Yes. I could. I could identify a common thread of xenophobia amongst the pub talk of the tabloid believers. If I was without principle I could use a degree of articulacy not common in those circles to gain a limited body of vocal support. I could rabble rouse a lot of people into voting for me if I stooped low enough in my message. It’s not big and it’s not clever – it is a cheap trick that only needs the morals of an alleycat.

Yes. I could. So could a lot of people. We can be proud that we didn’t, not that we did.

Thanks to all those who didn’t lose faith while Mike sorted out the new workshop – or rather fought for and won it’s very existence! Onwards and… etc.

John, why do you insist on crediting the Indy with a political stance? Especially – and this is surely a salient point – as you have never read it?

Sometimes people write things that question your beliefs not because the writer is left wing, but because your beliefs are questionable.

Other times people write things that disagree with things you find agreeable and sometimes that happens simply because they find these things disagreable. Not because they are sponsored by some imaginary left-wing cabal.

As I have said it seems a hundred times the liberal freedoms of thought that you seem to despise are only conflated with the left in your mind.

In other words.. It’s not all some commie plot, you know.

Now put down the tabloid and instead find out what happened. Start with the inquest.

Dick said Menezes was not a security threat. The officers that shot Menezes were not acting on the instruction of Cressida Dick. Quite the opposite, according to at least one person close to the discussions that took place. Cressida Dick was possibly the only Commander who had said at the time that Menezes was to be detained and not shot.

From the IPCC report (which found the Met organisationally culpable):

“The family’s representatives list a number of failings they allege were
made by AC Dick. AC Dick is the only person in this incident on whom
a jury has come to a definite, unambiguous conclusion about their
conduct. In the Health and Safety trial the jury exceptionally added a
rider to their verdict that [then] Commander Dick had no personal
culpability for Mr de Menezes’ death”.

It’s people who condemn before checking that are the problem. Then and now. I know it was ‘on her watch’. Interestingly, it had only been her watch for two and a half hours when de Menezes left his flat.

Come on then, John the expert on everything. What competencies does she lack? Or is it (possibly ironically) the lack of a penis that offends?