An Inconvenient Murder

Picture the scene: the stars descend for the Primetime Emmy Awards, the red carpet transformed into a catwalk of haute couture and exquisite aesthetics. The event oozes glamour and elegance, where the great and the good of the entertainment world come to see and be seen. 

The bookies’ favourite this year is a hard-hitting drama set in the north of England. A white, teenage boy is brutally murdered at school, and we follow the subsequent police investigation. The killer is revealed to be a boy of Pakistani heritage who claims he was the subject of racist bullying but admits that his victim had never racially abused him and that he was merely ‘lashing out.’ The drama then takes a reflective turn, with the spotlight being shone onto such vital topics as cultural assimilation, what it means to be British in the 21st century and knife crime.  

The film captures the cultural zeitgeist, and a national debate ensues. Ministers urge that it be shown in schools, and parents are encouraged to let their children watch it; such are the lessons which can be learned from such an uncompromising production. 

But we all know, in reality, that this will never happen. 

This is not Adolescence after all, where a white teenager has been watching too much Andrew Tate and becomes such a misogynist that he murders a female pupil. This was an ordinary white boy, Harvey Willgoose, who was stabbed in the chest and killed in the middle of the school day in Sheffield, England, by Mohammed Umar Khan, a fellow pupil of Pakistani heritage. On February 5th this year, he stabbed Harvey with such force that the blade cut through a rib and pierced his heart. Harvey had no chance.

Khan claimed to have been the victim of racist bullying and that he took a knife to school in order to protect himself. The trial heard he had come from a troubled home. He and his siblings suffered significant abuse and malnourishment, with their mother enduring substantial mental health issues. At the time Khan stabbed Harvey, something in him had, apparently, just ‘snapped.’

Sadly, these are circumstances which are reflected in many, many cases of childhood criminality, both in the United Kingdom and across Europe. But what is different and noteworthy about this tragedy is the reaction. Or, rather, the lack of one. 

Yes, the media reported on the crime and the resultant court case, but then, nothing. Contrast this with the murder of Brianna Ghey, for example, a trans-identifying teenager who was stabbed to death in Cheshire in 2023. Even though the police didn’t think the crime was motivated by transphobia, the legacy media certainly did, and this was discussed widely. 

There is also the killing of Altab Ali, a young Bangladeshi textile worker who was murdered by three white youths in London’s East End in 1978. This crime was classified as racist in nature, and the anniversary is still widely commemorated. A park on Whitechapel Road was named after him. 

The beating to death in prison of Zahid Mubarek by his racist cellmate in 2000 has also been extensively pored over, as has the killing of Rolan Adams in 1991 by a gang of young, white men. 

And then, of course, we have Stephen Lawrence. No single crime of the modern era has generated as much coverage. The murder became a pivotal moment in British post-war social history. Legislation followed the killing and failed police investigation, and a new phrase, institutional racism, entered the lexicon. Indeed, the anniversary of the attack has become ‘Stephen Lawrence Day’, with the crime being referenced regularly decades after the event. Stephen Lawrence has become a modern, secular saint.

None of this is meant to take away from the brutality of these crimes or minimise the effects they have had on the victims’ families down the years. But I think it’s fair to say that the political and cultural commentariat of the United Kingdom care more about some types of crime than they do others. And the murder of Harvey Willgoose is definitely one of the ‘others.’

What coverage there has been has tended to concentrate on Khan’s unfortunate circumstances, rather than the fact that he deliberately stabbed a fellow pupil through the heart. They don’t quite say Khan is the ‘real victim’ in all of this, but they’re more than a few steps down that path. And, possibly, this crime makes our elites feel uncomfortable, for it throws into sharp focus the complete lie that old, white, Imperial Britain has undergone an integration ‘miracle,’ transforming it into the modern, progressive Yookay of today, where Islamists happily dump their heavy, neo-fascistic beliefs and express a new-found oneness with their local LGBT support groups.

Only this week, PM Kier Starmer pledged £10 million to assist in the protection of British mosques from ‘hate crime,’ after a mosque in East Sussex was targeted in a suspected arson attack. He naturally went straight there, talking of Britain being a “proud and tolerant country,” etc., etc. No doubt someone, somewhere, mentioned ‘community cohesion.’ Or something like that. 

Murder seems to have now slipped way down the charts compared to Muslims feeling vulnerable, but I guess that says as much about the political bind the Labour Party has found itself in as anything else, with several front-benchers projected to lose their seats at the next general election due to the rise of Islamism as a political force in Britain. 

Successive governments, of whatever stripe, have allowed the importation of chaos into this country under the guise of compassion, because they were too feeble to withstand the white noise of the Left. And now, it is the rest of us who have to deal with its implications; we, who were never asked nor consulted. 

The country’s cultural and political leaders would rather that Harvey be quietly buried and that the whole sorry business would just fade into some kind of background. Because for them to acknowledge the murder would demonstrate that this country is no longer safe for its citizens (of whatever background), that the elites have failed in their primary responsibility to protect us, and that everything they have ever held true has turned out to be wrong.