated the evidence, the review was told.
I see Boris is using the 'I was ambushed by a cake' defence and in fairness he and Rishi, on the face of it, do have a pretty reasonable defence for this one. It's all the other stuff Boris that matters in particular all the misleading of Parliament and saying you believed everything you said. That just makes you look like either a liar or a fool. Guess he is hoping they believe he was a fool.
Having read all 52 pages (not 500, as we were told yesterday) I think his evidence can fairly be summarised as:
(a) you're only supposed to be investigating breaches of the rules not the guidance (b) only one event was deemed by the police to be a breach of the rules (c) even this was a dubious decision - I didn't think at the time it broke the rules and I still don't understand why police said it did (d) any other event automatically wasn't a breach of the rules because it fell below the (dubious) standards they were using (e) if I thought I was breaking the rules why would I have had official photos taken (f) why on earth are you believing Dominic Cummings now, you never took his word as gospel when he still worked for me.
All of which are decent points, but it won't matter. The committee - and, more importantly, the public - has made its mind up already. It looked bad, and that's all that matters.
B is a decently made point, one of the strongest, but he undermines it by C. It shows despite his other words he doesn't think he did anything wrong so his apologies are not worth anything. Therefore his claims about other events are suspect since he is rejecting even the things he claims to accept.
E is almost a non sequitur. Its basically a plea to ignore the evidence on the basis how could he have been stupid enough to allow official photos.
There's also a lot of assertions that if he believed x as against the rules he would have stopped them. He did not therefore he did bit believe x. Its very circular and in some cases plausible but not for others- his permitting or not is not definitive.
Bit of a stretch here. They are assuming all guests in certain categories are left or right. Everyone off Talk TV is right wing because Talk TV is right wing, for example.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Part of the problem with the Met is that they they think the performative stuff is "job jobbed". That box ticked. Etc.
"We've done all our diversity courses, and passed. What else do you want?"
Of all the causes of their prejudice against women and minorities it's a bit odd to alight on this as one to home in on. It's unlikely to be a material factor imo. I mean, were they less racist and misogynistic back in the old days when 'diversity' meant recruiting a few northerners?
No. I mean that they think the performative bullshit = proof there is no problem.
So they think they don't need to anything about the racism, homophobia etc.
Bit like the banks obsessing whether 99% of staff has clicked through the exams on Not Being A Criminal.
They are probably less racist than, say, in the 1960s. Simply because society as a whole has got less racist.
It's a perfectly reasonable observation but only by way of an aside. There's no way that a major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynist is that their people are always being told not to be racist and misogynist. It might be a factor but if it is it's a pretty marginal one. So let's not get too involved with it, is my point. Let's not make it central to the debate. Leave that to the likes of the Daily Mail.
A major root cause of the Met being racist and misogynistic is that the difficult decisions needed to tackle racism and misogyny (like disciplining or terminating officers who are racist and misogynistic) is declined in favour of gesturism. Gestures have an Opportunity Cost of the actions not taken because they were taken instead of them, rather than as well as them.
If you're serious about wanting reform, which I am, then you need to be thinking "no more gestures, what are you actually going to do about it"?
"No more gestures, what are you actually going to do about it?"
Lots to like there. But, as I say, let's not pretend that 'performative woke' in the Met is anything but a marginal issue compared to the embedded prejudice in the culture.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Yeah, but no. It's about condemning the way that more effort goes into performative gestures, rather than into actually disciplining officers who are racist, or misogynistic bullies.
It's also about condemning the way that virtue-signalling can become an excuse for ignoring serious crime, eg treating electoral intimidation or child-grooming as "cultural matters".
But so long as the Yeah is bigger than the No. This is my point.
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
That's like saying that too much financial box ticking isn't one of the main causes of poor regulation, when it was.
When box-ticking replaces sound judgement, then you allow fraudsters/racists to get away with it by ticking the "I will not embezzle/discriminate" box and then you don't take the serious action needed for proper reform.
Not an either/or. If you put your brain in a jar because you've ticked a box it's your fault not the box.
I can't figure out if Johnson is more weirdly obsessed with Cummings than Cummings is with Johnson,or vice versa. They're like a couple that have gone through an ugly divorce. Still, they'll always have Brexit to remind them of happier times.
The reality is Cummings was ditched for Carrie Johnson (in a political adviser sense, she is a former Director of Communications for the Tory Party.)
Ironically, it is one of the few occasions where Boris Johnson has been loyal to any of his wives.
