Ian Wright (right) with Gary Lineker: they were right – the councillor in this story was wrong.
I’m with Wrighty on this one.
It’s the story of Cllr Alexis McEvoy, who called Match of the Day pundit Ian Wright a “typical black hypocrite” after he spoke in support of the show’s presenter, Gary Lineker, and his public stance on the people we all seem to be calling “migrants” these days.
After an outcry, she deleted the tweet and posted an apology, noting that it had caused offence: “I did not mean it to do so and I am deeply sorry. I find racism in any form abhorrent.”
Mr Wright then accused her of making a “fake apology”. In response, she deleted her tweet and deactivated her account.
She also said the tweet had been taken out of context, suggested the row was an attempt to discredit her ahead of local elections, and protested that she also does good things for people, whatever colour they are.
My problem with this is that the councillor did not consider the meaning of her original words before she tweeted them – or she did, and thought they were acceptable. That suggests innate racism to me.
Yes, she may do good deeds. So might, say, a domestic abuser who contributes to food banks and/or other charities. Going further up the scale, Jimmy Savile raised money for charity. At risk of being accused of Godwinning, Hitler loved his dogs.
I’m not for one moment suggesting Cllr McEvoy’s words make her as bad as the other monsters I just mentioned. My point is simply that good deeds cannot be used to mitigate an intentional wrong.
The councillor quit her membership of the Conservative Party and of outside organisations, and reported herself to the authority’s monitoring officer. But would she have done that if nobody had complained – or if complaints had not become public knowledge?
The fact is that she didn’t. Her acts of rectification were prompted by public outrage.
That’s why Ian Wright said her apology was fake, and that’s why I agree with him.
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All four Metropolitan Police officers who strip-searched a 15-year-old black schoolgirl while she was on her period are now being investigated for gross misconduct, it has been revealed.
It had been claimed that the girl, known as Child Q, smelled strongly of cannabis and may have been in possession of drugs.
So police were called to her school and subjected her to an intimate body search without any other adults present.
The incident took place almost two years ago but only came to light in March this year after a safeguarding report was published. This Site has previously reported on the incident here.
The Local Child Safeguarding Practice Reviewfound that the strip search should never have happened, was unjustified, and racism “was likely to have been an influencing factor”.
“Four constables have now been advised that they are being investigated for potential breaches of the police standards of professional behaviour at the level of gross misconduct,” the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IOPC) said.
However, it added that this “does not necessarily mean that disciplinary proceedings will follow”.
“We are looking at complaints that her mother was not given the opportunity to be present during the strip search, and that there was no other appropriate adult present,” it added.
“We are also considering whether the child’s ethnicity played a part in the officers’ decision to strip search her.”
If the officers are found to have breached policing standards, they could be dismissed from their jobs.
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Priti Patel: it seems she’s so racist, she will merrily try to deport black people, even though they are UK citizens. She just won’t carry out the proper checks.
This is beyond This Writer’s ability to comment. The level of racism displayed by the UK authorities in this story is off the scale:
A woman has described how her 17-year-old black British son was found at an immigration detention centre after going missing while being treated for psychosis.
The boy – who is non-verbal – disappeared from a hospital in Kent, where he had been sectioned under the Mental Health Act, on 7 April. Two days later, he was arrested by British Transport Police (BTP) at Euston on suspicion of fare evasion, before being detained by Immigration Enforcement near Gatwick, despite being British.
“It’s just horrific,” the boy’s mother said. “Because he’s black they just assumed ‘let’s pick him and put him in a deportation centre’.”
When the boy was returned to the hospital, his clothes contained Home Office documents that incorrectly stated his name and date of birth, and recorded his nationality as Nigerian.
“How do they know he’s from Nigeria, when he doesn’t even speak to them?” the woman said of her son.
The boy is a British citizen and has never left the UK. His mother said he would not have been able to say his date of birth properly, and would never have said he was from Nigeria.
James Wilson, deputy director of Detention Action, which works with people facing removal, said unaccompanied minors or children under the age of 18 should not be in detention in the first place. “In theory detention should be an absolute last resort, rather than an early step you would go to,” he said.
This is a prime example of how Priti Patel’s Home Office treats UK citizens, isn’t it?
Let’s consider the Home Office’s comments on this case…
A Home Office spokesperson said: “We rely on information provided by our policing partners when an individual is referred to Immigration Enforcement. In this case, the individual declared himself to British Transport Police to be an adult male. Police nurses assessed him and raised no physical or mental health issues.”
Yeah, but did they? Really? a non-verbal 17-year-old?
