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  • Walter's Blog.
  • Home
  • Introduction
  • About Walter
    • 1980 Joining Up - Grafton Street >
      • Arrival and First Impressions
      • First Week
      • Training
      • Passing Out
    • Yaumati Cowboy >
      • Getting on the Streets
      • Tempo of the City
      • Jumpers, pill poppers and the indoor BBQ
      • Into a Minefield.
    • Why Tango in Paris, when you can Foxtrot in Kowloon? >
      • Baptism By Fire
      • Kai Tak with Mrs Thatcher.
      • Home; The Boy Returns
  • 1984 - 1986
    • PTU Instructor & Getting Hitched
    • Having a go: SDU
    • Starting a Chernobyl family
    • EOD - Don't touch anything
    • Semen Stains and the rules
  • 1987 to 1992 - Should I Stay or Go?
    • Blue Lights, Sirens & Grenades
    • Drugs, Broken Kids & A Plane Crash
    • 600 Happy Meals Please!
    • Hong Kong's Best Insurance
    • Riding the Iron Horse
  • Crime in Hong Kong
    • Falling Crime Rates - Why?
    • Triads
  • History of Hong Kong Policing
    • History 1841 to 1941
    • History 1945 to 1967
    • Anatomy of the 50 cent Riot - 1966
    • The Fall of a Commissioner.
    • History 1967 to 1980
    • Three Wise Men from the West
    • The Blue Berets.
    • The African Korps and other tribes.
    • Getting About - Transport.
    • A Pub in every station
    • Bullshit Bingo & Meetings
    • Godber - The one who nearly got away.
    • Uncle Ho
  • Top 20 Films
    • 2001 - A Space Odyssey.
    • The Godfather.
    • Blade Runner
    • Kes
    • Star Wars
    • Aliens
    • Ferris Bueller's Day Off
    • The Life of Brian
    • Dr Strangelove.
    • Infernal Affairs
    • Bridge on the River Kwai.
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    • An Officer and a Gentleman
    • PTU
    • Contact
    • Saving Private Ryan
    • Family Guy Star Wars
    • Zulu
    • Hard Day's Night
  • The Long Read
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Walter's Blog

"But how can you live and have no story to tell?" Fyodor Dostoevsky
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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 wh at life was like living in colonial Hong Kong, this blog, WALTER'S BLOG, fits the bill."  Hong Kong Blog Review

2/2/2022 2 Comments

Surely Britain is better than this?

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"Caught lying, Johnson has pulled every trick in the book to avoid real personal responsibility."
With his deceitful conduct, Boris Johnson has exposed the weakness of democracy. Hiding behind procedures, rules and bluffs, he is fighting a rear-guard action to avoid answering for his deceits and alleged crimes. And the system allows this to happen. 

These days it is often said that democracy is under threat from totalitarian regimes. That may be so, but the antics of those within the system are more damaging; those that lie and cheat, obfuscating their way through parliament. 

H.L. Mencken, an American essayist, identified the idea that democracy operates against decent people raising to the top because the system intrinsically favours the most devious and mediocre types. Looking around the cast of characters performing in the UK parliament, it is easy to agree with Mencken’s thoughts.

Caught lying, Johnson has pulled every trick in the book to avoid real personal responsibility. Instead, he's ignored common decency, usurped process and fallen back from defence position to defence position, damaging institutions along the way.

His first line of defence was bluster, "No parties, no rules broken." Then we had, "It is a misunderstanding" and "I didn't know it was a party." That is despite the booze and cheese. When that argument faltered on a sceptical public, he summoned an insider to 'independently' investigate the matter. 

That word 'independent' is doing a lot of work because Gray is a noted behind-the-scene operator who worked to shield Nos 10. As a fixer, in the past, she held off scrutiny of Nos 10, including denying freedom of information requests on what many consider dubious grounds. 

Yet even Gray couldn't ignore the vast amount of evidence of wrong-doing. While critical of Johnson, her interim report fails to deliver the killer blow. She's left many issues unaddressed. 

We are told she held back because the Metropolitan Police finally got off their backsides to investigate the Covid rule-breaking taking place under their noses. Happy to slap fines on ordinary citizens, chase people with drones and raid wedding parties, the police turned a blind eye to events in and around Nos 10. 

Police in England and Wales have fined more than 18,000 people for meeting outside during the pandemic – a crime for which Boris Johnson has repeatedly escaped punishment.

Now that the clamour for action reached a crescendo, even Commissioner Dick couldn't ignore it. That has meant that aspects of the Gray Report are held back, allowing shifty Boris to take cover behind the police inquiry. 

Nominative determinism is the concept that people gravitate towards jobs and actions that fit their names. Ms Dick may substantiate that theory. She has undoubtedly made a rod for her own back by holding off investigating Boris, eroding further the already tarnished image of the Metropolitan Police.

It is helpful to tally up the institutions of state that Boris debased as he seeks to fend off a full acknowledgement of the truth. First up is the Office of Nos 10; next is the Civil Service and finally the Metropolitan Police.

I've watched the debates with a sense of awe at the sheer audacity of Boris as Kier Starmer, the opposition leader, had a few decent attempts at getting Boris to fess up. 

Yet assailed from all sides, Boris laughs and smirks as MPs raised the community's trauma over Covid deaths. One Tory MP asked if Boris considered him a fool for following the Covid rules at his grandmother's funeral.

And yet conservative MPs are holding back on delivering a leadership challenge.

As Boris hangs on, he's like a wounded lion lashing out and roaring at anyone who dares to criticize him. As a result, he's a diminished figure and has diminished the UK's standing internationally. 

The villain of the moment, Putin, is not inclined to take any calls from Boris. Who can blame him? Boris is a silly man who can't even remember if he attended a party in his flat, plus he is looking like yesterday's man.

I suspect to see a slow march to the gallows of dismissal for Boris; he will need to be prized from Downing Street kicking and screaming. That process will drag the country down with him, leaving the UK looking like a lesser country.

Anyone interested in justice and truth must be asking, surely Britain is better than this?

2 Comments
Chris Emmett
3/2/2022 07:05:54 pm

The most embarrassing element was when the 'cake ambush,' was made into a joke during the US president's weekly press briefing.

Reply
Gloria Bing
3/2/2022 07:38:46 pm

One thing Boris isn’t is mediocre. Instead, he is more a representative of the Peter Principle: he was a good biographer, an excellent editor, a quite successful mayor...and a terrible PM. In hanging on for dear life he is also entirely representative of a corruption at the heart of British political and institutional life: a lack of any sense of accountability. Dick is another one. She should have resigned after any one of several Met cockups. The rot is everywhere, including in the civil service which no longer sees it as its duty to implement the policies of the incumbent government. Even the National Trust sees no obligation to its members or the public to do what is required by its constitution. And they can get away with it because in the past the rules of accountability were unwritten and those caught out were expected to “do the right thing” without being forced. Not now. Such a voluntary falling on the sword would probably be seen by these people as a naive waste of the several months/years of salary to be accrued while waiting to be pushed out. And in the end, no matter the approbrium, short of criminal conviction those appointments to quangos, NGOs, boards of directors and speaking tours will still roll in...

That said, it’s exactly the same in Hong Kong.

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    Walter De Havilland was one of the last of the colonial coppers. He served 35 years in the Royal Hong Kong Police and Hong Kong Police Force. He's long retired. 

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