OUTBURSTS of overwhelming public anger such as that which followed the end of the Vickrum Digwa trial are rare. Police and public authorities are usually careful in covering their tracks. You do not often get to see the face of official incompetence, neglect or just plain evil, and certainly not with the clarity of the terrible video of Henry Nowak’s last moments.
When you do there are immediate and powerful political consequences.
For me, the strongest parallel is the scandal that followed the end of the Baby P trial in 2008. The toddler, later fully identified as Peter Connelly, died at the age of 17 months from savage injuries inflicted over a long period by his mother and two men.
The trial revealed that social workers from Haringey Council in North London and other state officials had been in touch with the family on more than 60 occasions. Their inaction was ideologically driven – not by race dogma but by poverty orthodoxy, which said that the inadequacy of Peter’s mother was a result of her not having any money, and nothing to do with her being in any way bad.
The glimpse of official indifference in the Baby P case was provided by Haringey children’s services director Sharon Shoesmith, who chose to give a televised press conference complete with flip charts to show how excellent her social work department really was. I worked at the time in a pretty hard-bitten office, and the following morning was the only time I ever saw all the secretaries in tears.
The political effects were managed by Children’s Secretary Ed Balls, who simply sacked Shoesmith out of hand and let the inevitable expensive legal consequences take care of themselves. Gordon Brown, beset by financial collapse and deepening unpopularity, staggered on for another 17 months.
This time there are different circumstances: Sir Keir Starmer’s cabinet has no one of the calibre of Ed Balls; the opposition to Labour is tougher than David Cameron’s creepy son-of-Blair act; and there’s a big by-election in Makerfield just two weeks away.
The Government’s response to the public fury over Nowak’s death was predictably pathetic. It was like watching a fly slide down a razor blade. First Starmer tried to pretend it was all about knife crime. Within a few hours he was admitting that well, perhaps, police race ideology might have to be reconsidered.
In doing this he marooned his Home Secretary Shabana Mahmood, who tried in the Commons to hide behind the Nowak family, to defend anti-racist orthodoxy, and to win public sympathy by saying how a Hampshire police officer has been inconvenienced by online anger. Starmer, of course, was not present.
An unfortunate Labour MP called Jo White – did they choose someone with that name on purpose? – was sent on to Newsnight, only to be embarrassed on air when it turned out her boss was changing the Government’s line all over the front page of the Times.
Kemi Badenoch was weak, and her dismissive comments about white lives matter were a mistake that may come back to haunt her. She may have been playing a longer game – the Tories really need Reform to win in the two-horse race of Makerfield.
Starmer’s chances of survival depend on a Labour win in Makerfield and then a failure by Andy Burnham to mount a successful leadership campaign. Since no sitting Labour Prime Minister has ever been deposed, this is a decent bet. A Burnham loss will be seen as Starmer’s fault and would only weaken him.
Until Tuesday Reform seemed to be conspiring to lose Makerfield. Nigel Farage made the error of choosing a poor local candidate, a plumber just like the Green who won in Gorton and Denton. But Makerfield isn’t a local election – it is very obviously a nationally important contest. Why did Reform not pick rising star Laila Cunningham? It has not helped that Reform candidate Robert Kenyon turned out to be a 2016 remainer.
Reform’s petulant response to Rupert Lowe’s decision to put up a candidate was another mistake. In a by-election you do not complain about the other candidates: you campaign to make them irrelevant.
Farage’s performance in the wake of the Digwa trial may have transformed all that. The phrase ‘pure cold rage’ captured the public mood. It showed a politician with a sense of urgency. It was the opposite of the ‘nothing to see here move on’ chorus coming from the Government. I suspect it will play in Makerfield.
As I write Starmer is in PMQs, hiding behind the Nowak family again in his oiliest manner, and assuring us all that there is no two-tier policing.
A World War Two intelligence doctrine says that if something goes wrong once it is happenstance; twice is coincidence; three times is enemy action. We have now seen murders resulting from anti-racist policing and officialdom in Nottingham, Southport and Southampton. That’s enough for me, and it could be enough for the voters of Makerfield, who as of yesterday afternoon had yet to hear the views of Black Lives Matter enthusiast Andy Burnham.
