Dear Mrs May,
Jeremy Corbyn and yourself have agreed to halt campaigning for the General Election today as a mark of respect for the victims of last night’s bombing. In solidarity, the SKWAWKBOX will do the same for today.
But this is not a political post, except inasmuch as everything is politics. Anyone who reads this blog will know what opinion it holds of your politics and behaviour. No, this is just a human post, with a few human questions that won’t wait.
Dear Mrs May, why did we have to wait almost four hours for a statement from you about the events last night at the Manchester arena. We know when a tragedy like this happens there are meetings, and briefings, and chaos. But people were worried, afraid, sad – and not a word from you. For almost four hours. Not even a tweet from Number 10. Conservative HQ was silent, happy to let fake news about your opponent sit at the top of its timeline.
Dear Mrs May, why – when we eventually did hear from you – was this all we got?
We are working to establish the full details of what is being treated by the police as an appalling terrorist attack. All our thoughts are with the victims and the families of those who have been affected.
It was right – of course – to voice your thoughts for the victims and their families. But you know as well as we do that when such things happen, people are afraid.
You know as well as we do that some will be tempted to turn against neighbours, even friends, who share the presumed religion of the perpetrators of this horror. You know as well as we do that hate crimes will increase and that our Muslim brothers and sisters will be fearful of that on top of everything else.
Yet there was not one word of comfort. Not one word to call on communities to draw closer together, to call on individuals to think of their neighbours and defeat terrorists by showing kindness and thoughtfulness instead of being divided.
Not one word vindicating the Muslims of this country and urging others to look on them as what they are – our neighbours, our friends.
After last night’s tragedy, mostly-Muslim taxi drivers were giving people stranded in the city free lifts to get them away from danger and back to their loved ones. Manchester people – including Muslim Manchester people – opened their heart and homes to others who couldn’t get away.
Yet you had nothing to say about it. Not one word to unite us. Just those bare sentences.
Not even a word of tribute to the brave people of the emergency services who rushed to the scene to help.
Mrs May, you’re a vicar’s daughter – you made much of that when interviewed with your husband. You must have heard your father offer solace to the grieving and fearful. Yet that was all you gave us – and it took you almost four hours.
Dear Mrs May – are you hoping that this will be your ‘Falklands moment’? Your General Election campaign has gone anything but well so far. Are you hoping this will be your chance to rescue it by stirring up fear or jingoistic, ‘them and us’ national pride?
If you are – if that thought has even crossed your mind – please don’t insult us.
In 1982, most people recognise Mrs Thatcher saved her government by sending ships to the Falkland Islands. But Maggie hadn’t spent the last several years cutting the armed forces to the extent that even service chiefs were open in their criticism. You and your party have.
Mrs Thatcher viewed the police as her buffer against the rest of us so she looked after them. You have cut police numbers – and who knows, one of those ‘surplus’ police officers might just have been on hand last night to make a difference.
Mrs May, Mrs Thatcher wanted to cut the NHS – we know that now – but she was rightly afraid to, knowing how much we value it. You and your predecessor have presided over the near-collapse of this nation’s most treasured achievement – and it showed last night.
Mrs May, do you know that hospitals in Manchester last night were appealing for anyone with a first aid qualification to come in to help? Hospitals and cities have plans for this kind of situation – yet Manchester hospitals were reduced last night to crying out for first-aiders to bail them out. That’s how bad things have become – on your watch.
Dear Mrs May, are you hoping to use this tragedy, this horror, as a weapon to attack your political opponent? It would be very foolish – foolish and disgraceful – to do so.
Because this happened on your watch, Mrs May. You – you – and your party have been in charge for the last seven years. You have cut the police and armed forces – even when we’ve been almost constantly at a ‘severe’ threat status for the risk of terrorist attack.
You and your party have rushed to bomb other countries, killing their innocents. You have pursued measures of surveillance and informing – expecting schools to inform on pupils and parents to do your job for you. You didn’t cause last night’s horrors – but you didn’t prevent them.
Dear Mrs May – some of your supporters, within minutes of last night’s atrocity, were attempting to use it against your political opponents. Within minutes. This blog will not give them the publicity they crave by replicating their vomit here, but it’s not hard to find. Just look on the Labour leader’s timeline.
They wanted to exploit the loss and grief for political ends – to promote you and your failing campaign or to sow division and fear of the ‘other’.
Fortunately, most people of this country know better – and the responses on social media to the scum who behaved that way gives heart to us when we need it.
The Sun ‘newspaper’ fell over itself this morning, though – to exploit the deaths of children to try to smear your opponents. It has truly earned – again – its nickname of The Scum – but we expect such vileness from that publication.
