Blog Archives

Walter's Blog

Reflections on recent events, plus the occasional fact
free rant unfiltered by rational argument.

"If you want to read a blog to get a sense of what is going on in Hong Kong these days or a blog that would tell you what life was like living in colonial Hong Kong, this blog, WALTER'S BLOG, fits the bill." Hong Kong Blog Review

17/2/2020 2 Comments

An Ode to Two Cities.

My old friend Alan Bennett agreed to present this piece on the BBC. In case you missed it.

2 Comments

15/2/2020 0 Comments

A Victory for Free Speech

“If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear.”

With the above-unpublished introduction to George Orwell’s Animal Farm, the Honourable Mr Justice Julian Knowles opened his judgement in Harry Miller vs the Humberside Police. The police must have known a judicial kicking was coming.

Then Justice Knowles puts the boot in “We have never had a Gestapo or a Stasi in Great Britain, but the actions of Humberside Police came way too close”. With that statement he cuts to the bone to expose everything that’s gone wrong with policing in Britain.

Once an international benchmark for excellence, a woke-driven mission drift, means in several aspects of policing they’ve lost their way.

I saw seeds of this in the mid-1990s. Attending command courses in the UK, I’m introduced to a move away from action on crime towards consultation with ‘the community’. Nothing wrong with that, except when a ‘community’ has an agenda outside of policing. The signs were there of less crime-fighting and more massaging sentiments to assuage ‘stake-holders’.

Here senior police commanders is a valuable lesson. When you drift away from your core law-bound duties to start dabbling in ‘thought-crimes’ the whole ship can run aground. Further, the Police College, a private company, is dictating policy without broad public consultation or proper political oversight.

This approach gives leverage to the crazies. After all, it’s the radicals who will spare the time and energy to drive their message home. Meanwhile, the silent majority don’t get a look in.

The evidence is compelling. UK policing priorities are hostage to a minority of grievance warriors and a cohort of the intersectional-woke. Thus, the police embarked down a road that takes them away from enforcing the letter of the law. Along the way, they’ve become the bully boys of radicals. And, in the process, they’ve adopted the symbols and tropes of these groups.

Some of this nonsense comes attributed to an over-correction for past failings. The Stephen Lawrence case and other instances of willful police blindness prompted much soul-searching. Humberside Police cited the Lawrence case in this matter.

They feared, wrong in the Judge’s view, that by debating whether someone with a penis can be a woman, Mr Miller may incite a murder. Of course, Humberside Police’s position is utter bilge-water and exposes their irrational thinking.

The judgement is well worth a read. Justice Knowles addresses many issues that arise in the freedom of speech debate. But a bit of background first.

Harry Miller is an ex-police officer, who now runs a business in Lincolnshire. In January 2019, Constable Mansoor Gul, a community cohesion officer from Humberside Police called at Mr Miller’s place of work. Mr Miller was absent. Later, the two had a telephone conversation.

Constable Gul cited 30 tweets from Mr Miller, asserting these are potentially offensive. He singled out a retweeted limerick, which questioned whether transgender women are biological women. It included the lines: “Your breasts are made of silicone, your vagina goes nowhere.”

Acting on a complaint, and even though no crime took place, Constable Gul allegedly stated: “We need to check your thinking”. Let that sink in for a moment. When Mr Miller expressed shock that Constable Gul would be making such utterances, matters got worse.

“I’ve been on a course and what you need to understand is that you can have a foetus with a female brain that grows male body parts and that’s what a transgender person is.” offered Gul. Something has gone wrong with police training if this is true.

Thus, although no crime took place, nor charges laid or without giving Mr Miller a day in court, sharing the limerick went down as a ‘hate incident’. In the process, Mr Millar is labelled ‘a suspect’ in police records for a crime that didn’t happen.

Now, this process has potential consequences for his future employment, vetting and background checks. Therefore, Mr Miller is de-facto guilty of a crime without a crime occurring nor a court hearing. The comparisons to the Gestapo are apt.

Mr Millar fought back, making the matter public through the media. This earned him a rebuke from an Assistant Chief Constable, who described Mr Miller’s tweets as ‘transphobic’. He mentioned possible escalation. These points are all thrown out by the court.

The Judge was far from impressed with Constable Gul. He didn’t understand his powers plus gave confusing evidence. Although, he accepted the view that Gul could act under common law to prevent escalation to a crime.

That the perception was wrong and unsustainable, points to Constable Gul’s manifest failings. Instead of courses in pseudo-biology, Gul should attend ‘critical thinking’ classes.

In the end, the Judge asserted the public are free to debate issues, even fraught subjects such as transgenderism. In summing up, he affirmed that ‘what Mr Miller wrote was lawful’. Further, and I paraphrase, ‘that someone may take offence is neither here or there, and certainly not a matter for the police. Thus, Humberside Police disproportionally interfered with Mr Miller’s right to freedom of speech.

We must applaud Mr Miller; his brave conduct exposed the Orwellian behaviour of Humberside Police. Unfortunately, it’s the tip of the iceberg. Over the past five years, police in England and Wales have investigated 120,000 ‘non-crime hate incidents’.

This is a scandalous waste of police resources when crime is rampant. Also, it begs the question, how many careers blunted or jobs denied because of these irregular practices?

Humberside Police are not some rogue example. Don’t forget Glasgow Police telling people to avoid being unkind on Twitter, lest they risk getting a ‘visit from us this weekend’. Or South Gwent Police warning people that mocking a drug dealer’s unfortunate haircut might be illegal.

And while Mr Miller failed in his bid to bring scrutiny to the Police College guidelines, that matter is far from over. He now goes to appeal. Anyone wishing to support this may do so through this website.

British policing, once the hallmark of excellence, has fallen a long way. I remember with warmth, my exceptional instructors and the many dedicated sensible front-line officers I met. I remain in contact with a few. They are horrified by the diktats of their woke leaders, yet afriad to speak out. Any non-conformist opinions are unwelcome and speaking the truth is career destroying.

British policing at its best, when operating within the law, with rationality, fair-mindedness and good humour, excels. Regrettably, as this case has shown, rationality falters, and the law is forfeit when bonkers agendas dominate. Harry Miller, in his press statement, made the point well.

“This is a watershed moment for liberty. The police were wrong to visit my workplace, wrong to check my thinking, wrong in their attempt force feed me the Stonewall - now the Labour Party - Trans rights pledge.

Humberside said they were following the Guidelines and The College of Police agreed. None of that matters. The College of Policing is a private company that issues guidance with all the legal weight of a Delia Smith Cook Book or an Owen Jones rant. Miller versus Humberside serves as a rallying cry: Women, comedians, students... even you politicians. Rediscover what it’s like to think, then, go forth and tweet without fear.

0 Comments

<<Previous

YOUR CART

Walter's Blog

An Ode to Two Cities.

A Victory for Free Speech

Author

Archives

Home

Introduction

Contact Walter