The Casey report on the Metropolitan Police has landed, and it is as damning as anticipated. Commissioned following the kidnap, rape and murder of Sarah Everard by serving Met officer Wayne Couzens, the report concludes the force is institutionally racist, sexist and homophobic and the public is being let down by a force that no longer has a functioning neighbourhood policing service. The author, Baroness Louise Casey, said:
Do I think that they should say they are institutionally racist? Yes, I do. Do I think they should say they are institutionally sexist? Yes, I know they are. Do I think they should say they are institutionally homophobic? Yes, I do.
However, speaking ahead of the release of the report, Sir Mark Rowley, the Met Commissioner, while he apologised for the numerous failings and accepted there was racism, misogyny and homophobia in the force, refused to use the term “institutional”, calling it ambiguous and political.
Former Thames Valley Police and Crime Commissioner Anthony Stansfeld, writing in the Mail, accepts the criticisms and, ironically, blames rampant wokery.
During my time in post for almost a decade from 2012, I could sense that in the sprawling mass of the capital, public confidence in the police was evaporating as violent crime worsened, corruption became rife and woke ideology triumphed, distorting everything from recruitment of officers to the fight against Islamist terrorism.
Believe me: we had our own difficulties in the Thames Valley, especially the activities of Asian grooming gangs. But they paled beside the rot that had clearly infested the Met.
As Baroness Casey’s report demonstrates, the Met’s performance has been dismal on almost every front. Despite the leadership’s obsession with ‘diversity’, racism, misogyny and homophobia are rampant, shattering public trust among the many vulnerable who most need an effective police force…
Why has the force so badly lost its way? Part of the answer, I believe, is that too many of those in senior positions are the products of progressive education peddled by woke university courses. They are more concerned with social engineering than with fighting crime.
Politically correct dogma not only weakens their own authority but also distorts vital policies on recruitment and promotion. The Met should, of course, be trying to attract more women and ethnic minorities so its workforce more closely mirrors the make-up of the capital.
But that does not mean that hiring new applicants should descend into a box-ticking exercise in identity politics – as it manifestly has.
In the vacuum created by weak leadership, an inevitable and ugly backlash against the woke agenda has also been allowed to flourish.
That helps to explain a bizarre paradox: the more the Met’s top brass fixates on wokeness, the more bigoted much of its workforce becomes.
Now, I’m not able to comment on most of the contents of the report, which is largely based on recollections from serving and former officers. I also have no interest in defending the Met or its officers. However, I will say I was surprised by how weak the evidence it presents for “institutional racism” was. The Telegraph summarises it as follows:
The report laid bare a culture of “overt” racism within the force, where the N-word was used, black officers were less likely to get promoted and were 81% more likely to find themselves in the misconduct system.
It warned that at the current rate of recruitment, it would take 39 years for the Met to reflect the diversity of the community that it polices.
Meanwhile, bacon was left inside a Muslim officer’s boots and a Sikh colleague had his beard cut as part of racist behaviour written off in the Metropolitan Police as “pranks” and “banter”, the review said.
Another Sikh officer’s turban was put into a shoe box because colleagues “thought it was funny”.
The report said racist and other discriminatory behaviour was often “tolerated, ignored or dismissed as ‘banter’”.
It detailed how one black officer, who worked for PaDP guarding a building, was referred to by his colleagues as a “gate monkey”, which he said he took as a racial slur.
One senior officer described how he was asked in a meeting last year: “Did you get to where you got because you are black?”
And the Mail summarises it as follows:
The review found the force was institutionally racist and had failed to tackle the ‘rot’ present for many years. Black officers were 81% more likely to be subject to a misconduct case than white officers.
One senior officer was openly asked in a large meeting in 2022: “Did you get to where you got to because you are black.”
And a black woman told the review: “You have to try and be invisible as a black woman… If you complain you get a reputation as being trouble and then supervisors try and pass you on to other teams.”
The 363-page report also acknowledged disproportionality – with black Londoners being “overpoliced”. It concluded there was a “wilful blindness” and continued failure by commanders at Scotland Yard to accept and to address racism.
