Here’s the key question Labour was asking a few months ago: Who do you trust? The Police or Andrew Mitchell?
According to an official police report, Conservative Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell said to a police officer:
“Best you learn your f***ing place … you don’t run this f***ing government … you’re f***ing plebs.”
Andrew Mitchell is denying it. But he won’t admit what he said. And David Cameron is choosing to believe the word of a Tory MP over the word of a hard-working police officer.
But, strangely, when you visit http://www.labour.org.uk/plebsforpolice today that question’s no longer being asked…
That’s the risk of leaping on the Milibandwagon, I guess…
(My thanks to @stackee for finding the original image from Labour’s ‘Plebs for Police’ webpage via Reddit.)
* Stephen was Editor (and Co-Editor) of Liberal Democrat Voice from 2007 to 2015, and writes at The Collected Stephen Tall.
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19 Comments
Looking at that website, isn’t it really bad communications practice to demand that you physically write a letter to opt out of contact?
To be honest, I’d rather they gave a “neither” option.
I assume this means a campaign to make the police more accountable? No? I thought not.
The timing of this is a bit rubbish given the news about the police and blacklisting. Let the Tories fight their own battles. The cabinet is still dominated by monied toffs.
And he admits to swearing (“under his breath”) at them, so let’s not get too defensive of the man!
Eric Pickles cannot stop himself talking about “hard working families”. Here the Labour Party refer to a “hard working police officer”.
Where is it all going to end?
@Alistair
“Let the Tories fight their own battles”
So, you don’t consider it your “battle”, the fact that the police lied and they forced an elected minister of the Crown to resign doesn’t bother you (as long as it was a tory)?
“The cabinet is still dominated by monied toffs.”
Absolutely, it’s even worse that some of them are also tory.
Let he who is without sin cast the first stone
https://www.libdemvoice.org/andrew-mitchells-failed-apology-what-he-should-have-said-30378.html
https://www.libdemvoice.org/pmqs-just-how-long-can-one-man-swing-in-the-wind-30857.html
Look back at Liberal Democrat Voice. You will find postings condemning Andrew Mitchell and working from the basis that the police were telling the truth. I am no Tory but even I didn’t believe that Andrew Mitchell would not have been foolish enough to have spoken in the way that those police officers claimed he did.
Drop the “not” from my previous post. It just never rang true with me that he would have called the cops “plebs”.
In fairness at the time of the website Mitchell was refusing, or unable to state what he had said. It appears he accepts swearing at the police, and he clearly felt the rules should be waived for his benefit. It’s never been about the word pleb to me, his admitted actions were unbecoming of a Cabinet member.
As for trusting the Police…… The Tories liked to trust them when they were accused of attacking a miners. I guess like every other strand of society some can be trusted some cannot.
I’m happy to look back at what I wrote (https://www.libdemvoice.org/andrew-mitchells-failed-apology-what-he-should-have-said-30378.html). It’s dated by the revelations the police account has been shown to be misleading. But I don’t think it’s unreasonable or unfair. As I said then, “it seems to me all the fuss is a bit overdone.”
But I’m happy to give much greater credit to my then co-editor Mark Pack who wrote on this site on 13 Oct last year: ‘At this rate, I’m going to be launching the Save Andrew Mitchell Fan Club’ https://www.libdemvoice.org/?p=30726
And, to be fair to Stephen, Lib Dem Voice hasn’t deleted his post from back then. There has been no attempt to airbrush it from history, unlike the Labour website.
However much Mitchell may have been wronged, though, I do wonder if this will teach the Tories a lesson. They always trust the establishment. They have on every single case of miscarriage of justice from the Guildford Four to the Birmingham Six and beyond. Will they now be a bit more open to the idea that the authorities can and do get things very badly wrong? I won’t be holding my breath.
I am not a Lib Dem supporter by any means, but the one good thing about the Liberals is them standing up for civil liberties. Surely this incident is a wake up call for all politicians. The police, as many innocent members of the public have known for years, are a corrupt and totally untrustworthy organisation. The many miscarriages of justice, Hillsborough, Saville…..the list goes on and on.
They lie when it suits them. You only have to watch any of the “police, camera, action” shows to see how they provoke people to swear at them so they can arrest them for breach of the peace.
Maybe politicians have woken up to this fact now it has affected one of them?
Incidently, he didn’t admit to “swearing AT the police”, he swore under his breath in front of the police.
Jen the Blue
“but the one good thing about the Liberals is them standing up for civil liberties. ”
The Lobbying Bill, Secret Courts, Legal Aid, asleep over the David Miranda detention etc.; where have you been in recent years?
Steve Griffiths,
Fair point, I was speaking historically I guess.
Although I am a retired police officer I am very concerned at the naivety that is expressed about the British Police Service by not only the public that has bought into the contrived image of ‘Dixon of Dock Green’, but also the lack of awareness of members of our own Party. Frankly it is overdue for reform, but not in line with thinking of current Home Secretary.
Only yesterday I was present at the 14th AGM and national conference of the National Black Police Association (UK), which I was a founding member of and its first elected General Secretary. The theme for all of the speakers including our very own Lester Holloway (Gen Sec of the Ethnic Minority Liberal Democrats) was not only of the need for the development of greater involvement of BME communities and individuals in policing and all aspects of the governance of society, but also whether there was an urgent need for police reform.
The answer to the former question was a resounding yes, in that clearly there was a need for BME communities to become more involved, along with a requirement for organisations to dismantle the unnecessary hurdles that restrict such access. Regarding the latter question both the speakers and the audience unanimously agreed that police reform was overdue.
Interesting many of the delegates at the AGM will agree with Bonny Greer (playwright, novelist and social critic) who appeared on last night’s Question Time, when she identified that the police service is losing credibility with some, but it never any credibility with many marginalized communities who are regularly subjected to that which the ‘Plebgate’ saga has identified.
The NBPA (UK) believes that there is a need for radical reform of the police service so that it is ‘fit for purpose’ in the ethnically diverse 21st Century. This reform will not come through the current piecemeal approach that is not supported by practical or academic evidence, and is being thought up apparently on a very small ‘Post-It’.
There needs to be a review that seeks to address all aspects of the recruitment, retention and progression of staff (both sworn and others), and a realistic look at whether the ‘Shire’ approach with a plethora of individual forces/thiefdoms is sensible given the nature of crime has change since the current model of policing was developed in the early nineteenth century.
As for original question that this thread posed tasking the question who I who would personally believe. If the option is between a failing police service that has lost touch with its raison d’etre or the said Member of Parliament well I think that I would have to agree with a previous commentator and state “Neither”.
Can we now expect a series of sensational LibDemVoice articles about web-pages that are no longer on-line? Probably not because there are billions of them and it’s a pretty boring topic.
Conduct rather unbecoming of a Cabinet Minister maybe; but why are the police so worked-up at being called ‘plebs’?
Do members of the police force refuse to vote in a plebiscite? Aren’t they proud to be men and women of the people?
It’s a storm in a teacup. Liberals must tell the media (and the Prime Minister) to stop playing daft games and focus on real public issues.
If Andrew Mitchell feels aggrieved with the attitude of the police he can take them to court himself.