Brian Paddick's new pinned tweet

[kesstrel]

The way in which my statements have been grotesquely distorted to meet other people’s agendas is breathtaking. I’m beginning to understand the level of harassment & hatred levelled at trans people. I will be speaking & voting on changes to the GRA & this evidence will be useful.

I think that being male (which is socialisation from birth) outweighs sexual orientation (which happens later in life and can be fluid).

This debate isn't just about what is said. It's how we perceive and communicate and interact with others.

You have to understand exactly what is causing the friction. Not just see it as making a decision about what your opinion is.

That's what my hope with Brian always was. Not what he felt or what his opinion was.

Understanding the nature of the friction to help defuse it. The thing is that TRA strategy is and was precisely to disrupt communication and to limit the ability if women to communicate.

And what Brian Paddick is now doing is replicating, reproducing and antagonising that friction by trying to stop communication and engagement.

He's firmly become part of the problem not the solution.

The whole TRA debate is BOTH about GRA and EA reform AND about freedom of speech, political engagement and democratic principles.

He missed half the point.

I hope he does use the evidence as he speaks, since others will be quite capable of objectively seeing more in that evidence than he is able to. GC women don't want anything hidden, Brian. We want it all out there. Including the demonstrated attitudes living on highly entitled, arrogant men, and why this is still a massive problem when making a decision with such radical impact to 52% of the population.

So many inspirational women on MN!

It was Paddick's resignation that forced Farron to resign. Despite his many failings, Farron was a true Liberal in that he believed both sides of contentious issues had a place in the party. Shouldn't be too much of a surprise then when Paddick ends up taking the side he has.

He's just one man of course, but it does illustrate how the LibDens are moving away from a Liberal to more of a Left Wing approach - this is the dogma we believe in. No disagreement permitted. As for agreeing to differ... get with the times! It's 2018! etc.

IRL I'm considered reasonably smart

then I come here and feel frankly like a bit of an intellectual pygmy

but in a good way. it's a privilege to be educated by the women here

penny

Nail.

Head.

Hit.

Just seen this thread on a separate issue, but I think it nicely puts some context into Brian's position and background and how he might be perceived by a lot of women.

Neil Mackay @ neilmackay
As a man who’s considered himself an ally of women my entire life, the stories I’ve heard from women across Scotland this week - in the wake of my daughter speaking out about the way police failed her after she was the victim of a sexual offence - have left me horrified...

I knew things were bad - but the state of affairs is actually appalling - and I say this as a man who thought he knew what women from all walks of life have to endure everyday...

From employers to the police through to the justice system of courts and lawyers, women who’ve suffered sexual offences are failed time and time again. Failing victims is routine, systemic, institutional... it’s normalised, and that’s what’s so dreadful ...

And over and over again, it’s when there’s a man in a position of authority - as an employer, investigator or lawyer - that the worst failings happen. This is what the many many women I’ve spoken to say. Here’s what I think: the real problem is - men are the problem...

Men are the perpetrators of sexual offences against women, but men who aren’t offenders collude if we’re silent, and too often we exacerbate the pain and trauma for women if we become involved officially. Too often officials hurt rather than help. Clumsy? Deliberate? I’m not sure

If it took a sexual offence against my own daughter to fully open the eyes of a man who’s done his best his whole life to support women and fight against misogyny, then what the hell will that mean about men who don’t give a damn about the rights of women...

This is a global problem but the stories I’ve heard are all about Scotland. This country needs to wake up. We’re not some utopia where women are valued or treated better than elsewhere across the western world. We fail women - at their most vulnerable - every day. Shame on us...

I thought I’d trod a pretty decent path throughout my life and done the right thing. The story of my daughter and the stories of all the other brave women I spoke to this week shows me I was wrong. I’ve not done enough and I have to redouble more efforts...

I want men out there who feel like me to get in touch. We need to work together to change things - and we have to start with changing ourselves first. Things won’t change unless men change. So let me know who you are and we can organise and act...

To all the women I’ve spoke to - and all the countless women I’ve not spoken too who’ve suffered as well - I salute you. I’ve always known things were bad, I just didn’t realise how bad; I always wanted things to change, but I didn’t do enough personally. I’m sorry

Ultimately Brian has never crossed this bridge. He is a former police officer, who was firmly part of this establishment. He does not conceive of the institutionalised issues that women have over reporting sexual crime. The whole thing about challenging people in toilets was a spectacular demonstration of it.

It's sad, because I think Brian believes he's doing right and is a good person. But if you can't get your head about communication issues and institutional power structures and dynamics and how they impact differently on men and women, you are going to get absolutely pasted on this subject, in the current political climate.

Deservedly so, because you are missing huge monoliths of problems.