I have a doubt about that.
I don’t think the person declared himself to be anything at all.
I don’t think nurses assessed him in anything like an adequate way.
I do think that this case reveals serious failures in Home Office procedures.
And I think it is Priti Patel’s responsibility to sort them out.
But I don’t think – for a single minute – that she is in any way capable, or responsible enough, to take the necessary steps.
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Kit Malthouse: does he look like he cares about anything?
Policing minister Kit Malthouse has been – rightly – slammed for repeatedly saying the Government must wait for the outcome of a police watchdog report into the traumatic strip search of a black schoolgirl.
In December 2020, police – two male, two female – were called by teachers at a secondary school in Hackney, who believed a girl was carrying drugs because they could smell cannabis.
She was subjected to what seems clearly a deliberately humiliating strip-search. She was made to strip naked, to spread her legs, to use her hands to spread her buttock cheeks and then to cough.
She was menstruating. According to family members, the police insisted that she take off the bloody pad and would not let her go to the toilet to clean up. Then they made her reuse the same pad.
No drugs were found, yet the rumour spread around the school that this perfectly innocent girl was a drug dealer.
The experience left the girl traumatised, in therapy and self-harming.
Answering an urgent question in Parliament, Malthouse condemned the “distressing” incident, saying she “could have been any one of our relatives”.
But he insisted that the government had to wait for a report into the incident, on which the Independent Office for Police Conduct (IOPC) has already been working for 10 months.
He said the police officers involved had a right to “due process”, which is all well and good – but justice delayed is justice denied, and doesn’t Child Q have a right to justice?
And despite a safeguarding review into the matter producing a series of recommendations for the Government and police to act upon, Malthouse insisted there was doubt whether the police have a specific problem or a systemic problem relating to their policies and practices.
“It is the role of the independent police watchdog – the Independent Office for Police Conduct – to investigate serious matters involving the police and the IOPC has said it has been investigating the actions of the Metropolitan police in this particular case,” he said.
“We must let the IOPC conclude its work. We would, of course, expect any findings to be acted upon swiftly but it’s vital that we don’t prejudge the IOPC’s investigations or prejudice due process – so it would be wrong for me to make any comment on the case in question at this time.”
This Writer wonders whether Malthouse is simply hoping the IOPC will find a way to exonerate the officers involved (one of whom, it seems, was male – in a gross violation of police rules).
And he did not respond to a call to publish data on the number of times children are strip-searched. Why not?
Other MPs saw matters differently – not that he should not comment until the inquiry had been completed but that he should life a finger or two to bring the matter to that conclusion:
Labour MP for Eltham, Clive Efford, criticised Mr Malthouse for having a “wait and see attitude”, and said: “I feel like we’ve woken the minister from an afternoon nap to come in and make this statement”.
He added: “There’s a complete lack of urgency in his approach. It is quite clear that there are areas now where the Government can act; why isn’t the minister coming to this house to explain to us just exactly what he’s going to do, rather than this wait and see attitude?”
It seems clear that Malthouse’s fellow Tories felt no need to enact justice for Child Q. Only one Conservative MP turned up to the discussion – Jackie Doyle-Price – and her contribution was to ask what the minister would do to ensure the Metropolitan Police changes its practices.
Underlying this lack of activity there must be the same question that underlies the reasons for the humiliation and trauma of the strip-search of a menstruating teenage girl.
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No to racism: but Boris Johnson is widely-held to be a huge racist himself, so his government’s response to accusations of structural racism in the UK’s institutions may not be a surprise.
Let’s set the scene:
One investigation by the City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership has happened and its report has formed the basis of news coverage. Another, by the Independent Office of Police Conduct, was started in May and is in the process of being finalised. The three officers directly involved – one of whom, it appears, was male – remain on full duties. Why?
This incident occurred in December 2020, when police – two male, two female – were called by teachers at a secondary school in Hackney, who believed she was carrying drugs because they could smell cannabis.
She was then subjected to what seems clearly a deliberately humiliating strip-search. Labour MP Diane Abbott puts it straight:
She was made to strip naked, to spread her legs, to use her hands to spread her buttock cheeks and then to cough. She was menstruating. According to family members, the police insisted that she take off the bloody pad and would not let her go to the toilet to clean up. Then they made her reuse the same pad.
No drugs were found, yet the rumour spread around the school that this perfectly innocent girl was a drug dealer. Her mother told the local child safeguarding review that the experience had left her daughter traumatised. Her aunt added: “I see the change from a happy-go-lucky girl to a timid recluse that hardly speaks to me.” She said the girl was now in therapy and that she self-harms.
