Patel needs to look at her own failings not incite division
NOT for the first time in my life, the reaction to the bomb outside Liverpool’s Women’s Hospital made me proud of the city I come from.
Proud of the coolness of the taxi driver who walked away from his exploding car, the security guard who ran towards the blaze to help him and the people who, before David Perry had been named, set up a GoFundMe page to buy him a new cab, which has now raised more than £40,000.
Proud of how locals closed down trolls on Twitter, many from outside the city, who tried to incite hatred against muslims, by pointing out we are home to Britain’s oldest mosque and are proud of the historic solidarity between faiths.
A sentiment backed up by the city council who released a video accompanied by the words: “Liverpool is a city built on immigration. Our doors have been open for centuries to those seeking refuge and a safe haven. We will always provide a shoulder to lean on and a helping hand to guide those who need it.”
Much has been spoken about the sense of community in Liverpool and it’s not a cliche. Whoever you are, if you’re in need, you won’t find more supportive people anywhere.
Hence the couple, Malcolm and Elizabeth Hitchcott, taking the
would-be bomber into their home for eight months when he was destitute.
But decency and resilience resides in every town. Mancunians refused to resort to hate after the Arena bombing, Londoners carried on commuting after the 7/7 attacks and Glaswegians never lost their humour after a cabbie foiled a terror attack on their airport, as the next day’s Daily Record headline testified: “I kicked burning terrorist so hard in balls that I tore a tendon in my foot.”
The majority of people in our multicultural cities realise the seriousness of scapegoating and steer clear of it. What a shame our Home Secretary never can.
Priti Patel didn’t turn up in Liverpool to assess the situation or reassure worried residents. She didn’t even talk about it in Westminster. Instead, on a flight to Washington, she briefed reporters that the attempted bombing showed how the “system is broken” adding “it’s a complete merry-goround and it has been exploited. There’s a whole industry that thinks it’s right to defend these individuals that cause the most appalling crimes against British citizens”.
Her opportunism was rank. To claim that asylum-seekers are the biggest threat to our security when the vast majority of terrorist attacks plotted here are by British-born extremists, was a blatant lie.
To use this botched attack by a single, sick individual her department should have dealt with, to distract attention from her failure to stop thousands of migrants crossing the English Channel, was obscene.
To blame a “broken system” she’s been in charge of for 28 months, and the Tories have presided over for 11 years, on lawyers, was cowardly and divisive (although it made a welcome change from blaming the French).
But the divisiveness came as no surprise from a government which was elected on a ticket of blaming outsiders for all this country’s ills.
Thankfully, cities like mine are united in their defiance against the spreaders of terror, the peddlers of hate and politicians who seek to divide us to distract from their own lack of answers to our real problems.
Long may it last.
To blame a ‘broken system’ she’s run for 28 months was just cowardly