If there’s a hallmark of this political era it is rewards for failure. Cressida Dick will be on the red benches before you know it. Maybe not this year, or next, but soon and for the rest of our lives.
We should note and ponder the fact that it was not the shooting of an innocent Brazilian electrician that was her undoing. Nor was it her being at the helm of Britain’s flagship police force during a period where terrorism and gang violence have dominated the capital city. Nor was it the actual fact that a serving police officer on her force was a known sex pest who went on to use his police powers to abduct, rape and murder a woman.
No. Her undoing has been that there is banter in the locker rooms at police stations. People who do a grim and thankless job that must corrode their souls, and empirically confirm all the worst stereotypes about people, should not be allowed to engage in gallows humour and badinage. And they must certainly not be allowed to mock or deride the sainted classes (i.e. anyone who isn’t a white man from the 20th Century).
In a grim tussle between the forces of diversity, Sadiq the Destroyer has proven to be more powerful than Cressida the Invisible. There’s too much sexism and racism in London’s police force. This is a problem, to the man who once said that terrorism was just part and parcel of living in a big city. A bigger problem than the fact that black kids are stabbing each other to death in unprecedented numbers (another victory for Dick who was head of Operation Trident).
No, it’s the jokes about women belonging in the kitchen or the one about Indians having a dot on their heads and liking a bhajhi or two, und so weiter. Not the dead people, not the serial incompetence, corruption and lawlessness amongst serving officers. Not the standing visibly but idly by, as Extinction Deodorant or Black Lies Matter bring London to a standstill regularly for months and fell statues while violently screaming in the faces of anyone who takes issue. Not the brutal and provocative tactics of the Tactical Support Group when faced with a group that who isn’t actually in violent agreement with the government of the day. Not the harassing of regular folk over stupid covid regulations or the chilling of free speech (i.e. censorship) on social media. Not the concept of a non-crime hate incident.
I suppose it comes down to the old Al Capone stratagem. They didn’t get him for his racketeering, they got him on tax evasion. When the powers that be need to get something done, they pull the lever that’s in front of them, no matter what that lever actually does. If the outcome is what they want, it doesn’t matter how it’s arrived at.
So I’m glad Dick has finally gone. I’m sure we’ll all see her again in her Ermine. I will not be at all surprised if her successor as Met Police Commissioner is even worse. Far more politically aligned with Khan, achingly PC, just as incompetent, stridently and vocally agin’ every civilised norm that us 20th century folks cleave to. I don’t know who it will be, but the only candidate I would bet against is the white man in the running.
AJ