Matt

Used to work in Parliament, now work in comms. Passionate about Swindon & Wilts. Swindon Borough Councillor for Chiseldon & Ridgeway.

[Rosie Duffield MP @RosieDuffield1]

Here we go again then 🙄
https://t.co/9HrC2RvvYI

[Antonia Bance MP @antoniabance]

Absolutely infuriating that one of my colleagues has decided that what Parliament should focus on in the coming months - given everything going on in the world and here at home - is bringing back the assisted dying bill. Head in hands.

[BBC Newsnight @BBCNewsnight]

"There's no point me having a glamorous, comfortable retirement if the country that I bequeath to my children is at great military risk"

General Sir Richard Barrons says he would "release the triple lock in order to put more money back into things like defence."

#Newsnight

[Navy Lookout @NavyLookout]

Welcome the next captain of the Titanic. Former Army officer, @DanJarvisMBE becomes the new Secretary of State for Defence.

His main task will be explaining why the government is unwilling to fund its own Defence Review.

[James Cleverly🇬🇧 @JamesCleverly]

I like Dan Jarvis but I cannot see how he speaks with allies at NATO next week with any credibility.

Healey and Carns said publicly what everyone was saying privately, Starmer and Reeves don’t take defence seriously.

A reshuffle doesn’t hide that truth.

[Tom Newton Dunn @tnewtondunn]

The next question is, can Keir Starmer persuade any minister to be Defence Secretary without reopening the MoD’s settlement, when in Healey’s words it will “reduce the readiness of our forces and increase the risk to personnel”?

If he does, will the chiefs resign next?

[Chris Newton @drchrisnewton]

Does anyone seriously think that someone who spent his earlier career seeking to prosecute soldiers, and who wanted a Prevention of Military Intervention Act, was ever going to be serious on defence?

[Christopher Hope📝 @christopherhope]

The row over defence spending which cost John Healey his job makes Sir Keir Starmer's attempt to give the Chagos islands to Mauritius and rent back the Diego Garcia base for £30billion (admittedly over a long time period) seem even more inexplicable. More at @GBNEWS.

[Nick, 30 @an0n_Nic]

Because how can we pay for the military and defence of the realm when we have ~£300bn welfare bill

[Stephen Pollard @stephenpollard]

At root, Healey has resigned because he believes the PM and Chancellor are endangering national security.
There could be no worse an accusation. This should be climactic.

[Penny Mordaunt @PennyMordaunt]

I’d thought there was a small chance Downing Street was trying to do the right thing, but struggling against a Labour Parliamentary Party that would not do the necessary, including cutting welfare. Guess this disgraceful quote has flattened that theory. They really don’t get the peril they are putting nation in.

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

This is truly pathetic. Cut the welfare freeloaders, cut the ludicrous self harm of Net Zero. This Treasury now resembles the government of the 1930s

[Katie Lam @Katie_Lam_MP]

Henry Nowak's murder was horrific. His killer, Vickrum Digwa, stabbed him to death for no reason.

But when the police arrived at the scene, it was Henry that they put in handcuffs, while he lay dying.

Digwa accused Henry of racism - and the police uncritically believed him.

This is the latest example, and one of the most blatant, of the so-called “anti-racist” ideology which now influences the behaviour of so many people within our institutions. The cost of these dangerous ideas can be measured in lives; they must be rooted out and totally destroyed.

The facts in Henry Nowak's case are particularly shocking. Henry was a student at the University of Southampton; he was just 18 years old. He was walking home from a night out, back in December.

On his way home, he crossed paths with Vickrum Digwa. Digwa then stabbed him five times with his kirpan – the ceremonial knife carried by many Sikhs. In Digwa's case, that knife was 8 inches long.

Digwa later tried to claim that he had acted in self-defence – that Henry had been drunk, and that he had carried out a racist attack against Digwa.

But last week, Digwa was convicted of murder. The court identified that Henry hadn't even drunk enough to cross the drunk driving limit. Digwa's allegations of racism were also found to be unfounded – they were described as a “wicked lie” in the trial.

Yet, when they were called to the scene, Hampshire Police handcuffed Henry, not Digwa.

They immediately and uncritically believed Digwa's claim that Henry was racist. They handcuffed him, while he lay dying. Henry told the police that he had been stabbed, but they didn't listen. His last words were “I can't breathe”.

Why did the police immediately believe Digwa's claims of racism? Why didn't they listen to Henry when he told them that he'd been stabbed? Why do Hampshire Police continue to deny that their officers were in the wrong? Why won't they release the bodycam footage of the incident?

It's hard not to imagine that, if the roles had been reversed, the institutional response to Henry Nowak's murder would have been completely different.

