andrew mitchel

[poii10]

AIBU to think the people who asked for Mitchels nuts on skewer will send their apologies in, in the wake of the lying bastard copper.

Andrew Mitchell was the first to be aggressive, saying "fucking" twice. Had he behaved as a professional person should do, this wouldn't have happened.

YANBU

No one has come out of that episode looking good.

I think a lot of people mistakenly believe that the police don't tell lies. Of course there is historically plenty of evidence to the contrary, but some people tend to look at cases like the Birmingham Six and assume they were a bunch of lowlife, and if they weren't guilty of planting bombs they were probably guilty of something else.

So if any good comes of the Mitchell case it will be a widespread realisation that the police do systematically plot to tell lies about people. One honourable exception to the initial condemnation of Mitchell was Chris Mullin, who said he was dubious about the story. Good for him.

The fact is he was rude and refused to comply with a reasonable request froma police officer who was employed to safeguard Andrew Mitchell, and other cabinet members, safety potentially at the risk of his own life. This makes him very unreasonable, whatever the precise wording of his complaint, and to the best of my knowledge he didn't deny using the work fuck, just pleb.

The actions of the Police is a separate matter, and I do believe they behaved appallingly, and it is appropriate that charges have been brought. What some who view this issue less as a political football may be surprised by, is how outraged the Tories are by this incident of police malpractice while remaining stoically silent on other recent examples.

Andrew Mitchell was the first to be aggressive, saying "fucking" twice. Had he behaved as a professional person should do, this wouldn't have happened.

Yes if you are an asshole you should lose your job and have the police make up and publish lies about you.

Agree sashh. I expect the police heard the word 'fucking' twice and had to be revived with smelling salts. It is so unusual, after all.

At the time he did not actually deny using the word 'pleb'.
It's only since he's realised that there are no proper witnesses that he is denying it.

He said at the time that he didnt use the words 'ascribed to him' or some other slippery term.

sash

"if you are an asshole you should lose your job"

especially if you are in a job that tries to accredit itself with high moral.

OK but we all understand, surely, that the word "pleb" was particularly explosive, more so than general rudeness and "fuck," because it fed into that whole "the Tories are the party of the rich and entitled" thing. If Mitchell had just been accused of being rude he probably wouldn't have lost his position. I wonder indeed if the police who apparently invented this word realised that or if they too got caught off guard by its becoming bigger than they'd meant. Because I worked a long time ago in a job that made me very aware the police often lie in what they see as small details usually in situations where they know (or "know") a crime has been committed but fear there will be no conviction unless they exaggerate/invent a bit in order to convict someone they feel is truly guilty. Needless to say the know vs "know" is WHY they should not invent and embroider. But what I want to know is

Do you think Mitchell should have been as badly punished for saying "fuck" as for saying "pleb"? Should he have been? And would he have been?

Instead of looking at the words used, IMO the biggest issue is that he believed that he should have been able to go through the main gate and got shirty about it.

What some who view this issue less as a political football may be surprised by, is how outraged the Tories are by this incident of police malpractice while remaining stoically silent on other recent examples

Oh yes.