As I say, I have no interest in defending the Met. But as examples illustrating “institutional racism” these seem weak. Racist banter is of course unacceptable, but it is also banter, and not by itself an indication of racist institutional behaviours. Likewise pranks: poor taste jokes may well be offensive, but they are typically intended to be japes – often meant as a form of bonding, especially by men – and are not by themselves an indication of ‘institutional racism’.
It is hard to know outside of context whether “gate monkey” is intended as a racial slur as the term ‘monkey’ to mean low level worker is standard slang in English and, in that usage, has no racial connotation. In general, the ‘monkey’ slur often occurs inadvertently (think Danny Baker and the royal baby or Alastair Stewart quoting Shakespeare) precisely because most people do not instinctively connect ‘monkey’ with black people, and the offence in such instances is almost always taken rather than given.
It has been pointed out many times that raw statistics like “black officers were less likely to get promoted and were 81% more likely to find themselves in the misconduct system” may be a reflection of underlying differences between the groups being compared rather than any discrimination. In addition, if the Met is preferentially recruiting black candidates to make up for a perceived deficit then, as with any system that prioritises other qualities over merit, standards may suffer. Similarly, being asked, “Did you get to where you got because you are black?” is not acceptable, but such thoughts are inevitable in a system that pushes ‘positive action’ on race. It is clearly not appropriate to vocalise them in a professional context, but you cannot introduce non-merit based systems and expect people not to harbour such thoughts.
The fact that “at the current rate of recruitment, it would take 39 years for the Met to reflect the diversity of the community that it polices” is (if true) surely more a reflection of the extraordinarily fast transformation of London in recent decades into a white minority city than the failings of the Met’s ability to attract and retain officers from ethnic minorities.
The wider context is also that London is a very troubled, divided city, the effective policing of which has immense challenges. Again, I have no interest in defending the Met, and do not doubt that it could be a much more effective police force. But there’s also no doubt that the job its officers have to do is hugely challenging.
It’s inevitable that this report will lead to calls for yet more diversity training for the police. But since the Met has subjected its officers to no shortage of such training in recent years, if the problems are, as Casey claims, as bad as ever then it clearly doesn’t work. Since there is also, as the Free Speech Union has noted, a free speech crisis in policing, with officers undergoing tens of thousands of hours of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) training but almost no training in free speech, the last thing we need is yet more police wokery. Whatever are the real problems in London policing, the solutions, if they exist, must lie elsewhere.
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We are all utter hypocrties. Sometimes its just wallowing in masturbatory self-satisfaction and sometimes it is simply lack of consideration of facts and circumstances. Can we not come together as a group defined as hypocrites? That’s the real test – if you are able to laugh at yourself. Lets face it in your worst moments you were far worse than the people you are criticising and singling out. And if you do that then it it usually to massage your ego one way or another. This is a teaching in spiritual science, avoiding the tendency to do this. It is even spoken about in the gospels.
Speak for yourself
I disagree. You will inevitably be a hypocrite if you have no principles, but merely base your opinions on whatever is the current fashion.
Statements exists independently of the people who made them and conjectures about the hidden motivations why they were made. They stand or fall on their content. People openly speculating about other people’s hidden failings are either trolling or engaging in disinformation tactics. And they usually only communicate information about the one person they’re really intimately familiar with — themselves.
Here’s the shorthand…
The idle (get it?) wokeys are definitely, definitely in favour of illegal immigrants coming to our shores, breaching our borders, helping themselves to state benefits and firmly believe they should be welcomed with open arms.
The idle wokeys are definitely, definitely NOT in favour of illegal queue jumpers coming to their weekend party, breaching the security border to gain entrance and then disrupting said party because its overcrowded, while paying naff all for the experience. They expect the organisers to ensure this never happens again.
What am I missing?
Nothing, I think. It’s always a big difference if they’re gatecrashing your party or the party of someone else. To these guys, Britain is the party of someone else and particularly, of someone elses they don’t particularly like and who wouldn’t ever come to their concerts.
