The Mail takes up the Ed Davey call for her to go

Given what the issue was that caused the Saturday evening vigil on Clapham Common the way that the Metropolitan Police have handled it looks appalling and naive and the Mail, surely, has read the public mood right in its approach for tomorrow’s front page.

The LD leader, Ed Davey, became the first party head to do what appears blindingly obvious when you look at the pictures and see the video clips of the police action. A side issue is that in the failure of the Tories and Labour to make similar demands the two major parties have given Davey what could be a political bonus. It makes him and his party sound relevant in a way the party has not been since the ending of the coalition.

Labour’s Jess Phillips is quoted as saying: “The reality is if Cressida Dick stays or goes it doesn’t make women in this country more safe, and that’s what I want to talk about.” That all sounds a limp as though she is making excuses for Starmer.

This is from Janice Turner in the Times:

Stay indoors for your own safety, police told women when Sarah Everard went missing. Stay indoors and light a candle, they said when her remains were found. Clearly after a week describing how male hassle and violence makes us frightened to walk the streets, women were sick of staying indoors — even a future queen. This was the Met’s first error. Banning the vigil via the courts and threatening organisers with fines turned it from an official, stewarded event into an ad hoc happening. Besides, the optics were terrible. Police were stopping women from mourning a murder with which one of their own officers is charged. Could Cressida Dick not see how ghastly this looked? The police calculation seemed to be that women are nice, kind and, crucially, obedient. But still they came to Clapham Common, twentysomethings in bobble hats and groovy leggings, looking just like Sarah on her “missing” poster. They carried candles and M&S tulips. Older women brought kids or labradoodles. A shy student told me she’d googled the possible lockdown fine, “but I’d pay it and live on beans on toast for a month”. She walked these same streets alone at night: “It could have been me.”

This story is not going to go away.