I guess Carrie could give him things that Dom couldn't. No wonder Dom acts so wounded. The whole tone of Johnson's "defence" is so whiny though, as you noted. It'd be funny if it wasn't all so cheap and demeaning to the office of prime minister, and by extension to us as a country.
"Don't forget me," I beg. I remember you said "Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"
An inadvertent Adele reference on my part but the song captures it well. No doubt Johnson will be Rolling in the Deep (doo-doo) by the end of his appearance tomorrow.
I think everyone knows the real source of the problems in the Met.
Lol Where's that quote taken from?
PB, surely.
I think that the Senior Management Team (SMT) *is* obsessed with being Woke. In the most superficial, and missing-the-point kind of presentee fashion you could imagine.
Which is why I like to say that Chief Constable Savage is alive, well and got 100% on all his multiple choice diversity exams. He overseas a policy of arresting people for ordering their coffee “black”. Black people, mostly. At anti-racism demos.
Chief Constable Savage would ensure that police cars were painted in rainbow stripes during Pride month, he’d organise a crackdown on rude comments on Twitter, he’d talk about “decolonisation”, while ignoring toxic behaviour by his officers, and hounding whistleblowers out of their jobs, as he coasted towards his knighthood and big pension.
I think what really defines “woke” is that it is entirely performative, while being uninterested in actual reform.
What defines "woke" is people. The pro-woke define it as "not being a bigot", while the anti-woke define it as "pretending not to be a bigot". I think we can all agree that being a bigot is indeed bad, and the pretending not to be a bigot is also bad. So all we are disagreeing about is the definition of a word. Which is really a bit silly.
I read, a little while back, the diaries of a Southern lady doing the Civil War. Right at the top of Southern Society, as well. According to her, all the rich kids were totally anti-slavery.
While living on actual slave plantations, having slave servants etc.
Some people are hypocrites; that's not news, and it would be disingenuous to suggest that all of those who espouse similar views must also be hypocrites.
Things like racism and misogyny are much bigger problems than hypocrisy and virtue-signalling about them. Getting more animated about the latter than the former is something I find utterly bizarre. The Met police are in the spotlight yet again today but they aren’t some completely unrepresentative outlier. The prejudices embedded in their culture are rife in society and people kid themselves if they think otherwise.
Yeah, but no. It's about condemning the way that more effort goes into performative gestures, rather than into actually disciplining officers who are racist, or misogynistic bullies.
It's also about condemning the way that virtue-signalling can become an excuse for ignoring serious crime, eg treating electoral intimidation or child-grooming as "cultural matters".
But so long as the Yeah is bigger than the No. This is my point.
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
It's become a shield - "Look at all the officers with rainbow face paint at Gay Pride!"
And that's a material cause of the homophobia in the Met, is it? C'mon. This is just drivelpipe.
“For households in Scotland energy prices have not been frozen at two and a half grand—indeed, the average bill in Scotland has been closer to £3,500.”
That was the claim from the SNP leader in Westminster, Stephen Flynn MP in parliament last week.
But energy regulator Ofgem has told FactCheck that it “do[es]n’t recognise” the figure and that it “doesn’t ring true”.
Comments
He never had his "I know thee not, old man...." moment to distance himself from his past.
History will say of Boris "How ill white hairs become a fool and jester."
Eg, yes, we should do that condemning you mention (of where 'woke' is performative and counterproductive) but we shouldn't for one second get to thinking that too much diversity box-ticking or virtue-signalling is one of the main causes of racism and misogyny in the Met (or indeed anywhere else).
1992 The Tories have ditched an unpopular leader (Truss) and have a "fresh face" who has ditched an unpopular policy (Poll Tax then, never ending Brexit wars now). Labour have a new(ish) leader who has seen off the horror show from the Left. I think the campaign will show Sunak in a better light than Starmer and who doesn't love the plucky underdog fighting against the odds? Readers too young to remember 1992 may not know that the received wisdom then was where we are now - Labour heading for victory, if not majority. Major's campaign played a big role in swinging things. Anyone underestimating the importance of the campaign should ask Mrs May what she thinks....
1997 The Tories look tired and distracted by infighting - while we're yet to reach quite the nadir of '92-97, give them time. While "having grown ups in charge" is nice, it should be a given. Starmer isn't Blair (few politician are, for better and worse), so it will be interesting to see who, if any, he brings forward to boost the charisma/charm quotient.
