Thread by @PandaScottish

[thread]

I want to talk about lawyers

And I am going to do so in the form of a story

I want to talk about Daniel, Blake, Stephen and John

All 5 have important roles in this story

So let's begin

Now Daniel

He is really upset

A journalist has cast aspersions on his spouse

And he feels agrieved

Normal routes of reply to the journalist aren't an appropriate enough response

Instead Daniel wants to go further

So Daniel is really angry

He wants revenge

But in order to execute his revenge on Stephen

He doesn't have a crucial piece of information

His friend Blake works in the same industry as Stephen and knows this

So Daniel enlists Blake to provide this information to him

Blake is uncertain

He is not sure about the consequences of giving this information to Daniel

Blake wants assurances that Daniel won't harm Stephen too seriously

Blake gives this assurance (strange I pick that word assurance completely accidentally here) - we'll come to that word later

Daniel also has a good laugh with Blake reminiscing about the history of their friendship and flattering him with praise

So Blake having got the information he needs

Executes his revenge

Now we meet John who is the lawyer for Stephen who was assaulted

Now John

John wants to focus on the entire story behind why and how Stephen was assaulted

So he wants to question Blake since without his assistance Daniel could not have executed the crime

John is also concerned

Not just at the breaking of the law by Daniel

But that Blake aided him

Blake who works in the same profession as Stephen

So why would Blake want to endanger a member of his own profession?

If he could do this what else could he do?

What danger does Blake pose?

What else would he do, what other acts would he justify and why?

John carries out a 3 hour cross examination of Blake

Exposing the man's character, temperament and judgement as to why he provided the essential information to Daniel.

Blake gets angry. He doesn't take to cross examination well.

I am going to stop the story there

I am not going to go write a court room drama of John and how he questions not just Daniel as the perpetrator but also Blake.

I want to you to envisage yourself in that story

Imagine how that courtroom drama plays out for each of the actors

You can choose whichever role you want

You can run it through in your head in one role and then play it again from another perspective

Imagine you are Stephen - the victim that was assaulted

Imagine that you are Daniel - the person executing the assaulted

Imagine that you are the John and you are getting justice for Stephen

Imagine that you are Blake and gave that information to your friend Daniel

Imagine

It is a gift

Having that ability

Exercise it

Would you have reacted differently based on the severity of the injuries?

Would you have reacted differently if it was just one journalist or more than one?

Would you have reacted differently if Daniel had not beaten up Steve but had beaten up a female journalist?

Now I am going to add an extra variant to the story

Imagine Blake is not content with being a member of his current profession

Imagine Blake wants to pursue a career in one of the oldest professions in the word

Politics

Would you as John think that scrutiny of Blake's behaviour and character is even more critical

Not just to Stephen's case but to the greater good of the body politic?

Now as you may have guessed

Or you may not

I did not invent this story

I based it on a real life story

I changed the names to see how you would react with it being anonymised

Here's "Daniel"

dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2…

Here's some backdrop

pressreader.com/uk/scottish-da…

Here's "Blake"

spitfire-marks.uk/the-darius-gup…

Here's "Stephen"

theguardian.com/politics/2019/…

In this story there is no John

There is no lawyer

Who got the opportunity to cross examine Blake

Instead John is played by @EddieMair

Now you know what

I have never once

Thought what is the political affiliation of Eddie Mair

Not once

As Eddie grills politicians of ALL colours

https://twitter.com/LBC/status/1529490176958922755

Here's a warning from a party in 2001

Provided by the band Kit & the Widow

We should have had the foresight to see what might have been wrought

Alas....

So the reason I chose this as a story

Was following yesterdays #PMQs

Where a Prime Minister @10DowningSt @RishiSunak

Being unable to answer a question

Instead smeared an individual's profession

https://twitter.com/implausibleblog/status/1633443332704673792

Now use story I started with

Where a professional was targeted because of someone's anger (at a personal slight)

And imagine you blamed a profession being the cause of a crisis to you personally and your nation

Imagine we are under "invasion" by a hundred million

Now if you really do believe we are being invaded by a "swarm" of a hundred million

What would you be prepared to do to defend your nation?

