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Badenoch claims police who arrested Henry Nowak influenced by guidance saying ‘hate crimes should be treated as priority’ – UK politics live | Politics
Badenoch claims police who arrested Henry Nowak influenced by guidance saying hate crimes should be treated as priority
Kemi Badenoch starts by talking about the video filmed by the police as they arrested Henry Nowak.
She says it was hard to watch because she “found myself willing the police to stop, to at least consider Henry’s story and check if he had been stabbed”.
She says she met Nowak’s family last week. They do not want this case to be used to divide people.
She goes on:
They want the police to become an institution that we can trust again.
And if we want to honour that wish to honour Henry’s memory, we need to ask the right question.
I believe that question is why did the police take an accusation of racism more seriously than the claim that Henry had been stabbed?
This question goes beyond policing.
Why are public bodies so unable to act with common sense when race or identity is involved?
Why are they so distracted, busying themselves with things that have nothing to do with their core function?
Badenoch says the speech she is giving today is the basis of work she has been doing for months on equality law. Some of what she says will be “very uncomfortable” for some people.
She goes on:
In some ways I feel for those police officers because they were following guidance. They have been trained on guidance which does not apply equality under the law. Guidance which says hate crimes should be treated as a priority. Many people don’t know what is in this guidance and that is why it needs to be exposed.
UPDATE: As explained earlier (see 9.20am), the judge who presided over the trial of Nowak’s killer did not endorse this theory in his summing up.
Key events
Q: Do you think people who run staff networks in the civil service, like groups for minority ethnic staff (see 12pm), should be allowed time off for those activities, or access to facilities?
Badenoch said her experience of staff networks in the civil service was that they were run by people “furthering their own personal careers at the expense of other civil servants”.
They should not be supported with taxpayers’ money, she said.
Q: Does the entire Conservative party agree with you on this?
Badenoch said she had been very clear about the direction the Tory party was going in. She went on:
I said that we’re signing a contract about the agenda we’re taking into government, because I want everybody to understand what it is we’re going to deliver.
If there is a Conservative, MP who does not believe in equality under the law or wants different treatments for different groups on the basis of skin colour or protected characteristics, then they are probably are not a Conservative MP.
Q; What is your response to the Telegraph story today about a secret report saying the last government wasted £28bn?
The report, by Rozina Sabur, says:
Terrorists, hostile states and gangsters have been given more than £28bn of taxpayers’ money, including through aid payments, according to a secret government report.
The Telegraph can reveal details of a dossier showing that billions of pounds went to organised crime, with millions going to Russia and Islamic State.
It demonstrates that foreign aid and Covid relief loans were appropriated on a vast scale by Britain’s enemies, with the money beyond reach and those who took it unpunished.
More than £28bn ended up in the hands of those wishing to harm Britain between 2015 and 2021, according to the report, which was commissioned and produced by the Cabinet Office but was buried during the previous government.
Badenoch said she thought the government should always be wary of giving away large amounts of money in grants.
But she claimed this story was related to the topic of her press conference. She said she was a Treasury minister at the time of Covid. And the Treasury was under a lot of pressure to ensure that ethnic minority businesses were getting full access to Covid bounceback loans, she said.
Badenoch says she agrees with Idris Elba having ‘woke James Bond would ‘ruin entire franchise’
Q: Idris Elba says audiences do not want to see a black actor playing James Bond. Would you like to see someone from a different background playing 007?
Badenoch replied:
I agree with Idris Elba that we should not make James Bond woke because that will ruin the entire franchise.
But Badenoch said that was a decision for the people who make the films. And audiences would deliver their verdict. She believed in capitalism, she said, and that was how it worked.
Q: It is almost 10 years since Theresa May gave her ‘burning injustices’ speech when she became PM. She said: “If you’re black, you’re treated more harshly by the criminal justice system than if you’re white.” Do you think those injustices have been tackled?
Badenoch said she wishes May had spoken to her before the speech, because she would have encouraged her to frame it differently.
I do believe that everyone suffers injustice; it doesn’t matter the colour of your skin.
I do think that if you are an ethnic minority, or any kind of minority, it is the fact of being in a minority that means that you are probably more likely to experience something that the majority group does not, whatever minority you are. That is a fact.
That is why we have an Equality Act. That is why those laws are there to prevent discrimination.
