Suella’s speed-date bid way off course
SPEED awareness courses are meant to be humiliating.We’re not supposed to sail into them, heads held high, posting our arrival on Instagram and greeting our fellow miscreants with jovial high-fives. The correct emotion, as we shuffle in for the lengthy immersion in our iniquities, is shame.
We’ve done wrong – behaved dangerously. We risked harming or even killing innocent strangers. We have put our selfishness before the welfare of others, prioritised our desire to hasten to the hairdresser or wherever else.We are egomaniacs, brought low by speed cameras. We are bang to rights. There’s only one appropriate posture – to hang our heads.
Part of the punishment for driving too fast and being offered the option of attending a course instead of having points put on your licence is the element of the unknown. Will you be next to your bank manager, child’s headteacher or your vindictive ex? You might think it doesn’t matter because you are all culprits in communal disgrace.
If you happen to be a public figure, however, the balance shifts dramatically. You are all equal sinners but no one – except friends, family and colleagues – has heard of the others. You are the infamous one, the object of scrutiny. You are the one the others will mention to their chums and on social media the second they escape captivity.
Their ordeal will end when the doors to freedom open but yours might just begin as your co-sufferers breach your anonymity and announce your deficiencies to the world. It’s easy to see why recognisable folk don’t much fancy showing up in person. David Baddiel says when his instructor threw the session open to questions from the floor a hand shot up: “Can I tell my mates I was on a speeding course with David Baddiel?”
I cringed in a corner at mine, hoping to camouflage myself with but received polite requests for selfies in the tea break. Served me right. I should have been more careful. Home Secretary Suella Braverman is a barrister and responsible for safeguarding justice in the UK. She understands the concept of justice being applied equally to all – and the importance of justice being seen to be done.
If she used power and position to try to circumvent due process and the impact of breaking the law then it would be abhorrent. It shrieks: “Justice is for the little people”.
If correct, the optics are ugly. The motivation twisted. “One law for Suella and another for the rest,” is not a fitting mantra.