Exactly
Well put
Thanks
Here is an even better acid test. —-If families of migrants covered in headscarves move next door to these people let’s see what happens to their placards with “Refugees Welcome Here” on them
Brilliant comparison by Michael Deacon exposing the middle-class Leftist hypocrisy on immigration! And it has all been done deliberately, forced upon every western nation by the Globalist subversives.
Here are two photos showing the shocking result of the invasion, the Canadian football team in 2000 vs. 2024:
Keith Woods on X: “https://s.w.org/images/core/emoji/15.0.3/svg/1f1e8-1f1e6.svg Canadian football team in 2000 vs. 2024. So tragic. Few countries are undergoing population replacement as rapidly as Canada. https://t.co/YIIJv9qjIO” / X
You know what they say, people become culture warriors because they are too pussy ass to be real warriors. And most of the culture warriors don’t actually do anything. Just wait and see where your types end up when things get really bad. You will be discarded like rubbish. From a survival perspective the first thing to do is disgard toxic rubbish like you.
They beat you and yes now this is an open door country and will contnue to be so. A million new people every year. Get to know them. To love them. Because their sons and daughters will own this land long after you are extinct.
Talk about reading with eyes shut – or trying to.
There are very few if any posting on DS who agree with you and most will fight to stop the immigrants. We don’t want them.
Like when? This has been an ongoing agenda since the 1950s. You wanted cheap labour okay I can understand that. Surely there comes a point where the costs outweigh the benefits? No even cheaper labour. Eastern european labour wasn’t cheap enough lets go for sub-Saharan Africa. Okay you made your money was it really worth it?
No….Rivers of Blood come to mind.
We were never asked. I observe that more and more people are waking up to what is happening so there will be NO ‘getting used to it’.
I think it was Glastonbury 1999 when they were licensed for 105,000 and reckoned they had 250,000 on site. Nearly got closed down by the environmentalists complaining about too much urine in the streams.
In the years after that they built big fences. A bit of an arms race since then.
Yup first Metal Fence was in 2002.
You threw it down the toilet thirty years ago and now you’re all hot an bothered. It is gone forever. All I ask is that you understand that the meaning of Islam is submission. Submisson to what? That is where you as a human being are supposed to pick up on the truth vibrations.
Do you think the band misspelled their name? Because what a totally dumbass name to call yourselves. And their ‘music’s the pits! Still, at least the attendees at this particular music festival weren’t in any danger of getting killed, injured or kidnapped from these ”illegal entrants”, so there is that, what with the amount of Palestinian support evident that weekend;
”The two most bourgeois events in the social calendar — London’s Pride parade and Glastonbury — often coincide. This at least gets them both over and done with tout suite, and removes a small but very disproportionately vocal and culturally powerful layer of the upper-middle-class, away from the rest of us for one blissful weekend.
There is always some defining, desperately cringe, spectacle to emerge from these events. It looked like Glastonbury’s entry this year was to be its inauguration of a “lesbian tent” that was actually full of delusional straight blokes. But that, incredible thought it was, was swiftly superseded by Banksy’s boat.
This was an inflatable model of the kind of inflatable dinghy that regularly crosses the English Channel, complete with inflatable kiddies aboard. It was released onto the crowd, which were appreciating the performance by pop group Idles of their song “Danny Nedelko”, a hymn to open borders which contains the lyrics “My blood brother is an immigrant, a beautiful immigrant” and “He’s made of bones, he’s made of blood/He’s made of flesh, he’s made of love/He’s made of you, he’s made of me/Unity!” Stand back, T.S. Eliot.
Banksy fits in with Idles nicely. For those of us of a certain age, the name is forever connected with Banksy, the love rival of Zammo in mid-Eighties Grange Hill, a youth with a face that you could politely describe as characterful. The actual Banksy is an ex-public schoolboy called Robin Gunningham, a fact which everybody has to pretend they have forgotten. The posh art world values his gruesome “that’ll show Thatcher!” novelty graffiti, because of course it would, and his works have become bankable assets.”
https://unherd.com/newsroom/banksys-glastonbury-stunt-is-the-height-of-phoney-rebellion/
https://x.com/arcticmatt/status/1808161825713705152
“And their ‘music’s the pits!”
