Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Fighting Cocks


Imperial Arrogance


Watching the media's coverage of the tragic disappearance of Madeleine McCann on the Algarve is made all the more poignant by the crass parochialism of the media. I'm almost sick with anger at their treatment of the Portuguese authorities and their insinuation that the British police would have done everything different and much better.


The disservice to Britain's oldest allies is a tragedy almost on the same scale as the little girl's disappearance.


A Portuguese spokesman said:

"Some details of the investigation cannot be brought to the public because of the law," Mr Sousa told a frustrated group of British journalists. "Things are not equal in the legal system in Portugal and in the UK. It's not your fault and it's not my fault.”


The British media have construed this as unacceptable. The idea that the Portuguese police should or must carry on their investigation exactly as it would be done in the UK is so arrogant as to rival Goering's boast that if bombs ever fall on Berlin, you can call me Meier. Mistakes can be made in any police investigation, but to characterise the Portuguese as incompetent is a travesty. Why? Because the Duke of Wellington says so, for starters!


Wellington called his Portuguese allies this “Fighting Cocks” during the Peninsula Campaign which eventually led to Waterloo and the defeat of Napoleon. His estimation of the quality of the soldiers from Portugal was undiminished by hardship and occasional defeat. The Iron Duke had no hesitation in placing his Peninsular veterans in the forefront of the fighting against the French.


No doubt the Duke is currently spinning madly in his tomb to think that the press – who so roundly praised his allies 200 years ago could be so ungrateful.


It seems a British disease to assume that British police, British government, British courts, British culture and British justice is the gold standard against which all others must be measured and found to be wanting.


Any objective assessment of foreign justice will confirm that things are, indeed, done differently in other places; but, different does not always mean inferior.


It is the height of arrogance for the media to characterise the Portuguese authorities as incompetent simply because they are foreigners! They may have made a mistakes – but the catalogue of errors in British police investigations, trial, sentences, etc. should temper any criticism of foreign customs.


Poor old Wellington would be distraught in the extreme.



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