Shane Stone: Obsessed with Andrew Mitchell, the British media is neglecting the police story that really matters

The Hon Shane Stone AC QC is a former (Australian) Attorney General, Police Minister and barrister who specialised in the criminal jurisdiction – defence and prosecutions.

My arrival in London last week was framed by two unfolding stories: first the tragic brutal slaying of two unarmed police officers in Manchester; the second about a Cabinet Minister who gave a police officer a gob-full out the front of 10 Downing Street. Hardly comparable events, yet a week on and one has overshadowed the other – that is a travesty.

As I leave to return home to Australia the senseless deaths of those two police officers has been overtaken by a running commentary on “did he or didn’t he call the copper a ‘pleb’”. What is wrong with you people? Its seems that this terminology is “toxic” according to some, and the BBC to make the point (as they predictably would) featured one Classics Professor Edith Hall who gushingly and somewhat sneeringly assured viewers that this was an insult of monumental proportion. Really?