Posts Tagged ‘Andrew Mitchell’

Away from Plebgate, there’s another police conspiracy. But neither the Tories or the media want to talk about it

08/11/2013, 07:00:25 AM

by Sam Fowles

The Tories are only too willing to tolerate police corruption, so long as it’s people they don’t like who are the victims.

It’s almost Conan-Doyleesque. The blundering plods exposed by the quick wittedness of the (almost) aristocratic amateur. The emotional toll of the corrupt peelers’ betrayal, hitherto manfully concealed from the world, only revealed by the plaintive intervention of his loving daughter.

Except this isn’t a Sherlock Holmes story. This actually happened. Three police representatives have been exposed as liars after Andrew Mitchell revealed the recording he made of their meeting.

But the pious cries of corruption from Conservative MPs and their supporters in the media ring embarrassingly hollow when one considers their historic attitude to police malpractice.

The reality is that, when the victim is a rich, white, Conservative, police corruption represents a threat to our very democracy. If, however, the victim happens to be poor, black or a member of a group with which the right disagrees politically, then the thundering waves of outrage become rapidly tranquil.

They have, for example, remained positively glassy regarding the case of Mark Duggan, the man whom the police shot dead in 2011, sparking nationwide riots.

Let us, for a moment, consider the unfolding Duggan inquest.

The police, specifically three police officers involved, identified as W42, V53 and W70, claim that they followed Duggan from Tottenham to Leyton in unmarked cars and watched him pick up a package which, intelligence lead them to believe, was a firearm. They then followed him back to Tottenham until ordered to stop and detain him.

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Letter from Wales: Should policing really be devolved to the Welsh Assembly Government?

18/10/2013, 01:49:06 PM

by Julian Ruck

Warwickshire police commissioner Ron Ball is not quite a marauding Genghis Khan of police accountability, is he? More the sweet talking muse of old Bill romantic verse, it seems. His line, you must admit, of “let’s wait and see” certainly tends to disappoint when the evidence is clear and unequivocal in respect of the Andrew Mitchell debacle: the police lied….again.

But all is not lost. These bold outriders for public accountability, though somewhat mired in mystery where the general public are concerned, do enjoy a modest degree of virtue as I recently discovered when interviewing the Dyfed Powys police and crime commissioner Christopher Salmon.

The thrust of my interview concerned the devolving of police powers to Carwyn’s Team Druid in Cardiff Bay.

Before going any further, I must remind readers that the first minister was “roasted” by Welsh Labour MP’s back in March over this very issue, as originally reported by the Western Mail and then taken up by BBC Wales.

Talk of the tea room in Westminster, apparently. Indeed one senior politician compared Rhodri Morgan (Carwyn’s mentor in public sector studies) with Ramsay Macdonald and another loyalist Valley’s MP told Carwyn directly that it was a pity that he didn’t pay more attention to health and education in Wales instead of devolving police powers, with criminal justice to follow.

Yet another Westminster Welsh politico complained, “He didn’t consult anybody. He didn’t discuss his proposals with his own cabinet or even Labour AMs’.”

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Labour should not let Christmas cheer go to our heads

28/12/2012, 02:42:25 PM

by Jonathan Todd

As the Justice Collective were securing the Christmas Number One, a new, BBC comedy, Mr Stink, was portraying an aspirant politician as venal and self-serving. At the same time, Labour people were stressing to anyone who would listen – or at least their twitter streams – that Andrew Mitchell swore at the police.

While he admits doing so, and it is unedifying and disrespectful that he did, it seems likely that Mitchell has also been the victim of police conspiracy and perversion of justice. In which the police has been aided and abetted by a capricious media.

The suffering of Mitchell has been sincere and unjustified. It is, of course, nothing as compared with the pain and injustice visited upon the families of the 96 who died at Hillsborough on 15 April 1989. There are, however, some common themes: distortion of the truth by the police, driven by selfish motives and perpetuated by the industry whose failings Lord Leveson has catalogued in detail.

These themes transcend party politics. They char at the heart of what we are as a country: equal before the law; respectful of truth and justice; fundamentally decent.

It is virtually a truism to observe, as John Stuart Mill did, that the worth of a state, in the long run, is the worth of the individuals composing it. If we do not have police officers that serve justice, a media that seeks truth and politicians that hold police officers and journalists to these tasks then we have a citizenry of diminished worth, failing to uphold the most essential of British values.

To quibble over a misplaced curse in these circumstances is to confuse the crudely tribal woods with the trees that form the bigger picture. It is to give in to the tendencies that characterised the mendacious and superficial candidate on Mr Stink. Nothing would have got in the way of some personal or party advantage, no matter how small, for this sharp-elbowed sort and her equally unattractive party leader.

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Hogan-Howe will go over plebgate

24/12/2012, 07:05:58 AM

Back in October, Uncut made two predictions: that Andrew Mitchell would resign (down to the day he would go) and he would use the CCTV footage of the incident on Downing Street as the basis for an inevitable fightback.

