This is the absolutely crucial point. These men did something unspeakable. My heart aches for PC Harper’s family. But they were *acquitted*. Charged with murder, their defence reduced it to manslaughter. This is exactly why the system exists.
You may disagree with that fact. PC Harper’s family certainly do, and you can understand their anguish. But that is justice in action. In a fair trial, a jury decided these men did not intend to kill.
Emphasis on the fair.
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In November 2020, the EU diplomatic service released the following communiqué. Now look where we are.
Quite apart from anything else, just last week the EU’s own Health Commissioner Stella Kyriakides said the problem was a failure to actually use the vaccines they had. Direct quote below.
Why ban exports when you’re not even using what you’ve got?
Crowd must be several thousand strong. Now marching towards Parliament Square. The name of Sarah Everard on their lips. As well as some more colourful expressions of anger aimed at the police...
1) The DUP might have forseen that Brexit would be challenging in the context of Ireland. Not like they weren't warned.
2) They were still betrayed by Johnson, who literally stood up at DUP conference and said he would never create a sea border.
The DUP's great mistake was arguably not to support Brexit in the first place, as many Remainers are gloating today, but not to support Theresa May's compromise.
That would have left NI in a much better place from a Unionist perspective than Johnson's deal.
Although that of course is only in hindsight, post-betrayal. Harder to see at the time that May's imperfect deal was better.
You could make a kinder argument that the DUP took Johnson at his word, and that was actually the mistake.
Vaccine minister @nadhimzahawi now in front of the Science Committee. I will be watching so you don't have to ;)
Vaccine minister @nadhimzahawi tells the Science Committee that the Govt is not releasing the number of doses it expects every week, because of the way each batch of vaccine has to be checked, so the numbers "move around".
Chair Greg Clark asks if Zahawi is confident the Govt's target of 14m vaccinated by mid-Feb will be met.
Zahawi: "I'm confident we will absolutely meet our target, though there will be daily fluctuations”