An investigation by the regulator that reviews police conduct, the IOPC, is ongoing. The officers involved should be held accountable for uncritically believing an accusation of racism. It is not the job of the police to handcuff anyone and everyone accused of racism, no questions asked. That is madness.

But accountability must extend beyond those individual officers. Their decisions were influenced, and enabled, by a set of ideas which now dominate many of our institutions. This includes the idea that avoiding racism, or the perception of racism, is more important than keeping people safe.

In so many institutions, including the police, “anti-racism” is drilled into people from the beginning of their careers. If people are perceived as racist, they can be struck off, punished, or denied promotion. Training materials often contain advice on how to treat particular ethnic, racial, or religious groups, to avoid accusations of racism. In the police in particular, many forces employ liaison officers, or police associations, designed to represent particular minority groups.

Rules and guidelines that inform how public servants act are dominated by this kind of thinking. Sometimes, these guidelines are even made into law – meaning that public servants can get into legal trouble if they make a decision which seems to disproportionately impact one group.

These practices are, in turn, the product of the belief that certain groups are oppressors, and others oppressed. The oppressed groups must be afforded special treatment and protections. Rather than applying a single set of rules to every individual, equally and fairly, many of our institutions now believe that they have a mandate to “maintain relations” and “manage tensions” between groups, and to control public perception of groups considered “oppressed”. The need to keep the public safe, or administer our rules consistently, or even to tell the truth, is subjugated to the cause of “anti-racism”.

This is exactly the same institutional approach which led so many people to cover up the rape and grooming gangs which preyed on so many children, for so many years.

Most of the offenders in those cases were Muslim men, either from Pakistan or of Pakistani heritage. Most of the victims were white.

In most cases, police forces, local authorities and care providers either turned a blind eye to this abuse, or actively tried to cover it up.

In her rapid review into the grooming gangs, Baroness Casey said outright: "we found many examples of organisations avoiding the topic altogether for fear of appearing racist, raising community tensions, or causing community cohesion problems."

In other words, the British state covered up the worst crime committed in this country, ever, because people were scared of appearing racist.

These two instances are far from unique.

On June 13th 2023, Valdo Calocane stabbed two university students to death, and then did the same to a school caretaker. He then drove a van into a nearby bus stop.

He'd been known to authorities for years. In May 2020, he tried to break into a neighbour's flat during a psychotic episode. He wasn't sectioned because NHS professionals were told to consider the "over-representation of young black males in detention".

Had Calocane been dealt with properly, he would likely never have gone on his killing spree. He clearly posed a risk to the public. And yet, once again, a fear of being branded racist trumped our right to be kept safe.

In 2022, the IOPC said that police forces should reduce the use of ‘stop and search’ because the practice is disproportionately used on ethnic minorities.

Never mind the fact that stop and search saves lives (including those of ethnic minorities!), and takes weapons off the streets.

On, and on, and on. Earlier this year, West Midlands Police lied to the public about its handling of the match between Maccabi Tel Aviv and Aston Villa. Its recommendation to bar Maccabi fans from Birmingham was driven entirely by pressure from Muslims in Birmingham. Broader public interest in the match didn't matter – the only question was how to avoid offending Muslims, many of whom objected to the presence of Israeli fans.

And just last week, a whistleblower from West Yorkshire Police revealed that she'd been sacked from her role as chairman of a “hate crime” panel when she questioned whether the force should be spending so much time on policing people who made offensive comments about Muslims or Islam.

These are the real world consequences of this moral crusading. People have died. Many thousands more have been horrifically abused, groomed, and raped. Our ability to express ourselves freely is being restricted.

A single set of rules must apply uniformly, to everyone. Institutions like the police should go back to focusing exclusively on keeping the public safe. Nobody's life should ever be put in danger, and nobody's freedoms should ever be restricted, because a public servant is scared of being called racist.

We must not rest until these dangerous ideas have been totally booted out of the British state.

[Matt @MatthewAH12345]

@createstreets Where is this?

[Bobbie @bo66ie29]

Can we build houses that look like this. Please and thank you.

[Simon Clarke @SirSimonClarke]

I am also astonished to see @nadhimzahawi retweeting what Mr Orr posted. He, like me, served in the Cabinet of @BorisJohnson. He, like me, knows how critical Britain’s military and moral support has been to preventing a Russian conquest. He used to believe in these things.

[Iain Dale 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿🇬🇧 ⚒️ @IainDale]

Quite.

[Clarissa Reilly @clarescastle]

Swindon. The bellwether.
Bucking the gloomsters and the doomsters. @Conservatives the largest party👇🏼

[Annabelle Sanderson 💜🤍💚 @WiltsAnnabelle]

Wonderful local candidates standing for their community in #swindon #voteconservative

[Bobbie @bo66ie29]

The Victorians knew how to build beautifully. Bring back stunning stained glass doors!