May Scottish/British

My dear Nazir Afzal, How exquisitely revealing you are. A celebrity is convicted and within hours there you are. "There will be others," you say. There will. You would know. They come from your community, don't they. The same towns, the same streets, the same men. And you did not say so. You held one of the most powerful posts in British justice. Chief Crown Prosecutor for the North West, handed to you by Keir Starmer in September 2011. While you sat in that office, gangs of men raped, trafficked and sold British girls in Rotherham, Rochdale, Oldham, Bradford and a dozen towns besides. You did not rush to their defence. You did not burn with anger. You waited. You calculated. And you chose the one case that would serve you. Rochdale, 2012. One prosecution. Your golden ticket. You have dined out on it ever since, all the way to a comfortable suite of titles and the Church of England's highest safeguarding chair, a Muslim guarding the flock, which is symmetry of a sort. And at Easter you told the natives to use sat nav if they wanted a church. You wear the mask of the civilised man so very well, Nazir. The tailored suit. The measured tone. The weary sigh at anyone who dares say the quiet part. But the mask is thinning. You are not merely a hypocrite. You are a connoisseur of hypocrisy. There will be others. There always are. And you will be there to explain each one away. But you are not the only one keeping records now. We keep them too. And ours do not get softened for the camera.