She Should Never Have Been There in the First Place

 I’ve been lucky enough to know a few people in my life who happen to know some prominent people. So, thanks to social media, I am, on an occasion lucky enough to get the news feed about a posting made by someone prominent. One of the luckiest gems came from Lord Simon Woolley, who is a British politician currently serving in the House of Lords and is the Principle of Homerton College Cambridge. Lord Wooley’s post was on the sacking of former British Home Secretary, Suella Braverman and a copy of his posting is appended below:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/lord-simon-woolley-387611119/recent-activity/all/

 

 Taken from the Linkedin Page of Lord Simon Woolley

I agree with Lord Woolley. Ms. Braverman who has become probably the first person to get sacked from the same job by two different Prime Ministers, has been something of a controversial figure who has gone out of her way to pander to the worst in human nature.

You could say that Ms. Braverman had given herself a religious mission to save the United Kingdom from the very people who were more than willing to help the United Kingdom by working hard – namely anyone fleeing a war zone or anyone with South Asian ancestry. Ms. Braverman is the person who declared it was her dream to send asylum seekers to Rwanda and blamed those of Pakistani origin of forming “grooming gangs.” A list of Ms. Braverman’s controversies can be found at:

https://news.sky.com/story/suella-braverman-speeding-row-the-latest-in-a-long-line-of-controversies-12886789#:~:text=Ms%20Braverman%20also%20attracted%20controversy,to%20get%20off%20the%20ground.

The straw that finally broke the proverbial camel’s back and got her the sack was when she criticized the British police force for being “too lenient” on Pro-Palestinian protestors:

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2023/11/13/uk-minister-suella-braverman-fired-heres-what-to-know

 

 Leaving aside one’s views of the Israel-Palestine conflict, this is an obvious violation of every ethics code. Citizens of countries that claim to be democratic have a right to protest for whatever they want and the role of the police is simple – they’re there to ensure that violence does not break out between rival protestors. The rules are supposed to be simple – you can protest, march, wear signs etc etc as long as you don’t get violent in your protest with the people protesting against what you are protesting and you don’t call for the extermination of anyone.

Having the person who is nominally in charge of ensuring law and order talk about how the police were too lenient or “not harsh enough” on one side or the other is obviously a violation of that understanding. It should be a “no-brainer” that Mr. Sunak, her boss would have had to sack her.

While the sacking of Ms. Braverman was long overdue, the question is – why was she appointed as Home Secretary in the first place. It’s not that this was Ms. Braverman’s first stint in the home office and Mr. Sunak cannot claim that he didn’t know what she was like. Ms. Braverman who held the job under Mr. Sunak’s predecessor, Liz Truss, had to leave the job because she couldn’t follow basic security rules when it came to her official communications. This should have been a red flag against bringing Ms. Braverman back to the Home Office. How can you let someone who can’t keep the simplest of rules to a job which is all about enforcing rules.

We got our answer a few days latter when Ms. Braverman started accusing Mr. Sunak of betraying the deal they had made. It turns out that the unelected Mr. Sunak who had lost the first leadership race to Ms. Truss, was so desperate for the top job that he cut a deal with Ms. Braverman to get support when he got his lucky break when Ms. Truss was forced to resign.

This does not speak well for Mr. Sunak, who, judging by his career at top investment banks and his academic credentials at Oxford and Winchester, is an intelligent man. Based on her record, its clear that one doesn’t need an Oxford Degree to know Ms. Braverman in the home office would be a problem. Yet, Mr. Sunak was so keen to get power that he struck the deal with her.

Ms. Braverman is what you call the awful subordinate who reflects poorly on her boss and the fact that she lasted this long only enforces the impression that Mr. Sunak, who claimed to want to run a professional government, has a flawed character. Ms. Braverman’s existence in his cabinet for the length that was only screams that Mr. Sunak is so desperate for power he’ll sacrifice anything resembling common decency to get it. That is not what people look for in a leader.