The search took place without the presence of an appropriate adult – a person to safeguard the interests, rights, entitlements and welfare of children who are suspected of a criminal offence, by ensuring that they are treated in a fair and just manner and are able to participate effectively. Teachers were outside the room and parents of the girl, known as Child Q, knew nothing about the incident at the time.
The report by the City & Hackney Safeguarding Children Partnership (CHSCP) contains the following further findings:
The police officers involved should have contacted superior officers for permission before carrying out the strip-search; there is no evidence that this happened.
The person conducting the search must be of the same sex as the person being searched; if three police officers are under investigation but only two of those who arrived at the school were female, then we must question whether a male officer was involved.
Searches involving exposure of intimate parts of the body must not be conducted as a routine extension of a less thorough search, simply because nothing is found in the course of the initial search; this one was.
Searches involving exposure of intimate parts of the body may be carried out only at a nearby police station or other nearby location which is out of public view (but not a police vehicle); it appears this one was not.
It is likely that school staff knew a further search of Child Q would be undertaken by the attending officers, but it is unlikely that the school was informed by the attending police officers of the intention to strip-search Child Q.
It is likely that the importance of the Appropriate Adult role was insufficiently explained to either Child Q or the school staff present.
There is no evidence that Child Q was resistant to the search undertaken by school staff or that there were any indicators in her behaviour that she might be hiding drugs on her person.
We now discover that the IOPC investigation began in May last year – 10 months ago – after a referral from the Met to check whether “legislation, policies and procedures” were followed. The three officers concerned were informed that they were being investigated for misconduct.
One wonders why it has taken 10 months – so far – and still failed to come to a conclusion.
In such situations – where discrimination has been alleged – statutory guidance calls for an investigation into gross misconduct, rather than just misconduct – and this has now been requested by London Mayor Sadiq Khan.
There is so much wrong with this case that it is hard to know where to start.
Paramount must be the question of whether Child Q would have suffered anything like the same traumatic experience if she had been white.
The CHSCP report makes it clear that “racism (whether deliberate or not) was likely to have been an influencing factor in the decision to undertake a strip search”.
And this all came into public knowledge right before the government announced its response to an inquiry that found that there is no structural racism in the UK’s institutions.
The document, ironically (it seems) entitled Inclusive Britain, took a panning from the pundits on the BBC’s Politics Live yesterday. This is a seven-minute clip but it is well worth watching in full:
The report contains 70 recommendations but they are vague: the government will stop using the acronym “BAME” (Black And Minority Ethnic), it will create a few panels and do some research, have some pilot schemes and create some frameworks.
Stella Creasy’s comment from the top of this article was taken from this discussion. She made it clear that after what happened to Child Q, politicians “pontificating about whether or not we have an issue with structural racism doesn’t feel very real”.
The report, as Ms Creasy said, does not accord with what people in communities are saying.
Its measures do nothing to deal with racism but are simply “tinkering round so the government can feel like it is doing something”.
And apparently it even denies that slavery happened!
Given the humiliation and traumatisation of Child Q because of a smell, one cannot see this as anything but another slap in the face of people who suffer racism – and of those of us who want to end it.
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Peter Mandelson: why isn’t Keir Starmer already investigating his involvement with Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell?
One of the reasons This Writer appealed for readers to sign a petition against Tony Blair receiving a knighthood was his association with paedophile Jeffrey Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell, who procured children for him to sexually abuse.
Blair’s name appears in Epstein and Maxwell’s infamous black book – once.
Blair lieutenant – and now an advisor to current Labour leader Keir Starmer – Peter Mandelson has 10 entries in it.
Starmer seems to think there’s nothing amiss with this.
So there’s a petition calling for Mandelson’s Labour Party membership to be suspended while an independent investigation into the extent of his involvement with Epstein and Maxwell’s sex trafficking, paedophilia and sexual blackmail enterprise takes place.
Visit the petition page to see seven reasons Mandelson’s behaviour should be investigated.
All in it together: Boris Johnson and Keir Starmer are each as racist as the other – but Johnson is better at hiding it than Starmer, who simply isn’t intelligent enough.
After Keir Starmer’s shadow cabinet reshuffle on Monday, this is devastatingly revealing:
Watching #pmqs disappointing to see that the Tory party,has more ethnic minority faces on its front bench than Labour. How did we get to this place where the Tory party seems more racially diverse than Labour?
This Writer has been saying it for months now – practically since Sir Slimy got into office.
