“We” are outraged – “we”, that is, if one’s a woman, a young woman at that. “We” are outraged about police brutality in London at that vigil for the murdered young woman, Sarah Everard. The one photo splashed across the MSM frontpages is the visual proof for our righteous outrage.  It’s of a very pretty young woman, on the floor, surrounded by police officers of whom we only see the muddy boots.The police only went into action, as far as I can make out, after dark when the masses didn’t disperse. 

In case you missed it: all this was about the ‘Vigil for Sarah’ yesterday where women went to Clapham Common in the afternoon to lay down floral tributes, the Duchess of Cambridge being one of them. Again, ‘the nation’ was asked to display their virtue by putting candles on their doorsteps or in their windows. Never mind that the grieving family didn’t want this vigil in the first place: that’s unimportant when certain groups can celebrate their virtue and, yes, ‘outrage’

I’m not going to look at the claim that “women must reclaim the streets” which has been ongoing since the first modern-day feminists burned their bras in public. Most of yesterday’s protesters weren’t even a twinkling in their parents’ eyes at that time. I’ll not ask what happened to all those women who’ve attended self-defence courses to protect themselves. I won’t ask why suddenly a new generation of ‘strong females’ need and demand protection everywhere, at any time. 

I won’t even point out the gigantic hypocrisy accompanying this vigil and the ‘outcry’ about the dreadful murder of that one young woman with the grooming gang scandal about which those ‘sisters’ couldn’t, wouldn’t and didn’t give a damn. We all know why that is and I won’t even hint that ‘class’, not just sex or, to use the disgustion expression ‘community cohesion’, comes into this.

I will however point out that the Chief of the Met Police is a woman, that one of her Assistant Commissioners is a woman – her name is Helen Ball and we know this because she released a statement about this incident early this morning (paywalled link) – and that the Home Secretary is a woman. Surely, given that this murder was the top story these last few days and given that the organisers of this vigil have been in contact with the police, there ought to have been some ‘guidance’ from those top female ‘leaders’? 

There’s one little aspect which is being played down. This aspect is not without irony. In a brief aside we learn that these ‘troubles’ came after:

 “plans to hold an official vigil were dashed by the police because of concerns about breaching coronavirus laws that ban large gatherings.” (paywalled link)

Ah! I wasn’t going to ‘do a MSM’ and quote tweets – the whole of the political pack has been tweeting like mad about this – but one of those tweets is important because it demonstrates clearly that ‘covid rules’ can be broken when some people see the opportunity to make political hay:

“Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, tweeted: “The scenes from Clapham Common are unacceptable. The police have a responsibility to enforce Covid laws but from images I’ve seen it’s clear the response was at times neither appropriate nor proportionate. I’m contacting with the commissioner & urgently seeking an explanation.” (link, paywalled)

Funny, that – we all remember the many reports about police enforcing covid rules, sometimes none too gently, without much of an outcry from Khan and other politicians. We also remember that the ‘covid rule enforcers’, locally and in our neighbourhoods, were usually the females of our species. Yesterday evening though it was different – lockdown rules and covid measures were clearly not important. Of course, a Labour minister, still wedded to the idea that the police are the culprits regardless, had to put her oar in:

“Charlotte Nichols, shadow minister for women and equalities, said that if police had put as much effort into trying to hold a Covid-secure vigil “as they put into stopping any collective show of grief and solidarity, we’d all be in a better place.” (link, paywalled)

Ahem. Wasn’t that afternoon vigil ‘covid secure’? The photos splashed across the MSM would indicate it was. However, as darkness fell, this happened, according to the Times:

“Trouble flared shortly afterwards when the police tried to stop women making speeches from the bandstand. Officers formed a ring around the platform and moved in, to the bewilderment of the mainly female crowd who shouted: “We are here because the police told us to go home. We will not be curfewed.” The Metropolitan Police had banned the vigil, despite the organisers, Reclaim the Streets, offering to provide time slots and Covid marshals.” (link, paywalled)

