We’re always glad when print titles get free publicity, but there’s a problem with cawing too hard, too soon. And this piece shows us why.
The police were their usual imbecile selves in November 2023, locking up one of their own for the sin of agreeing with then Home Secretary Suella Braverman — the minister just about to be sacked by Rishi Sunak, because he didn’t agree with her either. Especially not her habit of calling hate marches hate marches. That was very bad. Which is why David Cameron was brought back into the cabinet to help bring about the James Forsyth/Seb Payne/Danny Finkelstein/Iain Martin masterplan for grown-up success. Which has now happened. If anything more so, with Dr-but-for-racism, the great engineer Kemi Badenoch leading the Tories, who are often a very strong third place in the polls. But back to November 2023.
Mr Steerpike tells us that the cops “seem to think they have more important matters to deal with. Like chasing down Twitter controversialists, for example … While Foulkes’s tweet was first flagged to the Metropolitan Police Intelligence Command before being raised with Kent Police, it appears the discovery of a number of copies of the Spectator magazine at the ex-constable’s home persuaded officers to double down [on ex-PC Foulkes’s] detention. The magazine the establishment don’t want you to read … ”.
But who was this “establishment”? Who was presiding over a criminal justice system where the police did this? What have they gone on to do? Is there a list of Tory former Justice Secretaries, 2010-2024, who could be questioned?
This isn’t just snark, clearly some Tories do feel guilty about the #14Years. But to hide behind some pretence of an “establishment” being to blame for what happened is silly and won’t fool the people very tired of having been fooled, by that establishment, when it lied to them time after time after time.
Or maybe it will, and the Tories simply haven’t tried lying hard enough: who knows? But yes, “perhaps if officers spent more time reading [their] magazine [rather] than chasing up old tweets they’ve have a better idea of where they were going wrong”. They‘d certainly be able to find some suspects who could help them with their enquiries.