But when you have public bodies then going beyond preventing discrimination to achieve outcomes, try and do something different, and accept any mention of racism as true without examining the facts, that is a problem.
Badenoch says identity-based staff networks in police, and public organisations, should not have say over policy
Q: Are you opposed to the police and other public sector organisations allowing staff to set up and run groups for staff members from different minority ethnic groups?
Badenoch said she did not like groups like this. But she believed in freedom of association. She went on:
If you are black police officers and you want to hang out together and go to the pub, or play tennis, that’s fine.
But should you organise within the police and start changing policy on the basis of your race? No.
And the way I know that that is not the right answer is because if you swap the races and if you had the White Police Officers Association and said that they should start making policy for white people in the police, I think everyone would be up in arms ..
I don’t think those identity networks in the civil service, or the police, should have any say in public policy or how those organisations are run.
Q: Do you think Sadiq Khan, the Labour mayor of London, was right to stop the Met police signing a contract with Palantir? What do you think of that?
Badenoch agreed that was an example of Khan putting ideology ahead of the need to focus on getting results.
Q: Do you think subjecting more black boys to stop and search could inflame tensions?
Badenoch dismissed this concern. She said:
Some people who will feel uncomfortable. But the truth is that, when black boys are searched, more knives are found. The incidence of knife carrying is higher.
So we can’t leave people to carry knives because we think that we’ve we searched enough people for today because that means someone else’s life gets lost.
And the people who tell me more than anyone that they want to stop and search are the mothers of young black boys who have been killed by their peers …
I’m not going to run away from an outcry and allow other people’s children to be killed, just so I can have a quiet life. That is not fair.
Q: Have you got plans to go further in changing equality law, or is it just this?
Badenoch said she had been looking at this for years and there was “a lot that needs to be done”. She said her party was also looking at how this applied in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland because those countries were all run by parties that want to break up the UK.
She said she wanted to stop “lawfare” in a range of areas.
Badenoch accuses police leaders of wrongly accepted their officers institutionally racist
Q: Do you think the police can be trusted to deal with racially-charged outcomes?
Badenoch replied:
I do think that most frontline police officers are good people.
I think a lot of the issues have actually been with the senior police chiefs.
They were the ones who I spoke to, and they were the ones who told me, ‘Come on, you don’t understand. We really are institutionally racist’, and then could not explain exactly how they were.
Badenoch said this was not an anti-police speech.
This is not an anti-police speech. It’s actually pro-police because I want to free them to be able to do their jobs without worrying about box ticking or compliance on issues that are not core to the function of saving lives and catching criminals.
Badenoch claims public sector equality duty ‘creating inequality of outcomes’
Q; Are you giving up on trying to reduce inequality of outcomes?
Badenoch claimed that the public sector equality duty was “creating inequality of outcomes”. And it was destroying trust in institutions, she said.
The family of Shaun Burton, say they are “devastated” by the loss.
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Key events
In the opening half an hour against Cape Verde, Mikel Oyarzabal, the centre-forward, did not get a single touch.
Kyle Green gets in touch: “Your highlighting of Lalas and his absurdity is something that has prevented me from wanting to watch the coverage on Fox. While every channel has its pros and cons I just can’t.
“I’m 45 and probably the youngest of anyone who remembers him as a player instead of an opinionated insert insult here. As for the match this could be more competitive than it looks on paper Spain need a win the pressure is on them. Saudi Arabia could hold out for a draw and see what happens in their last match. “
News from the England camp, and it seems to be good news on Declan Rice.
“I’m ready and fit, raring to go. I was feeling a little bit of neural pain in my hamstring, which I was managing from after Christmas with Arsenal for a very long time. Obviously, not a lot of people would have known that. It was all behind-the-scenes stuff but it was a smart decision.
“In the end, that last 20 minutes is probably where you pick up the most, and it’s where you play a 70-minute match. But that last 20 is where you really feel your body going for it. And I think it was a smart decision because the last few days I felt really, really good.”
Alex Reid has penned today’s weekend special Football Daily.
Portugal v Uzbekistan on Tuesday enticingly pits the incredibly nice, incredibly 41-year-old-superstar-tolerant Roberto Martínez against Fabio Cannavaro, who’s won a Ballon d’Or as a player and the Chinese Super League as a coach. While the fixture following that game really does see the dream of Thomas Tuchel – in his first international job with England – taking on Queiroz, who is in charge of his ninth national side with Ghana.