He’s an anti-Semite because he expels left-wing Jews from the party for not being Zionists.
He’s an Islamophobe because he has allowed Islamophobia to grow in the grassroots party and has welcomed high-profile Islamophobes back to it.
He’s also a sexist – look at his recent ill-treatment of people like Zarah Sultana. Yes, he has women on his front bench, but that doesn’t excuse his behaviour.
And let’s all remember the level of diversity that former leader Jeremy Corbyn achieved:
Some people would ask you to believe that Jeremy Corbyn is the racist, not Starmer.
As my own rules for This Site deny me the vocabulary to describe what I would say to such people, feel free to respond as you feel appropriate.
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All the publicity high-profile politicians (and others) have had from announcing the death threats they’ve received, and the one facing the reality of people following through is an activist from the grassroots.
It seems Sasha Johnson, of Black Lives Matter and the Taking The Initiative Party, had received death threats.
She’s a mother of two, and she’s aged only in her 20s.
In a message on their Instagram feed, TTIP said: “It is with great sadness that we inform you that our own Sasha Johnson has been brutally attacked and sustained a gunshot wound to her head. She is currently in intensive care and in a critical condition.”
They said the attack “in the early hours of the morning” came after the mother-of-two, believed to be in her 20s, had faced “numerous death threats”.
I guess she didn’t rate the protection that some other people in politics get.
I wonder if there will even be a proper investigation.
Let’s all watch developments in this story, very carefully.
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Over it goes: the toppling of the Colston statue, back in June.
Here’s yet another reason for This Writer to be proud of the city of my birth.
After making controversial history during the Black Lives Matter protests last year, when citizens of Bristol tore down a statue of the slaver Edward Colston and threw it in the docks, the city council has gone a step further.
It has passed a motion to make “reparations” – not just financial but also cultural – for the slave trade in which the city participated and its enduring impact.
As former Lord Mayor Cleo Lake stated, “The contribution of African civilisation, culture and people versus how we have been treated is one of the world’s great paradoxes.”
Bristol is also calling for the UK’s Tory government to set up an all-party parliamentary inquiry to examine how such reparations might be delivered.
This might be a challenging request as although the motion was passed with 47 votes in support, 12 Tory councillors voted against it.
Believe it or not, they said the motion to make amends for an abhorrent past “risks exacerbating some divisions by presenting a binary view of the world when the reality is much more complicated”.
That sounds like doubletalk to This Writer! That is, disapproving speech that is intended to confuse an issue.
I think these Tories simply don’t want to face the reality of Bristol’s – and the UK’s – slave-trading background, with all the harm it has done, or the racism that still pervades this nation as a result.
In opposing the motion, they also opposed community wealth creation strategies to produce more sustainable and equitable growth whilst alleviating systemic poverty, which acknowledges that a just economy is the only way to achieve racial justice.
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Priti Patel and Boris Johnson: when he gets into trouble, she starts making questionable statements to the media.
It might be too much to say that Priti Patel’s obvious disdain for people of certain ethnic origins makes this a foregone conclusion.
So let’s just allow her record to speak for itself. Run a search for “Priti Patel” on this site and see what comes up. And see this for a current example of her behaviour:
I've signed this letter by @Jamie4North to the Home Office calling for Osime Brown's deportation to be halted.
This shouldn't be a debate. It's time for the hostile environment to end and for disabled people to be treated humanely by our justice system.https://t.co/Rhpdq8gR3t
On the current issue, The Guardian says she described the protests prompted by the killing of George Floyd by police in the United States as “dreadful”.
It seems she didn’t like the way that some of these protests turned violent after police became involved. Or did I misinterpret those events?
So, what did she think of the peaceful gesture that people chose to make – “taking the knee”?
Asked if she would be prepared to take the knee, she replied: “No I wouldn’t, and I would not have done at the time either.
So in other words, she didn’t like any kind of protest?
“I don’t support protest…”
Wow. So we’re all supposed to just knuckle under and accept any kind of ill-treatment, no matter how appalling – including murder by police officers?
I’m not okay with that. And I’m not alone:
Priti Patel: I oppose violent protests
Interviewer: Here is an example of peaceful protest
As Home Secretary Priti Patel is naturally against violent protest, so obviously she’ll recognise the importance of non-violent prot… Ah, no, she’s against that too.https://t.co/q9n0QK1YB5
Worst death rate in the world. Worst performing economy of all similar economies. Worst recession for 100 years. Let's pick on minorities to divert attention away. https://t.co/Ms6xEmapFS
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