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2023/03/21/inside-old-trafford-crumbling-edifice-should-scare-new-owners/
I think Boris being Boris and not Prime Minister would have been quite sceptical about the notion of lockdown. Especially later on when we were still locked down despite the vulnerable being vaccinated.
Boris on the backbenches pre-PM I suspect would have been more tempted by the ultimately far superior Swedish model of giving people advice but letting them choose for themselves, rather than the draconian restrictions imposed under Lockdown.
The problem is he went native as PM and agreed to the authoritarian suggestions pushed rather than rejecting them. That then led ultimately to his demise, as well as being the wrong thing for the country, and was a karmic kind of justice.
When box-ticking replaces sound judgement, then you allow fraudsters/racists to get away with it by ticking the "I will not embezzle/discriminate" box and then you don't take the serious action needed for proper reform.
You only have to look at the first excuse that comes up - "All our staff have completed training on Not Being Criminals..."
EDIT: Way back I worked, in the banks, with a Russian who'd lived through the end of Soviet times. When we did the seminars/classes on the various things, he commented on the performative nature of the training. He also noted the way I would parrot the correct answers, and suggested I would have made a fine Political Officer's pet.
If you're serious about wanting reform, which I am, then you need to be thinking "no more gestures, what are you actually going to do about it"?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/oct/05/rightwing-thinktanks-government-bbc-news-programmes
For balance, though, he ought to note that left leaning think tanks are hardly absent from BBC coverage - and indeed from influencing government policy, as this analysis suggests:
https://blog.overton.io/which-think-tanks-are-cited-most-often-by-the-uk-government
I do enjoy him referring to the 'discredited Dominic Cummings'.
He seems to be suggesting that it cannot have been obvious rules were broken because others were there and also did not think it obvious. I dont really follow how 'others were big idiots too' is the defence he thinks it is.
He was PM. He held regular - often daily - press conferences on Covid measures. He did not need anyone to tell him what the rules were.
Cummings and Johnson both regard rules as 'for other people'.
https://twitter.com/davidherdson/status/1638155573572018179?s=46&t=jkvRY6JsvE1I-2t12-QBqQ
"Sometimes it lasts in love, but sometimes it hurts instead"
(or else they have managed to master the minituarization beam....)
https://twitter.com/Liveuamap/status/1638155200702578690/photo/1
https://centralbylines.co.uk/bbc-question-time-perspectives-on-panel-audience-and-question-selection-bias/
The fact of the matter is that he was the political leader of the country in a time of crisis and it was his duty and responsibility to lead by example.
(a) you're only supposed to be investigating breaches of the rules not the guidance
(b) only one event was deemed by the police to be a breach of the rules
(c) even this was a dubious decision - I didn't think at the time it broke the rules and I still don't understand why police said it did
(d) any other event automatically wasn't a breach of the rules because it fell below the (dubious) standards they were using
(e) if I thought I was breaking the rules why would I have had official photos taken
(f) why on earth are you believing Dominic Cummings now, you never took his word as gospel when he still worked for me.
All of which are decent points, but it won't matter. The committee - and, more importantly, the public - has made its mind up already. It looked bad, and that's all that matters.
He repeats about working tirelessly several times. Probably a counter to people who call him lazy.
I actually would have been with No 10 being exempt from general social distance guidance at the time, but they didn't do that.
If he strikes this tone in front of the committee, he's going to be scraped off the floor of the committee room by the end.
https://twitter.com/alastairmeeks/status/1638153176980258817?s=46&t=jkvRY6JsvE1I-2t12-QBqQ
Make me PM again."
Nah. Not happening.
https://twitter.com/EliotHiggins/status/1637927681734987777
Other parts are pure whataboutery and sophistry. You don’t read this and think Johnson is contrite or really cares about anything other than himself. I realise that will not come as a surprise to most.
It's all a case of "the louder he talked of his honour, the faster we counted our spoons."
RJ was just way too powerful to be really plausible, I felt.
E is almost a non sequitur. Its basically a plea to ignore the evidence on the basis how could he have been stupid enough to allow official photos.
There's also a lot of assertions that if he believed x as against the rules he would have stopped them. He did not therefore he did bit believe x. Its very circular and in some cases plausible but not for others- his permitting or not is not definitive.
All businesspersons are right wing.
It is a bit of a leap.
Lots to like there. But, as I say, let's not pretend that 'performative woke' in the Met is anything but a marginal issue compared to the embedded prejudice in the culture.
No doubt Johnson will be Rolling in the Deep (doo-doo) by the end of his appearance tomorrow.