The expected formations are 4-2-3-1 for Spain, and 5-3-2 for the Saudi Arabians.
The Saudi team features two Donis changes: Ali Lajami, a defender, and Nasser Al Dawsari, a midfielder, are preferred to Mohammed Abu Al Shamat and Mohamed Kanno. You may recall Salem Al Dawsari, the Saudi captain, as the man who scored the winner against Argentina.
An entertaining read, even for those of us who have just seen the clips.
In a conversation where his co-panelist is casually reminiscing about his days playing alongside Messi or exchanging shirts with Ronaldo Nazário at the World Cup, what exactly is Lalas going to talk about – coming on as a second-half substitute for Earnie Stewart in a friendly against Scotland in 1998? Helping the Kansas City Wizards finish last in the 1999 MLS Western Conference? Did Lalas enjoy an elite playing career? No. But does he do the background reading that could compensate for his relative lack of standing in a conversation with titans like Henry and Zlatan? Also no. But is he charming or funny or charismatic or otherwise magnetic on screen? Eh, no.
For the record, I once interviewed Alexi Lalas on the challenge of playing against Romario in the 1994 World Cup. He had this to say:
“He could kill you in so many different ways. If you remember from that World Cup, he scored so many types of goals. That ranged from solo adventures to an outside-of-the-right-foot half-volley off a corner kick. Romario was both the most difficult to play against and the best that I have faced.
“Roberto Baggio was doing his thing, but in terms of consistency and living up to the hype, he [Romario] was the best. As with all stars, there was a moment when the fans sit up in their seats, and that was a feeling I got with Romario. When it got close to him and the potential for his involvement in a play was there, everybody sat up in their seat. They knew that something spectacular would be happening.”
Saturday’s match reports here.
The Saudi Arabia coach, and Blackburn legend, Georgios Donis, spoke about the challenges facing his team: “Spain is not the same team when Yamal or Williams are on the bench.
“While they still have plenty of possession, they lack the individual one-on-one penetration when these two are missing. I’m not saying it’s a problem for Spain, but when those players are missing, they play in a different way. We saw this very clearly against Cape Verde.
“We are playing against one of the best teams in the world, and it’s very important that when you play against these kinds of teams, you should enjoy the experience and respect the opponent, but not too much.
“It is very hard for any team playing against Spain to have any time in possession. So what we must do is to be more in control of our movement and compact, and when the ball goes through the lines, be able to defend dynamically.
“It’s nice to see miracles in football, and we’ve seen favourites losing against underdogs. Of course, it’s great for Saudi football to have a great memory of the result against Argentina, but we aren’t drawing anything from that.
“I think we’ll feel more pressure in that [Cape Verde] game than we will against Spain.”
The Spain coach, Luis De La Fuente had this to say in his Saturday press conference: “This generation of footballers is highly competitive and really fired up… It’s going to be a completely different story,” he said at his pre-match press conference on Saturday. There is no drama or crisis. The bottom line is simply that we need to win tomorrow.”
Four changes for Spain: Lamine Yamal, Pedro Porro, Dani Olmo and Alex Baena also come into the side with Marcos Llorente, Fabian Ruiz, Ferran Torres and Gavi dropping out.
The teams – Lamine Yamal starts
Spain: Simon, Porro, Cubarsi, Laporte, Cucurella, Gonzalez, Rodri, Yamal, Olmo, Baena, Oyarzabal. Subs: Raya, Joan Garcia, Pubill, Grimaldo, Eric Garcia, Llorente, Merino, Torres, Fabian, Gavi, Pino, Williams, Zubimendi, Munoz, Iglesias.
Saudi Arabia: Al Owais, Abdulhamid, Tambakti, Lajami, Al Amri, Al Harbi, Nasser Al Dawsari, Al Khaibari, Al Juwayr, Al Buraikan, Salem Al Dawsari. Subs: Al Aqidi, Al Kassar, Majrashi, Yahya, Al Shehri, Al Boushal, Kadesh, Al Johani, Al Ghannam, Al Hajji, Al Hamdan, Mandash, Kanno, Thakri, Abu Al Shamat.
Referee: Raphael Claus (Brazil)
Perhaps one of the Saudi -players can write themselves into this high-grade selection?