When he was going to meet the WPUK (and apparently form his own opinion), there was a pile on by the LDLGBT+ etc and he immediately capitulated. None of them said anything nice.

redtoothbrush 👏👏
Neil mackay 👏👏

Ultimately Brian has never crossed this bridge. He is a former police officer, who was firmly part of this establishment. He does not conceive of the institutionalised issues that women have over reporting sexual crime. The whole thing about challenging people in toilets was a spectacular demonstration of it.

This ^^

But he was always like this.

In 2001 when the local community was outraged about his policing of Brixton which allowed open drug dealing on the streets his response was ""Mr Paddick denied the claims, saying that fears of children being more at risk "may be a perception rather than a reality"."

(Link in the article linked in previous thread.)

The same old: I am right, you are delusional.

His policy was dropped within a year, and has never been suggested again. There is a reason why he received so few votes for Mayor of London.

The statement has a bit of a 'look at what you made me do' vibe going on.

Yes. Like Owen Jones.

twitter.com/brianpaddick/status/1051034840416641024

And the distortions & misrepresentations continue. I will quote EXACTLY from tweets like this & allow colleagues, who know me, my views expressed over 5 years in the Lords & publicly for decades before that, to make up their own minds.

The account he is responding to has 6 followers and the bio reads 'Russian bot'.

Kestrel

Re lesbians being uncomfortable in a women's shelter as an argument, India WIlloughby made that point on Good Morning Britain when IW was on with Karen Ingala Smith. Peirs Morgan jumped on it as a bit of a gotcha comment. But as Karen Ingala Smith calmly pointed out, if a lesbian had been physically abused by her partner and was triggered by being counselled by and living among women, then a women's refuge was probably not the right place for her to be.

RedToothBrush

Yes, that article by Neil MacKay was on of the things I was thinking of, along with various twitter posts and other articles by men (gay and straight) who are aware. Where he says:

I knew things were bad - but the state of affairs is actually appalling - and I say this as a man who thought he knew what women from all walks of life have to endure everyday... is what these other men are saying, too.

I've been turning over in my mind how it might be possible to get more men to see this, but no real ideas. Maybe it has to come from men - older men, authority figures, I don't know. I am wondering if Twitter might turn out to be a positive force, here, especially with all the publicity #metoo has received.

Transposers Yes, that's a very good point.

For Brian to understand the problem women are trying to express he has to

a) potentially alienate himself from LGBT community and relationships he has, because Stonewall is so dominant politically. It's like there is one party politics in LGBT institutional power. Everything else has been forced out or underground. This is a fundamental flaw for national politics and fails a huge number of the LGBT community. MPs and Lords have over time facilitated this and haven't encouraged multiple representative groups. Its a massive oversight.

b) ultimately admit failings over how sexual crimes have been handled historically and that's comes down to decisions and leadership from him personally.

His vested interests in supporting TWAW are rather large.

I didn't necessarily expect him to agree with women, but as I say I did expect him to perhaps understand how to defuse points of conflict and communication problems as a police officer, as that's part of training.

It's slightly alarming that he's not recognised that dynamic tbh.

Brian: you said that your interest in male access to women's refuges was because you, as a gay man, experienced domestic violence and there weren't services to help you. Instead of respectfully asking women for their wisdom and experience in setting up such services

THIS! All day long. Fucksake.
Women, over and over, give their time, money and work to help vulnerable people.
Services that help people are overwhelmingly run and staffed by women.
If a men's group got together to start mens refuges, and asked for the support of women and women's services they would bloody get it!
But they can't be arsed. They just want something we have, that we worked for, often for free.

And I don't now who Neil Makay is (off to Google) but what a man! to him.

Also-RedToothBrush for Prime minister.

Brian Paddick's police career was very different to what you might expect.

I believe that he was put on a fast-track to the top on joining the police. This meant special training, away from the normal police training, and a series of moves and promotions in different specialist departments. He never stayed anywhere for very long. Funded by police scholarships, he studied for a degree at Oxford and an MBA at Warwick, while a police officer. He rarely had to live with the consequences of his decisions, because he just moved on to other exciting ventures.

That was not the usual CV for a senior police officer of his generation.

It may, however, account for the way that Paddick comes across as cocooned, uninformed, and privileged.

It's really simple Brian.
If females distinguishing themselves from males is something you perceive as an act of hate that must not be allowed, by men, then you're exactly what you sound like.

A man setting women's allowable boundaries for them.

No wonder you're struggling to articulate that in a way that makes you sound good.
There isn't one.

He probably has a point re misrepresentation. I've lost count of the number of times someone's position has been mischaracterised, words put into mouths, or plain old strawmanned when it has gone against the majority consensus on this forum.

How is that happening here?

Brian also missed the point.
Women in refuges have no where else to go.
A senior police man, with a good salary can stay in a hotel.
He also knows he will be believed if he reported him.