 When it comes to violence at protests, people on the left will often disagree. Some will see riots as a legitimate response to state violence, others will think violence is always wrong. Many will see protesters burning vans and smashing windows as no moral disaster, but rather a public relations one. These are all options which are widespread on the left. I think we can have productive disagreement about these questions. What you don't normally see among progressives though is applauding cops as they swing battens at crowds. But that's what Labour Shadow Minister for Further Education did this afternoon. Now he quote tweeted a video by journalist Billy Stockwell of clashes between cops and protesters at Bristol's March Against the Policing Bill and wrote, this is Toby Perkins. This looks to me like entirely appropriate use of the baton. A good example of proportionate policing under extreme pressure. Well done with free clapping emojis. Now let's take a look at the video which Perkins thinks was a great example of proportionate policing worthy of a round of applause. Now whatever your position about policing and protest, do you want to abolish the cops? Do you think the cops do a good job? I think the idea of clapping at that situation, which looks quite difficult for everyone involved actually, but seeing that as something to celebrate, I think just seems completely sadistic. I mean, there's someone really swinging his baton, people really getting hurt. I mean, to me, that doesn't look particularly defensive. If you're swinging your baton like that, it's not someone holding up their shield. That could cause real damage and you've got a Labour MP here, Shadow Minister and a Shadow Minister who represents young people. Shadow Minister for further education and he's giving a round of applause as a cop hits a protester with a baton. Now, obviously, that didn't cause any controversy today. The tweet that caused controversy, actually it was an interview that caused controversy was Nadia Wittem saying, actually, maybe I want to work out what the facts are before I start condemning people. That's seen as beyond the pale. A Labour MP who's giving a round of applause for a cop hitting someone with a stick, that's completely acceptable. People are saying, Nadia Wittem should lose the whip. This guy, no one's even saying he should be forced to apologise or resign from the front bench. Pathetic, isn't it? When you see somebody cheering on, bullying, which is being done by other people, there's something about that which I just find so unshique. Do you know what I mean? It's just so kind of pathetic. You're clapping from the sidelines that these kind of puffed up, drunk on their own power, cops swing baton around, but batons around. I don't think that it's becoming of a Shadow Cabinet minister, not just on the politics of it, which are, of course, atrocious, but just because it's so pathetic. It's like Randall, the school snitch from recess. You don't even have the kind of gumption to do it yourself, but you're kind of in the sidelines going, oh, I'm approved of this. It's also come to my attention that Toby Perkins has had some pretty offensive things in relation to the GRT community. He said that he wouldn't want a travellers encampment to set up near him. He apologised afterwards after there was an outcry from the GRT community. When you put those two things together, the applauding of indiscriminate baton strikes against protesters who are there in part because of a bill which will criminalise and really crack down on the GRT community, I wonder if there are some connections here. If not consciously, but then unconsciously about a kind of desire to see more authoritarian measures from the state against those who are deemed to be disruptive and criminal, whether those people are deemed to be that way because they're protesters or if they're deemed to be that way because they're part of the GRT community. That's really dark. I hadn't thought of that connection, actually. I mean, my interpretation of it was, and I think that's very valid. I didn't know about those previous tweets from him or previous articles, previous comments. I mean, my interpretation of this was it was more standard, just sort of like labour, trying to sort of appeal to parts of the electorate that sort of just ending up going too far and looking kind of stupid. So obviously, you've got Keir Starmer said, we have to look like, we support the police. We have to look like we don't want to defund the police. We don't want to abolish the police. And they've ended up saying, oh, we have to now clap everything they do. So you have a situation you now have front bench shadow ministers, you've got a cop hitting someone with a baton like literally beating someone up and they're like, oh, yeah, that's brilliant. That's brilliant. We love that too. We love that too. And then you can sort of just imagine them sort of, you know, how far does it have to go where they won't be giving this huge round of applause because they think it makes them look good. And sooner or later, we're going to have a situation where they're doing this huge round of applause because I think that's what you have to do to get elected. And then everyone's just looking at them like, guys, no one thinks that's cool. Like, where does this end? If your instant reaction to seeing police violence is to say, well, we're the Labour Party, we want to get elected. That means whatever the situation, we have to side with the cop. I mean, it could go really badly wrong, couldn't it? Well, I mean, yeah, yeah, it could. Because one is unprincipled. It's so unprincipled. And two, you're never going to be able to outwater cannon pretty Patel. You know, there's always going to be a politician on your right flank who can go much further. And the thing is that they really mean it. You know, pretty Patel has previously spoken out in favour of bringing back capital punishments. You know, that goes to a place which, you know, I hope no Labour shadow minister would ever want to go. So it's just it's inauthentic. It's pathetic. And it's also not even that successful as an electoral strategy. But what's more, I think that it is a real insult, considering Labour's own history. So when you think of the violence meted out to minors, when you think about what happened at all grief, when you think about what happened at Hillsborough, and all of these events have really played into the politicisation of their membership, and have shaped Labour's history in self image and connections of working class struggle in a really powerful way. So then a Labour shadow minister to turn around and say, you know, I applaud baton strikes or to symbolically endorse indiscriminate baton strikes is an insult to that history, or a sign that you never took it all that seriously in the first place. And this is this isn't about whether you consider the events last night in Bristol to be either morally or strategically right. That's entirely a separate issue. It's a measure, I think, and a very basic political test of whether somebody is serious about progressive politics is how they react to images of state violence. And anyone who applauds or celebrates it cannot be trusted.