Now a further prediction: the Metropolitan police will be looking for a new commissioner early next year. Bernard Hogan-Howe will resign.

At the moment he still thinks he can survive but this is about to change. As the new police investigation progresses and evidence mounts that key details in the log book were fabricated, the focus will move onto three areas: first, accountability for the mess; second, Hogan-Howe’s judgement over the past fortnight and third, why there wasn’t even a cursory investigation into Andrew Mitchell’s version of events at the time of the original story.

Bernard Hogan-Howe was appointed to bring more hands on, visible leadership to the Met. His reputation in his former bailiwick of Liverpool was as a leader with a grip of the detail on what was happening in his force.

Now on Bernard Hogan-Howe’s watch, it is likely that some of his policemen will have attempted to frame a cabinet minister. This constitutes one of the gravest potential acts of police corruption in recent years.

To think that at least one serving police officer could be charged and convicted in this affair and no senior officer take responsibility is inconceivable. In this context, given Hogan-Howe’s mandate, it is hard for him to abjure ultimate accountability.

Second, his judgement, over the days since Michael Crick’s explosive report, will surely be called into question.

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Andrew Mitchell plots his revenge on the police federation

26/10/2012, 03:49:22 PM

At the start of last week, Uncut predicted Andrew Mitchell’s demise. On Monday 15th October we said he would be gone on Thursday. In the event it turned out his departure was announced on Friday, though he actually made his decision to quit on Thursday.

Now, Uncut hears he is plotting his revenge.

It has been widely reported that he quit after concluding that he had lost the confidence of the 2010 intake of Conservative MPs. True. But this is only half of the story.

Andrew Mitchell had also concluded that, given the state of the media firestorm, he could not mount the robust defence needed to clear his name, while still chief whip.

He remains convinced that he has been the victim of a political hit job by the police federation. Friends of Mitchell say that despite the battering he took at the hands of the media, he will not give up.

More than his notorious temper or a desire for revenge, his primary motivation is his career. Andrew Mitchell is not prepared to accept this as the end.

In 1997, he was a rising star, destined for the cabinet when he lost his formerly safe seat in Gedling. That could have been it. Many others accepted their fate. But not Mitchell, he came back from that disaster, returned to parliament and made it into cabinet.

The former chief whip accepts it will be difficult, but he sees a route back to centre stage and is more determined than ever to get his side of the story across.

Mitchell’s defence will rest on a stopwatch.

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Andrew Mitchell will go on Thursday

15/10/2012, 07:00:17 AM

That’s the consensus Uncut hears swirling around the ranks of senior Tories. Post-conference, the denouement of #gategate has acquired a new lethal inevitability. Hopes of a firebreak, with conference season giving space for the furore to subside, have been decisively dashed.

As members of parliament return to Westminster, Ministers and MPs who have fanned out over the weekend for media interviews are all reporting back the same message to the Tory whips: this problem is not going away.

These interviews were meant to have been an opportunity for the Tories to build on David Cameron’s speech and set the agenda before the start of the Autumn session. But, on every single occasion the questioning returned to Andrew Mitchell’s position.

It not only dragged the MPs back into territory that the Tories have been trying to escape, but also presents a uniquely difficult question to answer.

There’s no defending Mitchell’s conduct. His absence from Birmingham, despite being the Tories’ only Birmingham MP, was stark. The agreed line to take that he apologised and the police personnel involved have accepted the apology leaves too many unanswered questions:  what did he actually say? Why are the police federation calling for him to go? How long will this drag on?

The critical day is now Wednesday. PMQs will be dominated by Andrew Mitchell, who will then face the judgement of the Tories backbench 1922 committee later that day when it meets.

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Wednesday News Review

31/08/2011, 06:59:01 AM

Ed to force a vote

Police cuts could lead to weaker law and order on the streets, Ed Miliband has warned as he called on the Government to “learn from the riots”. Mr Miliband has linked the riots to the need to have more officers on the streets. He wants to put pressure on the Government to reverse cuts to the amount of money given to police forces. He also opposes plans for directly elected commissioners which could cost £100m to implement. Mr Miliband hopes to be able to force a vote in Parliament on the issue – either through Labour’s opposition day debates or if enough members of the public sign a petition. But in the weeks since the riots, the Home Secretary defended the budget cuts and said they were not going to be as dramatic as some feared. While Labour have cited the figure showing the cuts amount to 20% in real terms, Theresa May argues they are smaller in cash terms. – Sky News

Labour leader Ed Miliband plans to force a Commons vote on police cuts to flush out Tory rebels and reveal Government splits. The move comes after Mr Miliband, 41, launched a new attack on Chancellor George Osborne’s decision to slash 20% from forces’ budgets. The Labour chief said it was “reckless” not to rethink the cuts in the wake of the riots that swept England earlier this month. The cost reductions will mean a 16,000 drop in officer numbers and a drastic fall in civilian police staffing. Labour may use an ­e-petition to trigger a Commons debate on cuts. Strategists believe many Tory MPs will not vote for the cuts, causing embarrassment for PM David Cameron. Those who do are likely to face a backlash from angry voters. – Daily Mirror

