Michael Dempsey

Journalist, BBC & nationals, media trainer, copywriter & ghostwriter. Cares about clear language & getting the facts straight. Values brevity & ampersands.

[James Cleverly🇬🇧 @JamesCleverly]

Remember, Labour said the introduction of VAT of school fees was to pay for extra teachers.

There are FEWER teachers under Labour.

[Nick Timothy MP @NJ_Timothy]

No, David Lammy.

I don’t care about the ethnicity of judges.

I want the law to be blind.

You’re the one obsessed by the ethnicity of judges.

Do you stand by your comments about Sir Martin Moore-Bick?

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

You know you live in the UK when Keir Starmer politicises Adolescence, a fictional series where the culprit is white. However, he doesn’t want to bring politics into Henry Nowak, where the victim is white.

[Tim Shipman @ShippersUnbound]

Always interesting when you write about someone to see who gets in touch to tell you off or revel in the misery of a colleague. Much schadenfreude today about the Darren Jones messages. One Labour minister even pointed out that Walter Model shot himself. Blimey

[The Spectator @spectator]

I wonder how many readers have ever heard of the name Kriss Donald?

The young Glaswegian was just 15 years old in 2004 when he was kidnapped by a local gang of Pakistani men. The group selected him because he was white and they had some beef with a group of white men with whom Donald had no connection at all.

After driving around for hours, the gang – led by one Imran Shahid – stabbed Donald repeatedly before dousing his body in petrol and setting him alight.

I also wonder how many readers have heard of the name Tony Timpa? The white, unarmed Texan was 32 in 2016 when he suffered some sort of mental breakdown in public.

Instead of assisting him, police arrived at the scene and restrained him in such a way that he died. Bodycam footage released three years later – thanks to pressure from local journalists – showed officers kneeling on Timpa as he complained that he couldn't breathe and mocking him as he lay dying.

✍️ Douglas Murray

Article | https://t.co/YuUEBVqIrT

[Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson]

Bravo, Claire. Henry died a “humiliating and degrading” death (his father’s words) because the race card was played against him.
Digwa knew police would give him better treatment because his “attacker” (a wicked lie) was white.
It’s racism.

[Ameer Kotecha @Ameer_Kotecha]

Salman Abedi. Valdo Calocane. The rape gangs. Now Vickrum Digwa.

How many more examples do we need? That the constant fear of being seen to be racist - or in the Henry Nowak case at least the unreasonably high level of credulity by the police whenever presented with an accusation of racial abuse, however bogus - has a cost which can be measured in lives.

I do not want to live in the racialised society we risk fast becoming. We must get back to being properly colour blind rather than pussyfooting around some criminals simply because they were born with a certain skin colour

[Daniel Hannan @DanielJHannan]

It goes without saying that we should respect the grief and privacy of families going through the trauma of coping with a violent death.
Commentators and MPs who turned the deaths of Stephen Lawrence, George Floyd and even Chris Kaba into public events now have no right to lecture anyone about “politicising” the death of Henry Nowak.

[Julia Hartley-Brewer @JuliaHB1]

NHS staff should be banned from wearing pro-Palestinian badges, report recommends.

Good. About time. When did ANYONE think it was acceptable for NHS staff to wear ANY political insignia while at work? While we're at it, can we ban rainbow lanyards too? https://t.co/romwTCuxWB

[The Telegraph @Telegraph]

'MPs are now terrified of their own voters, particularly the poor ones, regarding them like a wild animal that has wandered into the enclosure and could turn nasty any moment.

'So, they step around them with caution, using gentle words in soft whispers: “Please don’t riot, please don’t riot. There, there. Who’s a good boy?”'

Read @timothy_stanley's full sketch on Starmer and Farage 👇
https://t.co/weYEdt73uP

[Chris Rose @ArchRose90]

Keir Starmer has shown more anger at people being furious over Henry Nowak’s treatment than the fact that Henry bled to death handcuffed like a criminal.

This is why he is so despised.

[Annunziata Rees-Mogg @zatzi]

That’s an extra £265,500,000* cost to state schools already.

Politics of envy always backfire.

* average cost of educating a state school pupil is £8,850 per year. x30,000

[Dougie Brimson 🎬 🇬🇧 🇮🇱 @dougiebrimson]

9 years ago today, @roylarner41, without any consideration for his own safety, single handedly took on 3 armed terrorists at #BoroughMarket saving countless lives.

He never received any medals and is yet to receive any compensation for his injuries. Shameful.

#LondonBridge🇬🇧

[Allison Pearson @AllisonPearson]

It is genuinely bizarre that UK has a College of Policing that teaches Critical Race Theory and other identity bollocks to aspiring coppers.
It’s a cult. No common sense. Zero humanity.
It left Henry to die.
Urgently need to go back to without fear or favour policing

[Merryn Somerset Webb @MerrynSW]

Scotland. Part of Sturgeon's legacy I guess.

[Merryn Somerset Webb @MerrynSW]

No one ever had to treat @NicolaSturgeon as a titan or a sage. And it was a mystery to us up here that so many English journalists continued to do so. Her "true self" was pretty obvious. https://t.co/8dTzYHDioE

[Jimmy Rushton @JimmySecUK]

Ukraine flew drones 1000km across Russia and blew up a $150m Russian warship and set fire to an oil terminal on the opening day of the Saint Petersburg International Economic Forum.

Utter humiliation for the Kremlin and Vladimir Putin.

[Toby Young @toadmeister]

British industry is being trampled underfoot as the country "gallops" to Net Zero, the head of a West Midlands chemicals plant, Adrian Hanrahan, has said. https://t.co/rZVODCKBEE

[J.K. Rowling @jk_rowling]

I knew what I was getting into when I entered this debate and compared to what others have suffered, I've got off lightly. Even so, it continues to astound that Kemi Badenoch remains the only UK political leader offering unequivocal solidarity to women defending their rights.

[Stephen Kerr MSP @RealStephenKerr]

Daniel Finkelstein is right. Nicola Sturgeon wants Scotland to believe that the politician who controlled the SNP, dominated Scottish politics and tolerated no dissent somehow knew nothing about what was happening inside her own party. Questions about the money were shut down. Critics were frozen out. Loyalists closed ranks. Now, after Peter Murrell’s conviction, she says she bears no responsibility. You cannot demand total control when things go well and plead ignorance when everything falls apart. Scots are no longer buying it.