Ah – so the ‘evening vigil’ was banned because of covid – not the afternoon one. Was the speechifying the trigger for that ‘police outrage’? There was no outrage when the police ‘dispersed’, none too gently, the various, covid-secure anti-lockdown protests as soon a s people got up to make speeches. Then, the outrage by the Westminster hodge-podge of politicians and MSM was decidedly, well, let’s say: low key. Clearly, this is another case of ‘when we do it it’s different’, as the following quote shows:

“Kirsty, a nurse who attended the vigil in the early evening, said: “I understand the impact of Covid, but protests were allowed to go ahead last year and it feels unjust that women could not have that collective moment.” (link, paywalled)

Yes, it’s only fair: BLM and ‘Extinction Rebellion’ demos were policed gently so why not that of these poor women? Never mind that it was already dark, never mind that they were told to go home. Who needs to listen to the police when they can be labelled ‘scum’, or screamed at: ‘you’re supposed to protect us’, or shouted at: ‘arrest your own’ (link)!

And so to the political fall-out, already ‘in the works’ as far as this government is concerned. It didn’t garner much attention before, but thanks to the murder and ‘vigil outrage’ now it does. This brief summary in the DT made my hair stand up:

“A compulsory national register for stalkers will be modelled on the sex offenders’ register, which forces criminals to pass their home details to police forces wherever they live. Other ideas include a law covering sexual threats that leave a victim frightened, such as following closely and making offensive remarks. This “street harassment” law – being championed by Nimco Ali, a Home Office adviser and friend of Ms Symonds – could also include a ban on kerb crawling […] The Domestic Violence Disclosure Scheme only allows police to share conviction details relating to domestic abuse, but would be expanded to include convictions for stalking and harassment. ” (paywalled link)

The Justice minister, Mr Buckland, has penned an article for the DT where he describes these measures and where he also announced the imminent publication of that ‘Rape Review’, needed because so few cases are being brought to court. The reason, he argues, is that complainants feel they’re ‘on trial’, not the perpetrator. Haven’t we heard this before? Or is the real reason this one, as Mr Buckland writes:

“Nowhere is this more keenly felt by complainants than when their own mobile phone, which is a crucial part of everyday life, is taken off them and retained for analysis for lengthy periods. It is not surprising that many people choose not to go through such stress and massive inconvenience.” (paywalled link)

Far be it from me to mention the many cases which had to be thrown out because the evidence from said smartphones showed that a ‘rape’ hadn’t actually taken place. Those cases were a long time ago, well before covid, so who can remember them! It’s back to the slogan of “you must believe what a woman says” when it’s about rape and now, apparently, also when a woman ‘feels sexually harassed’ by any man who happens to walk ‘too close’.

It seems that the proposal by that ‘Green’ lady in the HoL, to have a curfew for all men from 6pm onwards, won’t be necessary after all. Why would men go out when women can simply declare they feel sexually ‘assaulted’ by a man ‘walking too close’, never mind that we don’t know how ‘close’ close is, or when they might be put on a ‘sex offenders’ list for making catcalls.

One wonders how much more work the police is going to have to do, what with forcing people to observe covid rules or any new rules which our government might feel necessary to impose, for example when imposing Zero CO2 rules. How are they going to police street crime or knife crime in London, when they have to pursue ‘sex crimes’? Let’s not ask if persecuting ‘sexual offenders’ on the say-so of a woman seems to be of more national importance than dealing with the many murders perpetrated on males of all colours. 

I’ll finish with this tweet from a female Tory MP:

“Truly shocked at the scenes from Clapham Common — in this country we police by consent. Badly misjudged.” (link, paywalled)

I’ve missed her and all the other politicians and MPs’ ‘outrage’ about ‘police brutality’ when they enforced covid rules. Must we now expect being policed by the ‘consent of women’ exclusively – women who couldn’t even get a protest going about grooming gangs but who are very vigilant when it’s about enforcing muzzle wearing in public? 

Let’s not even ask about what happened to all being equal before the Law, irrespective of gender.

 

KBO!

 

Photo by romana klee

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