Not just from the enemies without?

But the enemies within

We have so many enemies

Enemies that stop the government from enacting the will of the people and who are not patriotically backing the policy of the government

Those enemies range from :

"citizens of nowhere"
"enemies of the people"
"remoaners"
"metropolitan elite"
"lefty lawyers"
"civil servants"
"anti-growth coalition"
"wokists"

So when the leader of a nation

With the authority of his office behind him

From the despatch box at Prime Ministers Questions

Is unable to answer a simple question

And instead smears "lefty lawyers"

Ask yourself - why is Rishi Sunak afraid of answering the question?

But more crucially ask yourself this

Imagine you are someone who works within the UK immigration process - whether it be

a civil servant
in the public service of the UK Borders Agency or UK Home Office
at a NGO / charity supporting asylum seekers
or as a lawyer

How do you think this incendiary language affects YOUR safety?

There's also obviously the converse point

Imagine that the government of the day was not one you are politically in favour of & that they are targeting your profession with smears

Would you find that acceptable?

Do you find it acceptable for ANY politician to question the patriotism of a soldier who has served in his nation's armed forces?

https://twitter.com/BestForBritain/status/1633111891408035846

So I am going to go back in time now

To a "lefty lawyer"

To Hans Litten

In 1930s Germany

"Politically Litten was on the left, though independent. He valued his independence and once said, "two people would be one too many for my party."

Now Hans Litten was a lawyer in Germany, in 1931.

He saw the dangers of what was coming

And when he had a chance as a lawyer

He took it

Hans had the opportunity during the ascent of Hitler to power to cross examine Adolf.

And he took that chance and used it.

Here is Baroness Helena Kennedy QC in the BBC show The Rise of the Nazis (Episode 1 : Politics)

bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episod…

Now to turn to the words of Baroness Helena Kennedy QC (obvs now KC)

its at 20minutes

So if you'are going to have a go at Hans for being a "lefty lawyer"

Here is someone who was an actor who then moved into politics

Espousing a similar reverence and respect for the law

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1251044564611338241

here's the transcript from Hans cross examining Hitler (taken from)

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Litt…

At 24m55s

A reporter secretly took a photograph of Hitler on the stand

I often wonder

What happened to that reporter?

Did Hitler harbour the same grudge against them that they did against Hans?

What happened to Hans sadly, was all to tragic

By 1932, the Nazi party was in ascendancy. Litten's mother and friends were urging him to leave Germany, but he stayed. He said, "The millions of workers can't leave here, so I must stay too".

To quote from the below:

"I am interrogated as to what my name is, where I live, what political party I belong to and how I voted in the elections"

theleaflet.in/lawyering-in-i…

‘Lawyers without rights’ tells us the stories of courageous lawyers who fought against the system, as well as lawyers who were victimised by the system for being Jewish, even if they had no other strong political convictions."

theleaflet.in/lawyering-in-i…

So to go back to Rishi

Now imagine AS WELL as attacking

their profession (legal)

their political affiliation (Labour)

You also attack:

where they live (Islington)

the fact that they have been knighted (Sir)

Now you can also look at how journalists tried to cover the rise of nazism

historyextra.com/period/second-…

Or how sports stars did

Whether at the Olympics

npr.org/2008/06/07/912…

Or national level

theguardian.com/football/2012/…

Or how artists did

time.com/5672506/hitler…

I keep on going back to simple questions

If you believed your policy was not against the law

And you were proud of your record as a government

Why can you not answer simple questions without resorting to smears?

As M. Thatcher once said

I always cheer up immensely if an attack is particularly wounding because I think, well, if they attack one personally, it means they have not a single political argument left.

So juxtapose Margaret Thatcher with Kwasi Kwarteng

"I'm not saying this, but, many people... are saying that the judges are biased."