I couldn’t agree more and I have very eclectic tastes.
What current pop music do you like, that’s much good? I’m out of touch with current pop music. I think I might like Richard Hawley if I listened to him more. All the other music I listen to is old, the most recent is Adele.
Richard Hawley is a favourite. A brilliant musician and singer songwriter. His music goes up another notch when you see him live but his shows sell out in minutes. He is a ‘must see.’
Favourite band – Editors. I love their music and live they enter another division. My brother didn’t really ‘get’ Editors until he saw them live. He went to Barcelona to see them last year and tells me it was one of the best gigs evah.
Joy Division / New Order – their music will last to eternity. Love ’em.
Listening to “Love will Tear us Apart” as the finale to a gig really does make the hairs on the back of the head stand up. Life confirming.
Radiohead, Talking Heads, Arcade Fire, David Bowie – genius, The Smile, Thom Yorke’s Radiohead offshoot, The Stranglers – great live, Public Service Broadcasting, phenomenal, Public Image Ltd – absolutely incredible live. John Lydon is a star. Portishead – three beautiful albums. Please come back. A bit of Oasis or High Flying Birds, Mumford and Sons, (I know), The Lottery Winners, Skinny Lister – one of the best live bands out there. Fat White Family.
Leonard Cohen, his last four albums, much like Johnny Cash (
) would define a lifetime of achievement for many artists, so heart rendingly beautiful they hurt.
Keane if only for the timeless and beautiful ‘Hopes and Fears’ album.
Kraftwerk – they re-wrote the rules for modern music.
Joan Amatrading – soulful.
Hot Chip, Goat Girl, Gorillaz, Fun Boy Three, Fleetwood Mac, Echo and the Bunnymen, The Doors, of course. Dionne Warwicke.
The Colourfield and the sadly missed melancholic genius of Terry Hall. Check out ‘Virgins and Philistines.’
The Clash, Chris Rea, Altered Images, Alabama 3 – brilliant live when not pissed.
Steely Dan, the fabulous, luscious Stylistics.
Van Morrison.
Wolf Alice.
The sublime XX.
A selection from my Ipod.
Hope that helps. I would think most of these can be found on YouTube.
I would throw in Metallica, Judas Priest, Motor Head (Ace of Spades) Venom (first British Black Metal band) Don’t mind some nineties dance tracks too. As for Electro, try Scratch Massive (French band).
Some good news – UK Column News are back on YouTube, full programmes and subjects by blocs.
Brilliant.
Here’s a taster:
https://youtu.be/6CqF_of48FQ?si=fbQlqBUNWp-bWoEk
How long will they be back on there and is there any point when Russell Brand does all his tasty stull on Rumble.
Ron, I am a UK Column subscriber and they helped massively when this shit show started. Proper journalism.
I pay the fiver subscription too but never seem to be able to view ‘Extra Time’. Not sure why they do extra time anyway, they can just stay there. It does piss me off if the subject is of interest and they say they’ll save it for extra.
https://youtu.be/iFpSmbkWWNs?si=dsbMa50KJ4NKSA_i
Elcom and Ofcom combining to keep Independents out of the elections.
No…surely not.
Actually yes as I know only too well.
“My blood brother is an immigrant”…..He just raped my sister, oh well!
I did security there beck in 2002 and that was the year they put this metal fence around the perimeter. It was boring in the day, had some old woman coming to me asking is anybody has seen her Gate that was obviously used as a makeshift ladder. Night time was manic and my mate, I quote ‘shit himself’ when approached by around 10 guys from Liverpool. Remember on the CB someone asking fir assistance because a cow was giving birth, and someone told him; watch very carefully, it will change your life!
“In fact, the people who have bought tickets should be made to pay out of their own pockets to feed and accommodate all the people who got in without tickets. It’s only fair.”
Reparations?