But what about you, Mrs May? Will you denounce your followers? Will you publicly distance yourself from their hideousness? Will you repudiate their bile? Will you promote peace and unity? Will you behave like a stateswoman? That’s what a leader would do.
Or will you sit back and let others do your dirty work, hoping that this will save your failing campaign and happy for our society to pay the price?
We hope not, Mrs May. We truly hope not. Because this is not the 1980s, Mrs May. Le Pen tried it in France, tried to let a terrorist incident drive people toward her out of fear.
It didn’t work, Mrs May. The people of France pulled together – pulled away from fear and division. If the people of France can do it, do you think the people of this country are less wise?
So will you do the right thing, Mrs May? Will you handle this for the long-term good of this country? Or for short-term political gain? Will you be humble – or grasping?
Because that’s all we really want to know.
Reblogged this on sdbast.
Very well said. But I am afraid that the answer is blowing in the wind.
may is part of the problem no part of the solution
Very well said Skwawkbox.
Reblogged this on Christopher John Ball.
I love Skwakbox but the line here about hospitals requesting first aiders is bollocks
I worked as an A+E nurse for 12 years
Major incident plans are a mobilisation of specific skills to specific roles, at specific locations, and “first aid” is grimly irrelevant to the nature of injuries that can be anticipated
That tweet is a fake by – let’s just say by someone immature
Please remove that section
Can you provide documentary evidence that the reqest was fake or to use yr vanacula “bollocks”
No I can’t provide documentary evidence.
Hospitals facing major incidents do not start writing documents announcing what type of volunteers are not wanted.
Think about it.
Treatment of trauma victims is a highly specialised time pressured role.
The clinicians trained on it practice their roles and scenarios again and again so they work as cohesively and swiftly as Formula 1 mechanic teams.
This applies to triage at scene; hospital triage; major intervention; emergency surgery etc
Where would a “first aider” fit into that? They would just be in the way.
And how would a hospital verify their; suitability? level of skill? honesty? identity? And exclude opportunistic nonces?
When you don’t know anything about the legal safeguards which apply to clinical intervention and how they are applied then it’s best to take the word of someone who works in that field.
Do the poor people who have to attend hospital in this incident want to be treated by someone who has just walked in ?
The tweet was a genuine one by a long-time follower of this blog. Have asked for the source, but it certainly seems to have been a request going around last night. Will amend if appropriate.
I apologise for my criticism to those well meaning who have been taken in by somebody else
Reblogged this on elizapdushku's World.
Alas, I fear that this excellent message will fall on stony ground..
My thoughts are with those affected by this horrific bombing and also with their families. This is a truly sickening attack.
I was shocked to read Amber Rudd’s statement regarding this terrorist attack. The Conservative Home Secretary used the murders of these people, including children, to score cheap political points by making an entirely irrelevant link to IRA attacks which occurred in Manchester decades ago.
To use the deaths of innocents, as Amber Rudd has done, as an opportunity to smear a political opponent is obscene.
I always thought the Home secretary stood up and took the blame for internal attacks on our country, I saw a very early arrest was made but you have to ask how this happened, was that person under surveillance to be found so quickly? The government have cut the police by 10,000 when terrorism is very active in Europe, they have cut hospitals that are already struggle under the cuts but have to rely on overworked and tired staff in tragedies like this, cuts sound great, small government is great until you need the facilities they used to provide.
Reblogged this on Diary of an SAH Stroke Survivor.
Reblogged this on Wirral In It Together and commented:
Wise words of caution here, addressed to Theresa May. Don’t use last night’s incident to sow division and hatred. Rein in your hate-filled media and don’t gain advantage through their irresponsible and manipulative behaviour.
We must all be vigilant from here on in, the Tories will exploit every opportunity to try and link atrocities in the past with anyone from Labour.
We have to counter their propaganda with equal veracity.
They are not going to steal this election like they did in 1983, they are the governing party and this happened on their watch, we need to ask those that sling mud and Tories will, with all the surveillance and security measures they said were necessary, why does it always fail?
The answer is we need a political solution, not armed aggression, which makes the world less secure, and no, little North Korea is not a threat to Britain, nor is Iran, so lets look where the real threat to peace in the world really lies.
How can we be actually sure it was ‘terrorists’ this time. Yes, ISIS claimed it but was it ISIS. OR was it MI5 or MI6 this time. The whole thing I find just too coincidental and convenient given this past week. I may be wrong of course and will of course apologise and stand corrected but I just find the whole thing just too fishy this time. The initial comments in this article plus the fact that the police have (s far as I know) released the name of the bomber./ They were pretty quick to release the name of the London attacker but not this time even though they state they know who it was. Anyone else feel the same way as me.
This BBC documentary could be interesting:
Brilliant! Thank you
Reblogged this on sideshowtog.
Well done Sabine somebody else can see the real picture.