Grooming: Why Blame the Police? Why not Labour?
Yesterday Rotherham MP Sarah Champion tweeted…
Which rather raises the question, what did people expect would happen when those seeking to highlight the abuse in Manchester, and the questions surrounding Operation Augusta, began using #metoo to make their case?
#metoo has always been a poisonous meme. So it should come as no surprise if Britain First were to troll it. But then neither should it come as a surprise that Sarah Champion is sending out mixed messages. In fact it is all rather reminiscent of the early 2000’s when the Labour party completely lost control of the situation. And for much the same reason.
It’s far too easy to blame the police. Especially when the Labour party (sometimes for good reasons) uses the issue of race for political advantage, with all the subtly of an arsonist in a oil refinery.
During the election, and before, there was an attempt to paint Boris Johnson as a racist: Brexit was racist: Northern voters were racist: in fact, there is very little these days that a lazy journalist with a deadline to meet won’t find racist. And given this ‘truth’ it should come as no surprise that the slightest utterance from Britain First should be magnified out of all proportion.
Following the election a story went round that 5000 members of Britain First had joined the Conservative party: along with Tommy Robinson (which by ‘woke’ law must also be called Stephen Yaxley Lennon) and Katie Hopkins. Never mind that James Cleverly, (and I can’t believe I have to say this, but it is the sad times that we live in due in large part to progressive politics) a black man, and Conservative party chairman denies this, and gets abuse in the process. And never mind that it is highly questionable if Britain First has 5000 members. What matters is that in the eyes ‘of the many’ is that the Conservative party is delegitimized.
And the what-a-boutery can begin.
The other day Maajid Nawaz had a caller who exemplified the what-a-boutery. The caller also came out with the line ‘as a father of daughters myself…’ which is another theme in this sorry tale, the way in which the parents are demonised, particularly fathers, and often in a racialised manner.
Still the caller wasn’t having it. He certainly wasn’t about to believe Mr Nawaz and his 84% statistic. And why would he when Kenan Malik, via the Guardian, has debunked these figures. Well actually if you read the article, he doesn’t debunk anything. What he does is to sow doubt and insinuate. For instance…
“ Nazir Afzal is the Crown Prosecution Service’s former lead on child sexual abuse and the prosecutor most responsible for bringing down grooming gangs. The media, he observes, pounce on cases involving Asians, but often ignore those involving white perpetrators.”
And why would this be Mr Malik?
Could it be that ‘man bites dog’ is news? Perhaps because there isn’t an up-roar when the police investigate ‘white perpetrators’?
Or could it be that stories involving ‘Asians’ have a news cycle that stories involving ‘white perpetrators’ don’t? That there will always be an editor to give the nod to a story, however lamentable, involving a ‘non-white’, and some injustice or another?
Or could it be that when looking at this particular category of crime, and that sub-set of data, 84% of those accused are ‘Asian’?
Does it mean only ‘Asians’ do it? Does it mean all ‘Asians’ do it? Does it mean ‘Asians’ condone it? Well, obviously not.
But one thing is for sure, the overly-socialised will use Mr Malik’s piece as evidence. That he quotes Lily Allen will only add further weight to this alt-right conspiracy. What they won’t do is to wonder who were the 16%. Or take note of Operation Augusta review, which states that the investigations were ‘low-priority’, and a new, and particular field of policing. Or place the figures into any sort of perspective.
In many ways such people are the mirror image of Britain First. They share many of the same conspiracies but from the exact opposite point of view. Indeed they feed off one another. If one side says ‘all Muslims’ the other says ‘all whites’. And of course ‘all whites’ wins: because only whites can be racist, and there are no points to be won in virtue signalling ‘whites’.
Speaking of Maajid Nawaz, he has called for a Stephen Laurence style inquiry. Perhaps recognising the absence of the virtue-bat-signal in this issue: during the course of his impassioned plea (and it is impressive), Mr Nawaz picks up on the current zeitgeist and uses the word ‘misogyny’.
This is ‘problematic’ for a number of reasons. Whilst it is true that the majority of the prominent cases were against girls: indeed Andrew Norfolk stated that it was his observing local newspaper reports of crimes against girls which sparked his curiosity: there were young boys who were abused also (and perhaps for the same ‘cultural’ reasons). Secondly, it reinforces the prejudice against fathers, raising once again the accusation of why they didn’t do more to protect their children (not man enough eh?). But, perhaps the main reason this is a distraction, is that misogyny is such a weasel word, and one that gets applied to a whole manner of things to which it simply doesn’t apply (if it applies to anything): thus it makes the subject trivial.
And whilst it is grand to call for a McPherson style inquiry, wouldn’t such an inquiry simply be investigating the role the McPherson inquiry played in creating and perpetuating the situation in which the police could not investigate for fear of being accused of racism?
There is a talk by Melanie Phillips (yeah, I know booo) in which she points out the government used keep a particular set of statistics on families, but in the 1980s ceased to be keep them because they were embarrassing: highlighting as they did (what could be seen as) errors in social policy. In the same talk she says that the local council commissioned a report into the Stephen Laurence murder and found that the problem lay partly in education, which in an effort to project ‘progressive’ notions (blacks were slaves, whites are privileged), only served to alienate everyone (regardless of race).
Ms Phillips uses these as examples of why McPherson was incorrect. And indeed the Labour government was quick to drop elements of McPherson, like the annual publishing of arrest and conviction rates by race, when they were found contrary to the assumptions of McPherson.
And what would such an inquiry investigate?
Would it look into a Labour MP tweeting out that the danger lies in the far-right exploiting the situation, and the police are investigating, and conclude that nothing has changed in twenty years?
