Jim Gamble's Hearing

I’ve received the following from our reader totallyconfused:


Jim Gamble’s Hearing

Here is a comment, by MM, at Uk.Legal, about it:

I watched the whole of the proceedings of the Home Affairs Select Committee today from just after 11 o'clock onwards. Kit Malthouse, first up, London Deputy Mayor, especially was a model interviewee with precise, comprehensible and comprehensive answers that rarely strayed off the point.

Those that followed him, especially Bernard Hogan-Howe, were also lucid and helpful. 

Then it was Jim Gamble's turn. I watched and listened to Jim Gamble as he gave evidence, but his whole delivery was one long ramble, skittering from one topic to another in a weird mishmash of what I could only describe as jumbled thinking. 

First, he made the committee wait a good 30 seconds before he took his seat after being invited to do so. He sat there, his face sullen, looking like thunder. For the next 30 minutes his mien didn't soften much, if at all. 

Then he wanted at the outset to deliver an opening statement, but Chairman Vaz quashed that, saying firmly that it would be better for the committee to ask him questions instead. 

As the interviews with Mr Gamble passed off, I was becoming ever more perplexed as to what he was on about most of the time. I could hardly believe that he constantly gave the impression that he and only he was capable of heading up the serious job as boss of CEOP. I don't know whether the committee members warmed to him (difficult) or started to wonder to themselves, why this intense confrontational style?  

Gamble now appears to think that maybe there will be moves to have him reinstated before his 4-month notice expires. However, at one point near the end a committee member asked him to confirm or deny whether rumours were true that he had another job lined up already. He denied this emphatically. The man is a total enigma.

TC’s comment to this gentleman’s performance:  

Rambling is right with nonsensical answers. Why the attempt to compare the priorities of policing vs. children? 

"We are no more about organised crime than domestic violence.' 

HUH? What about Gamble's constant bleeting about organised crime running indecent websites? 

"We are not about fighting serious crime'. (around 1 hour 26/27 minutes) 

Why is the relationship between CEOP and SOCA 'tortured'? (Talk about laying into your former boss Jimbo- did you and Hughes fall out big time?) 

Jimbo- if you are all about child protection and 'the big society' why is in run by a cop? 

Jim I loved how you tied yourself in knots at 1 hour 33/34 minutes!!!!!! (Don't think MP Reckless will be joining your fan club begging you to come back- love the MP's name by the way) 

So hang on- IWF keeps the list of 'dangerous sites' but CEOP manages the 'behaviour'. ?????

There's that word 'safeguarding' again....... As for child trafficking....let me get this right......the McCann case should ACTUALLY have been dealt with by SOCA not CEOP? 

'Only 7% of CEOP's work last year had to do with activity for profit.' HUH????? 

Dear Lord Jim- what's wrong? You afraid that your 'culture' if you have to mix with accountable organisations might force you to be accountable yourself? 

CEOP isn't about being 'offender focussed'? But if your job is about regulating behaviour, then it is about stopping offending. 

Is this about saving children or saving face? For you Jim it is all about your face.......  

Links: CEOP chief accuses UK.gov of putting kids at risk Jim Gamble – Select Committee – 12.10.10 (thanks Bren)