The story of course from:

bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politi…

See also:

Oh and you can also look at the smears and deflections used by Blake

Sorry Boris

I wrote of that

again - with a simple question at its core

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1529842771137290241

I put that question in a thread where I used the music of Sir Paul McCartney and of Rodgers & Hammerstein (sung by Gerry Rafferty) and the great city of Liverpool #Hillsborough #

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1631322534640590850

Oh and instead of a story from a lawyer

Here is a story from a judge

I took this from here:

press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/5…

So turning back to the UK

The language we use matters

Whether you are a Prime Minister

Whether you are a minister

Whether you are an MP

Whether you are AM/MSP/MLA

Whether you are a councillor

Words matter

Here's a study that delved into the depths, the cesspit of propaganda used by a regime in their ascent and sadly their reign

It has lessons from the recent past as much as the distant past

iflscience.com/how-the-nazis-…

"Typically, when a minority is violently persecuted, it simply starts with language that reduces their humanity. Prior to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda, for example, the Hutu majority would frequently refer to the Tutsi minority as “cockroaches”

theguardian.com/global-develop…

https://twitter.com/TanjaBueltmann/status/1633445311103262721

bylinetimes.com/2022/12/16/swa…

I don't really want to focus on just Boris Johnson

He is just a waypoint on a journey

That neither started or ended with him

Of those who exploited a global financial crash to pursue their policies AND then deny its effects

Whilst fanning the flames of racism & xenophobia

I would go back to Eddie Mair here

As he asked some really piercing questions of Liz Truss

But she laughed them off and claimed she didn't understand the question

Weird how her local hospital mysteriously ended up propped up by stilts

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1202012607928061952

Still

let's all chant along to the cry of 40 new hospitals

mirror.co.uk/news/politics/…

https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1585718331117649921

?

Cameron thought he could ride that "tiger" (thanks @SteveBakerHW for that reference)

I don't approve of him calling UKIP "fruitcakes and racists"

Of course the hypocrisy of calling UKIP that whilst you yourself do...

independent.co.uk/news/uk/politi…

What he didn't realise is that those yearning for his job and for "victory" in a "war" yet to come were prepared to SAY and do ANYTHING to win

After all - given the effects of austerity

What better position to have public services in to exploit them as part of your rancid xenophobia

And then David was succeeded by Theresa

Theresa of course had her record, of Operation Vaken and the Windrush emigres and Go Home Vans

civilserviceworld.com/professions/ar…

But then she went even further

"if you believe you're a citizen of the world, you're a citizen of nowhere"

And then Theresa was succeeded by Boris

And as to his words

Well I wrote a thread where I imagined a role of trying to defend him from charges of racism. I failed.

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1414542431106777090

So instead I tried to write a thread on why Boris Johnson should be used as an inspiration to teach our children about

So as not to be like him

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1374286271732928513

And then we come to Liz Truss

whose reign was so brief that you could almost speed past it

except she employed exactly the same smears and deflectionary bullshit as her predecessors

and then we come to Rishi

who happily peddles the smear of lefty lawyers

he does so gleefully

knowing that his words will have the desired amplification and effects

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1615674195207196672

So I would ask @RishiSunak @SuellaBraverman

To any Tory really

Imagine your spouse, your brother, your sister, your mother, your father, your child or your friend

Is a lawyer

And they get attacked

Because of an environment you HELPED create

How would you feel?

I would like to praise Robert Buckland as Lord Chancellor and (ironically) Suella Braverman as Attorney General (even if it took promopting from The Law Society, the legal profession or the British press)

You challenged the language that was used by Priti Patel

How tragic

That someone who warned about language now not only talks about an invasion by 100 million but an invasion by billions

and smears the legal profession

and questions the patriotism of well anyone who doesn't support her policy

So to end

Here's a tweet from Gary Lineker

Now instead of responding to his words

On the UK's record of refugee intake compared with other nations

Or on the language used around the refugee / immigration debate

People have deliberately lied about what he said

I would say thank you for showing you can't play the ball

I'm going to end with a thread I wrote on 8th March 2023 where I tried to go through Rishi's "Stop the Boats" speech and dissect it

https://twitter.com/PandaScottish/status/1633433120312549376

@threadreaderapp unroll please