Mitchell is caught with his papers down

International Development Secretary Andrew Mitchell was pictured holding the document as he left Downing Street. He had been at a meeting of the National Security Council, chaired by PM David Cameron. The papers welcomed Afghan president Hamid Karzai’s announcement that he will stand down in 2014, stating: “This is very important. It improves Afghanistan’s political prospects very significantly. We should welcome Karzai’s announcement in private and in public.” Mr Mitchell is not the first prominent figure to accidentally show secret information. In 2009, Bob Quick was forced to stand down as Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer after he revealed details of an operation to foil an al-Qaeda plot. The year before, then housing minister Caroline Flint was pictured entering Number 10 with a briefing paper predicting property prices were set to plunge. – the Sun

The warning from the World Bank was disclosed in a private Cabinet briefing paper which also showed the British Government welcoming the decision of Hamid Karzai to step down as Afghan president. The paper was prepared for yesterday’s meeting of the National Security Council by officials working for Andrew Mitchell, the International Development Secretary. The document was photographed as Mr Mitchell carried them out of the meeting uncovered. Much of the document refers to an ongoing dispute between the Afghan government and the International Monetary Fund. The IMF is reviewing its support for the Kabul government over allegations of widespread corruption. In April, Britain stopped its payments to the main Afghan reconstruction fund. Mr Mitchell’s note showed that the World Bank has said that unless the dispute is resolved soon, the “transition” process, where the Afghan government takes responsibility for security and Western troops gradually withdraw, will be jeopardised. “The World Bank have told us that the suspension of UK and other [donor] funds to the Afghan government will soon begin to destabilise [activities] essential for successful transition,” the note said. – the Telegraph

The Coalition is split over banking reform

Conservative and Liberal Democrat ministers are at loggerheads over plans for sweeping reforms to Britain’s banks aimed at avoiding another taxpayers’ bailout in a future financial crisis. The Business Secretary Vince Cable is demanding the immediate introduction of proposals to force the banks to ring-fence their high street and riskier investment arms that are due to be published by the Independent Commission on Banking on 12 September. But David Cameron and George Osborne, the Chancellor, are sympathetic to the banks’ demand for them to be given several years to build the “Chinese walls” to be proposed by the commission chaired by Sir John Vickers – which could see the reforms delayed until after the next general election. Nick Clegg is backing Mr Cable and the timing of the reforms threatens to provoke a power struggle at the top of the Government. – the Independent

Tories and Coulson avoid an inquiry

The Conservative party will not face an official inquiry into allegations that it broke electoral law by failing to declare News International‘s payments to its former head of communications, Andy Coulson, after the elections watchdog concluded that there was insufficient evidence of a breach. The Electoral Commission had been asked to investigate a series of payments amounting to a six-figure sum made to Coulson by News International in the months after he arrived at Conservative campaign headquarters in 2007, as well as a company car and health insurance he received for three years. Tom Watson, the Labour MP and member of the Commons culture select committee, had raised concerns that the money could have amounted to an undeclared donation to the party. The revelation that Coulson received the severance payments from News International while working for the Conservatives put renewed pressure on the party, which had previously denied that he was paid by anyone else while employed by them. – the Guardian

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Oldham by-election: how furious will the Tory right be if the Lib Dems come third?

24/12/2010, 02:00:20 PM

Mike Smithson over at PoliticalBetting asks this morning, “why are Labour talking down the Tories in Oldham East & Saddleworth”? His contention is that Labour must be bonkers to downplay the Tories’ chances.

His thinking is: a) Labour will win, unless blues switch to yellows; b) the blues think so, and are therefore lining up behind the yellows; c) the reds must be stupid to encourage more blues to give up hope.

He quotes Iain Wright, Hartlepool MP and by-election gaffer, talking down the Tories – essentially to say, “what’s this guy doing? This strategy is mental”.

Now Mike knows more about betting markets than most. But something doesn’t smell right.

Iain Wright is not a fool. Yes he’s got a twinkle in his eye and boyish looks – but under that cheeky chappy persona is an experienced politician who won a brutal by-election himself.

At the last election, Oldham East and Saddleworth became an old school three way marginal. The Lib Dems a shade over a hundred votes behind Labour with the Tories in a not so distant 3rd place. With the national trend seeing the Lib Dems falling to pieces, in some polls down as low as single figures, why do we assume their vote will hold up in Oldham? More importantly: how were the Conservatives convinced that it was the Liberal rather than Conservative candidate they should throw their weight behind?

On the ground, the Liberals, and their disgustingly smug candidate appear to be tanking, big time – and the by-election looks to be coming down to an old fashioned punch up between Labour and Conservative. (more…)

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