26 April, 2024

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UK: Chief Whip Resigns Following Allegations He Called Police ‘Plebs’

David Cameron has been delivered a humiliating blow, with a broken Andrew Mitchell quitting as chief whip, abandoning a month-long fight to save his career and fend off claims that he had referred to a police officer as a “pleb”.

Mitchell’s decision – relayed to the prime minister personally in a meeting at Chequers after Cameron returned from an EU summit in Brussels – is a huge blow to the prime minister, who had stood by him in the face of an onslaught by the opposition and the Police Federation and growing doubts among his own backbenchers.

Read more in the Guardian

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    Cameron will survive as british politics is fought on principles and not on ‘handouts’ to entice opposition.
    The Rule of Law and Human Rights are supreme unlike in sri lanka.
    Will anyone dare to ‘insult’ the police or army in sri lanka?
    A tamil man who did not address an armyman as ‘Sir’, learned his lesson – brutal assault plus arson of seven homes of tamils. Complete disregard by the police and army.
    This wont happen in UK.

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    Justice wrote:
    “…british politics is fought on principles and not on ‘handouts’ to entice opposition.”

    I think there’s many in the UK who see it differently. The British public’s trust in its politicians is extremely low due various financial and political scandals over the last few years. David Cameron wanted Andrew Mitchell to keep his job after the police complained he swore at and insulted a police officer. Cameron had to change his mind when his own backbench MPs said Mitchell had to go as he was endangering the re-election chances of Conservative MPs. See this link from the UKs Daily Telgraph:
    http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/conservative/9623059/How-Tories-turned-on-Andrew-Mitchell-and-forced-him-to-quit.html

    The last Labour government under Gordon Brown criticised the Sri Lankan government’s conduct of the war to defeat the Tamil Tigers not because of “principles” but because Tamil activists threatened to put up their own candidates in the UK general election in 2010 (as they had done in the European Parliamentary election) and take votes from traditionally Labour-voting Tamils. The only principle in politics is to win power, and that applies in the UK just as much as anywhere else. Handouts and concessions to various minorities is a well used “principle” for doing that.

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    In a more affluent country as the UK, a Minister as Andrew Mitchell rides away on a push bycicle. Whereas in our Wonder, even the servants of the Minister travel in limousine comfort with full security in convoys. So adored and loved by the public?

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