Oh dear - what a surprise
For Craig Guildford it is hugely embarrassing to have to admit that his officers did use AI - after he had personally told MPs that they did not.
That use of Microsoft Copilot led to information going into the report that referred to a game between West Ham and Maccabi Tel Aviv that had never actually happened.
But that is not the chief constable's biggest problem.
We will have to wait for this afternoon to see in full what His Majesty's Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC), Sir Andy Cooke, says in his letter to the home secretary - but it is not likely to be pretty.
The force is accused of mishandling intelligence in the build up to the decision to ban Maccabi fans from attending the game at Aston Villa in November, and then doubling down when politicians as senior as the prime minister and the home secretary said it was a bad idea.
Behind it all is the suggestion that West Midlands Police were paying too much attention to strong feelings in the Muslim community, and then putting the blame on the Maccabi fans.
I’ve never really got involved in this thread as I’ve not got much to add other than I think that Israel has a right to exist, there should be a separate Palestinian state and Netanyahu has some war crimes to answer. Fuck knows how you resolve all that though so I keep my nose out.
When it spills out into this country and my area I have a bit more of an opinion. I wasn’t best pleased that we appear to have ended up with MPs and councillors getting voted in pretty much on a single issue which has nothing to do with the day to day running of constituencies (or wider country) but we live in a democracy so just got to suck it up I guess
Following on from that though you now get the stuff about west mids police (there’s probably more to come) it’s worse than embarrassing, it stinks. You can’t lie about the reasons to ban Israeli fans, if you cannot protect them from the local community, say, don’t make stuff up and point the blame elsewhere. It didn’t surprise me though, the oversight of the City is a mess, from council through to the police. How the police commissioner (Ex HR lawyer) managed to get another term after overseeing the worst knife crime rates in the country I’ll never know - PCs should never have been party aligned for this reason and I’m glad we’re getting rid of them
Ps semi connected, I don’t think the cancellation of a Jewish Labour MP, albeit a Friends of Israel one, from speaking at a school in Bristol is a great look either.