Oh, Shabana Mahmood, you slippery eel in a pinstripe suit. The Home Secretary who once built a career on righteous indignation now stands revealed as the ultimate enabler of deceit, incompetence, and two-tier policing. Yesterday’s parliamentary fireworks over the West Midlands Maccabi ban weren’t just about Craig Guildford’s barefaced lies to MPs – they were about you, Madam Home Secretary, and your calculated decision to look the other way while a senior officer shredded the truth and the reputation of British policing.
Let’s recap the filth: Guildford banned Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from the Villa game last November on the laughable pretext of “safety concerns” drawn from Amsterdam 2024. Except the Dutch police had already clarified that the Israelis were the victims of mob violence, not the perpetrators. West Midlands knew this. They had “high-confidence intelligence” about local threats – yet instead of arresting the would-be attackers, they punished the potential targets. Guildford then doubled down, lying under oath to the Home Affairs Select Committee about the intelligence picture, refusing to apologise, and clinging to his job like a limpet on a rock. Senior MPs from across the House are now calling for his head – Jewish groups have lost all faith, Birmingham’s name is mud, and the stench of appeasement hangs heavy.
And where was Shabana Mahmood through this carnival of cowardice? Eight days before the ban was slapped on, she was briefed. The leaks are unequivocal: the Home Office was in the loop, the intelligence shared, the decision flagged. Yet when the Commons got rowdy, Mahmood stood at the dispatch box with the solemnity of a vicar at a christening and swore blind she “wasn’t notified” in advance. Not a whisper, not a memo, not even a casual “by the way, we’re banning Jewish football fans to keep the peace.” Pure, distilled, parliamentary-grade bollocks.
This isn’t forgetfulness; it’s a deliberate lie to shield a failing chief constable and preserve the fiction that Labour’s policing is fair, firm, and free of community vetoes. Why the kid gloves? Because this whole sordid affair reeks of the quiet consultations that never make it to the public record. Mosques were involved in Guildford’s appointment process – whispers of “community leaders” having a say in who gets the top job. Mosques were consulted on the ban itself – “wider engagement” to “de-escalate tensions,” we’re told. Translation: better to appease the agitators than protect the threatened. Two-tier policing isn’t a bug; it’s the feature, and Mahmood is the architect who signed off on the blueprints.
She could have sacked Guildford the moment the lies surfaced. She could have launched an independent inquiry. She could have stood up and said, “This is unacceptable – the ban was wrong, the intelligence was twisted, and the chief must go.” Instead, she chose silence, deflection, and the slow drip of deniability. A Home Secretary who turns a blind eye to a chief lying to Parliament isn’t leading; she’s complicit. She’s the adult in the room who watched the child set fire to the curtains and then claimed she didn’t smell smoke.
This is the woman who lectures us about integrity, about restoring trust in institutions, about “tough on crime.” Yet when a senior officer lies to MPs, endangers public safety through cowardice, and drags British policing into the mud of appeasement, she does… nothing. Absolutely sod all.
Guildford is a man of no honour. Mahmood is worse – she’s the one with the power to stop him, and she chose not to. She chose the quiet life over justice, the party line over principle, the optics over the truth.
So what now? Demand her resignation alongside his. Bombard your MP, flood the select committee with evidence, make this scandal impossible to ignore. Because if Shabana Mahmood can lie about being briefed and shield a deceitful chief constable, then the rot isn’t just in West Midlands – it’s at the very heart of government.
Yours in incandescent disgust,
Ken Palarse
P.S. Share this far and wide. Every retweet is a brick in the wall of accountability these people so richly deserve.
Essential outrage fuel:
- The Thin Blue Line by some ex-copper – for the inside view on how the job used to mean something
- The Establishment by Owen Jones – for the inside scoop on how the powerful protect their own
- Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics – for when politicians start talking about “intelligence”
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