Sunday, 5 April 2020

Another Past Is Impossible

I cannot imagine why anybody who had been the Director of Public Prosecutions would go into politics. I mean, there's having a back catalogue, and then there's that.

In 2009, Surrey and Sussex Constabularies interviewed Jimmy Savile under caution before referring four cases to the Crown Prosecution Service, alleging that Savile had abused girls under 16. Keir Starmer rejected them on the grounds that there was "insufficient evidence".

Starmer declined to press further charges against John Worboys. He promised to send "benefit cheats" to prison for 10 years; so much for saving money there. He refused to press charges in relation to the deaths of Jean Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson. He has been central to the persecution of Julian Assange.

Even the Stephen Lawrence thing does not do him as much credit as he seems to think. It involved abolishing the protection against double jeopardy. In fact, that is its only lasting legacy. Tell black boys in London today that the Met was no longer racist. Go on. I dare you.

As for the stuff about the miners, or the P&O seamen, or what have you, then yes, unions do indeed use sympathetic chambers, and he was obviously in one. But he was at an early stage in his career, and he was operating under the cab-rank rule. He did not choose those cases for himself.

Indeed, where once he had defended trade unionists who had been subjected to Police violence at Wapping, today his first article as Leader of the Labour Party appears behind Rupert Murdoch's paywall.

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