Douglas Murray Douglas Murray

I’m in trouble with the police

There is almost nothing I like more than a running battle. As my friend Julie Burchill also says, when a really good row comes along it gives you this warm, cosy feeling inside.

So it was not with disappointment that I received a noteworthy response to my column of last week. For those who were sleeping on the job (or only read Rod’s column), I made some pertinent comments about community relations in the Leicestershire area. Community relations, you may recall, have essentially broken down, with Hindu and Muslim gangs facing off in the city and some of the surrounding area.

In passing I noted the number of female police officers stuck between the two phalanxes and said that I wasn’t sure if there were any trans police in the thin yellow line, or for that matter any gay cops busily dancing the macarena. For the police have spent recent decades assuring us that diversity is their strength.

Anyhow, this brought forth a peculiarly abusive reply – and not from the usual purple ink or jihadi brigade. Here it is: ‘If Mr Murray were to rise from his comfortable chair and toddle up to the West Midlands he would find plenty of women and LGBT officers more than capable of putting him on his backside if he came at them waving his sharp fountain pen.’

It’s easier to criticise anyone identifying a problem than it is to deal with the problem

I think you will agree that this is intemperate language of the kind you can hear in the lower pubs. But the author of this letter is not some blowhard at chucking-out time. It is none other than Sir David Thompson, the chief constable of West Midlands Police, who was so proud of the missive that he posted it on Twitter.

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Sir David goes on to impress upon me and my editor that his police force carries out such violence ‘very well with the thugs they confront keeping the King’s peace’.

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