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.
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