Much has been written and said about the tragic murder of young Henry Nowak and the sentencing of his killer, Vickrum Digwa, by politicians such as Kemi Badenoch, Nigel Farage, Nick Timothy, and Lord Frost. The brilliant Douglas Murray also devoted his column in The Spectator to Henry Nowak. I agree with all of them, as, I am sure, does the majority of the British public.
For my part, I was deeply moved by Henry’s parents’ reaction. Their calm dignity and wise words went to the core of the issue and what is happening to our country. Their call for “common-sense policing” was quintessential English understatement and all the more powerful for it.
Why don’t we have common-sense policing anymore? Why did the responding police officers react as they did: accepting the word of the assailant while young Henry lay on the ground, handcuffed and dying? Why, as Henry’s father observed, was Henry treated like a criminal while Vickrum was never handcuffed?
Why? Because that is exactly what our police have been conditioned to do.
Sir Keir Starmer has said he will take “whatever action is required to right the wrongs in this case“, words he spoke to Henry’s parents after meeting them in Downing Street. He won’t, though, will he? I think not.
Just over a year ago, he promised action to prevent our becoming an “island of strangers”, only to backtrack when told that his words echoed those of Enoch Powell sixty years earlier. This could never be: if Enoch Powell had said it, it had to be wrong; hence the scorched-earth U-turn.
Is this not a mirror image of the police reaction to Vickrum Digwa? The white kid must be lying because he’s white. Didn’t the trainers say as much all those years ago: that racism could only be perpetrated by white people and that minorities had to be protected from this supposedly unique offence?
The police who arrested Henry acted exactly as one would expect them to act when “responding to [racialised] individuals and communities according to their specific needs … does not mean treating everyone ‘the same’.”
Police actions, unbearable and callous as they appeared, are a symptom, not the cause, of the issue. As Nick Timothy succinctly and eloquently put it in The Telegraph:
“…this goes beyond the culture in the police. The politics of identity is hardwired into the institutions and rulebooks of the state. The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) adopts a two-tier approach almost as a matter of organisational policy.”
I would only omit the word “almost”.
In reality, this is merely the latest in a litany of events in which the rights and needs of British citizens appear to come after those of minorities. For some thirty years, an ideology obsessed with racial grievance, social engineering, and ethnic hierarchies has downplayed the rights of native British citizens because of privileges they are presumed to have enjoyed simply by virtue of being white. Why not do something about this sort of divisive nonsense prime Minister?
Following the meeting with the Nowak family, the Prime Minister said:
“It is our duty now to ensure that lessons are learned, that justice is delivered and that we choose unity and progress over division and hatred. This is the only way to honour Henry’s memory.”
As a former Foreign Office spokesman, my heart sank when I read this.
Really, Prime Minister? “Lessons are learned“, “justice is delivered“, “unity and progress over division and hatred“. It seems to me that the AI speechwriter has been putting in some overtime. And note how “hate” features yet again. Funny how it is invariably the Left that uses the word, usually directed at the “far Right”.
Speaking to Nick Ferrari on LBC, the Deputy Prime Minister, David Lammy, said that he would not “take the knee” as he had for George Floyd. I wonder how the Prime Minister and Angela Rayner will respond when Mr Ferrari gets the opportunity to ask them the same question, as he surely will.
Rest in peace, young Henry. There are hundreds of thousands of us who will not allow what happened to you to be forgotten.
