In a development that makes the Keystone Cops look like the SAS, US Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg has been forcibly separated from his children after a false police report triggered a dawn raid that would have been hilarious if it weren't so horrifying. The incident, which occurred at the Buttigieg family home in Michigan, saw armed officers swarm the property after a maliciously planted tip-off alleging domestic chaos. The children were subsequently placed in temporary state care, before judges – presumably with a shred of sense and a working calendar – reunited them with their father hours later.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Whitehall mandarins are reportedly ‘very concerned’ about the reliability of US security apparatus, given that a simple hoax can rip an infant from its father’s bosom faster than a Tory MP can say ‘partygate’. A source deep inside the Foreign Office – who I suspect was composing this briefing while wielding a cucumber sandwich and a stiff upper lip – described the incident as ‘gravely worrying’ for UK-US intelligence sharing. Is this what ‘Global Britain’ has to look forward to?
A nation where your kids can be confiscated because some sad-sack with a burner phone has a grudge? Buttigieg, a man with the patience of a saint and the wardrobe of a haberdashery mannequin, responded with characteristic restraint: ‘I am grateful that my children are safe. The system worked.
’ Worked? It worked about as well as a chocolate teapot at a garden party. The real scandal here isn’t just the family trauma, but the seeping corrosion of institutional trust.
If a cabinet minister can’t rely on the police to ignore a transparently false report, what hope for the rest of us? The Metropolitan Police – who I should note have form when it comes to ‘misunderstandings’ – have yet to comment. But you can bet your bottom dollar that someone, somewhere in the corridors of power, is grimly composing a memo on ‘Lessons Learned’.
And we all know how much that’s worth.