Perhaps it can be their goalkeeper.
Madrid screening of Spain v Saudi Arabia cancelled due to heat
The public screening of Spain’s World Cup match against Saudi Arabia in Madrid on Sunday has been cancelled because of extreme heat forecast for the Spanish capital, officials said.
The match, due to kick off at 6pm local time on Sunday, had been scheduled to be shown on a giant screen installed by the Spanish football federation (RFEF) at a fan zone in Plaza de Colón in central Madrid.
Madrid city council and the federation decided to cancel the screening after national weather agency AEMET issued an orange heat warning – the second-highest level – for the Madrid region, with temperatures forecast to reach 40C.
“The decision has been taken with the aim of protecting the health of attendees, event staff and support services involved in the event,” Madrid city hall said in a statement, apologising for any inconvenience.
Officials urged supporters to watch the match indoors in air-conditioned spaces and avoid prolonged exposure to the heat.
Large parts of Spain are experiencing unusually high temperatures for June as a mass of hot air from North Africa moves across the Iberian Peninsula.
A total of 13 of Spain’s 17 regions are on orange alert for heat on Sunday, while the northern Basque Country bordering France is on red alert, the highest level.
Authorities advised residents and visitors to take precautions during the heatwave, including drinking water regularly, staying in cool environments, limiting outdoor physical activity during the hottest hours of the day and taking extra care of vulnerable people. AFP
Can Saudi Arabia repeat the magic of 2022?
Argentina arrived in Qatar on a 36-game unbeaten run. When Lionel Messi opened the scoring from the penalty spot after 10 minutes, a comfortable afternoon seemed in the offing. Saleh al-Shehri and Salem al-Dawsari had other ideas, Argentina had three goals disallowed for offside in the space of 13 minutes and the greatest comeback in Saudi Arabia football history was made. Argentina went on to lift the trophy, while defeats to Poland and Mexico meant the Saudis did not reach the knock-out stage.
Unai Simon over David Raya is a controversial choice for De la Fuentes. The Arsenal keeper could lay claim to being Europe’s best this season.
“Those at the Champions League final had a few more days, so I got there on the Wednesday night,” Raya says. “I arrived a bit before Fabián [Ruiz]. I was saying hello to some of the others in reception when he arrived. I went to say congratulations; that was almost the first thing I did. I couldn’t really talk [to him] after the final; I just didn’t have it in me. The next day we talked about the game properly. Just two mates chatting … I was happy for him that he could lift the trophy for a second time.”
A high pressure game for the European champions, as Sid Lowe reports.
“If we had scored one, the game would have changed,” Martín Zubimendi said. Immediately after the game, De la Fuente had offered a simple analysis: when the ball doesn’t want to go in it doesn’t want to go in, he insisted. Spain had racked up 27 shots, after all. Ferran Torres had hit the bar and seen another clear opportunity saved. Vozinha, the 40-year-old goalkeeper who stopped that, saved six more and was named the man of the match. “There’s nothing to reproach the team for,” Rodri said. “We generated chances but couldn’t put it away; the good thing is they created almost nothing.”
We wait to see what role Lamine Yamal will play today. His coach would surely like to be able to use him.
The worst mistake we could make would be to compare him to anyone. He is the midst of a process. He has exceptional footballing maturity and lives it all with total naturalness. He has great serenity and strength. We have to let him follow his path but those players who have something different are ready for that. They’re geniuses, like Dalí [who] can paint a picture, or Michelangelo. They’re different. What is exceptional to us, isn’t to them. In those extremes, they feel comfortable. Why? Because they are different. What we think is exceptional, they consider normal.
Preamble
Spain’s campaign did not get off to a flying start, and Luis de la Fuentes may wake up in the night to visions of Cape Verde’s Vozinha. He will have Georgia on his mind ever since Monday. Saudi Arabia are no pushovers and gave Uruguay a scare in their opening match. Memories of downing Argentina four years ago still abound, and so Spain might beware. They can ill afford to go into the final game with Uruguay at a disadvantage. All eyes on Lamine Yamal, whose fitness situation remains opaque, though Spain need their other forwards to come to the party.
Kick-off 5pm UK, 1pm ET, 2am AEST. Join me.
A topless man can be seen driving erratically in Edinburgh before abandoning his car and attacking a black man and a delivery rider.
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