The Plebgate Scandal

A change of scene from Thailand but to my amazement I saw a piece of journalism on TV last night that made me come over all warm inside. Channel 4 news in the UK is better than most but still shallow and ridiculous most of the time. Foreign news reporting is excellent but once it switches to the UK, the producers prejudices could not be more clear. Media types in the UK are notoriously left wing and Channel 4 presenters (I cannot bring myself to call them journalists) wear their hearts on their sleeves.

Every government initiative is greeted with a condescending sneer and a reporter is dispatched to find a single mother, with four kids who is willing to tell us how much more difficult her life will be as a consequence. We are invited to conclude that the government is failing because they  are unable to rebalance the books of a practically bust nation without some people getting a little bit less support from the state. Earlier in the week, they managed to turn what should have been a frothy piece about the Queen bowling up at 10 Downing Street, into a mini- constitutional crisis and a suggestion that a failing government was scraping the bottom of the publicity barrel. They have to keep the presenter (see above re: journalists), Cathy Newman from doing the sports reports. She would not be able to stop herself from asking a defeated football manager if the root of his problem, somewhere, was not government cuts. Then they did something amazing.

Last night, Michael Crick presented a piece on what has become known as the Plebgate scandal (you can find it on Twitter as #plebgate). Three months ago the press had jumped on the bandwagon when an argument was reported between a policeman and  government minister. Around the same time two policewomen were killed  in the line of duty. Plumbing uncharted depths, a link was made and the press managed to drag the politician from office. It was clear evidence that the government cared little for a service that put its life on the line for the public.  The only third party evidence was an e-mail from someone who claimed to be a witness. This was a bandwagon for government bashing and the Press. could not wait to climb aboard.

By checking the facts and tracking back through each element of the evidence, Crick demonstrated that:

1. The police log was almost certainly falsified (CCTV footage proved their were no witnesses as they had claimed)
2. The e-mail had been sent by a serving police officer who now admits he was nowhere near the incident.

He also reminded us that the leak of the police log itself was an illegal act that could only have been perpetrated by a policeman. The video he showed, indicated no evidence of the lengthy, heated exchange the policeman claimed had occurred.

The police had manufactured the entire incident to put the government on the back foot as they discussed matters like pensions and resourcing. Crick investigated the facts diligently and presented a clear and compelling report. The spirit of Woodward and Bernstein lives on.

Last week, I was disappointed when a Bangkok policeman scammed my taxi driver out of two pounds, it was a shocking abuse of his power. The police in the UK have shown themselves through this, and the Hillsborough scandal, to be perfectly capable of fabricating evidence on a grand scale, but have been too stupid to do it in a way that they cannot be easily caught out.

I was reading something last week that described Thailand as a corrupt third world country. I am not sure where that leaves the UK.