Did cops fail to protect Trump because they only took on security who ticked right-on boxes?
FOR one awful moment American civil and political society hung in the balance, as the shot rang out in Butler, Pennsylvania.
The crowd saw their hero, Donald Trump, hit by a bullet.
One inch to the right and Trump might not be with us any more. And who knows what that would have meant for a febrile, deeply polarised country?
The Trump supporters already believe their man was cheated in 2020. And they rioted then. Just imagine their fury if Trump had been killed.
Fortunately, the bullet seems only to have nicked his ear. And the shooting has probably ensured that he will win the November 5 election — as I have said he would for almost four years.
But there are one or two lessons to be learned from that terrifying moment.
Let’s be clear, the shooting of Trump was an act of individual wickedness from Thomas Matthew Crooks. He bears the full responsibility.
But the political atmosphere in the US is so toxic that something like this was bound to happen sooner or later.
And this is the first lesson we should draw. If you bad-mouth your political opponents by calling them “fascist”, you are encouraging the madmen to take the law into their own hands.
We should learn that lesson over here, too. When Angela Rayner calls Tories “scum”, she is dehumanising her opponents. This kind of language encourages violence, whether it be a milkshake thrown at a politician or a bullet fired from a rooftop.
And then there’s this. You may have seen footage of the police and security teams from Pennsylvania.
An overweight female security agent trying to get her gun into her holster.
And the failure of the police and security teams to apprehend Crooks before he got into position to make his twisted bid for infamy.
Right-on boxes ticked
Maybe they just all had an off-day.
But there is increasing evidence that the police department followed a very rigorous policy of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) when appointing staff.
That’s a very popular “progressive” policy. It means, in the end, that people get taken on, not on merit but because a whole bunch of right-on boxes get ticked.
Boxes for women, ethnic minorities, the disabled, and so on.
This has got really bad in some parts of the US. The previously much-respected David Geffen School of Medicine in Los Angeles is a case in point.
Since a DEI-fixated dean was brought in, it is claimed that the number of students failing tests in basic medical knowledge has increased ten-fold!
The school has slipped from sixth place to 18th in the US league tables. And that’s because, as an admissions officer put it: “All the normal criteria for getting into med school only apply to people of certain races.”
The rest just get waved through.
I don’t know if the rotten creed of DEI was responsible for the weird failure to notice Crooks, in full view, crouching on that roof. But we should have our suspicions.
It has all gone way too far.
I have a dream — that in all positions, in all walks of life, candidates should be appointed who are the most capable, regardless of their gender, ethnicity or sexual orientation.
I wonder if the idea will ever catch on?
Lions need killer drive
THAT defeat to the Spanish didn’t come as a huge surprise, did it?
Sure, it would have been nice if we had tried a bit of attacking before the 72nd minute.
Just, y’know, to show willing.
And not started with Harry Kane, who showed a remarkable lack of energy, as if he were recovering from a night on the lash and a vindaloo.
But, unlike with the failure against Italy in the previous final, it’s hard to blame Gareth Southgate.
Frankly, if that England side had been jointly managed by Einstein, Pep Guardiola and the Lord Jesus Christ, right, we’d still have lost.
It was right for Southgate to go, though.
He has dramatically improved England.
But he didn’t quite have what it takes to go the final furlong. You just hope the next manager, whoever it is, makes attack the priority.
Cash is the rail answer
MY son came up to visit me from London on an LNER train.
It was, of course, more than an hour late.
He cannot remember a single occasion when his train wasn’t very late.
That’s when it’s not actually cancelled. It’s a very poor service.
In yesterday’s King’s Speech, Labour plan on nationalising our railways.
Will that help LNER?
Nope – it has already been nationalised, back in 2018.
This is the problem.
I have nothing against taking the trains back into state ownership.
I think it’s probably the right thing to do. But it’s not the complete answer.
We need much more investment in our tracks and rolling stock.
Curb appeal
I CAN’T say Sadiq Khan is my favourite politician.
There’s something distinctly oily about the Mayor of London.
And he’s woker than a newborn baby at three in the morning.
But his latest plan would actually improve the city.
Charging people who pave over their front gardens for cars makes a lot of sense. Whole roads are ruined by hideous cement driveways.
Gardens bring a bit of much-needed peace and tranquillity to our busy streets, and encourage wildlife.
Why not offer grants to people to transform dropped kerb drives back into gardens?
Go-slow is £5m no-no
ANOTHER piece of stupid green legislation has bitten the dust.
The Welsh have decided to scrap the country’s mandatory 20mph speed limit.
This has been infuriating drivers since it was introduced less than a year ago.
The speed limit applied to ALL “restricted” roads in the country.
Now Labour seem to have decided that it was an utterly pointless exercise which only served to infuriate everybody.
And wasted £5million in the process.
Words fail me Iain…
PLANK of the Week is the Conservative commentator Iain Dale.
He had been watching the teams of England and Spain line up for the national anthems ahead of Sunday’s Euros final.
Iain tweeted: “What contrast between the two teams. Every England player belted out the national anthem with gusto. Not a single Spanish player opened his mouth.”
No indeed, Iain. That’s because the Spanish national anthem doesn’t have any words.
Maybe you could make some up for them.
DOCTORS have been asked to bend patients’ ears about climate change.
Apparently, reducing demand for blood tests and prescriptions can help the NHS lower its carbon emissions.
It’s all part of a “green toolkit” published by the Royal College of Physicians.
So you turn up with your headache for an appointment, you leave with an even bigger one.
Some doctors wondered if this advice was a joke.
Others called it virtue-signalling.
Sure. But it is also fantastically patronising and insulting to the patients.
Do these arrogant, right-on drongos think we haven’t heard of climate change?
LED by the talented Rodri, the triumphant Spanish football team sang a rousing song about how Gibraltar is Spanish.
Good, good, Amigos. Sing it with passion!
And know that Gibraltar will still be British long after Spain has ceased to exist as a nation state.
And while you’re on your high horses, have a think about the two territories you Spaniards nicked from Morocco.
And when you might consider giving them back.
WELL, thank the Lord for that. Labour has made no mention of lowering the voting age.
It has been part of Sir Keir Starmer’s manifesto to let 16-year-olds have their say at the ballot box.
Not least because when young people vote, it tends to be for left-wing parties.
But there seem to have been second thoughts.
Maybe Starmer bumped into some young people. And decided that, upon reflection, they probably shouldn’t be charged with the task of choosing our government.
I can only hope so.