Politics: ignorance profound

By Richard North - November 25, 2025

After Nick Timothy’s article in The Times on the Aston Villa ban – reviewed in my piece on Sunday, his moment of glory came yesterday with his urgent question to the secretary of state for the Home Department.

The text was simple, asking her “to make a statement on the intelligence used by West Midlands police that led to the ban on Maccabi Tel Aviv fans from attending Villa Park on 6 November 2025”, and the response was delivered by Sarah Jones, minister for policing and crime.

Before the event, Timothy was preening himself at his good fortune in being granted an urgent question, pompously declaring that “the Home Secretary has to do her job and hold the chief constable to account”.

At the time, I rather tartly advised him that he needed to do his job as well, “and delve into the full dynamics of this ban, which must include looking at Birmingham City Council, which is the statutory authority responsible for the ban – not the police”.

I added a note in line with my previous remarks, telling Timothy: “the trouble is that you, like your playmates in the legacy media, are on permanent broadcast mode, never listening to the feedback. If you opened your mind, you might actually learn something”.

Needless to say, my comments went unheeded – Timothy belongs to the TGTL (too grand to listen) school and remained obsessed with the role of West Midlands Police, regardless of the procedural aspects of the ban.

One has to say, though, that if Timothy was displaying his ignorance about the finer details of the ban, so too did the minister in her opening statement, declaring: “As Members will appreciate, operational decisions regarding public safety at football matches are a matter for the police, working closely with local partners and events organisers”.

How “operational decisions were defined, Jones didn’t say, but as regards the decision to ban Maccabi fans from the Aston Villa match, this was not a matter for the police. As I have made clear many times, this was a local authority responsibility, as set out in S.10 of the Safety of Sports Grounds Act 1975, implemented by means of a Prohibition Notice (reproduced above).

In this case, Jones went on to say, “West Midlands Police, in consultation with the club and the local safety advisory group, made the recommendation that away fans should not attend based on their assessment of the intelligence available to them at the time”.

Given the actual procedure, this was a bizarre statement. The WMP are part of the safety advisory group – as indeed is a club representative, there being dedicated groups for each venue – so the consultations took place within the framework of the group.

As was subsequently made clear in the local press, the advisory group decided to accept the advice of WMP that there should be a ban, with none of the members flagging up concerns.

Significantly, there were two elected members at the fateful meeting, Waseem Zaffar, representing the Lozells ward and the ruling Labour group. The other was Mumtaz Hussain, a Lib-Dem councillor, representing the Aston ward.

Zaffar, incidentally, had written an opinion piece for BirminghamLive setting out why he was personally boycotting the game; while Hussain had featured in a video alongside independent MP Ayoub Khan outside the ground calling for a full ban on the Israeli club’s fans. Yet neither recused themselves from contributing to the discussion.

Two other councillors, Alex Yip, Conservative, and Morriam Jan, another Lib-Dem, were absent from the meeting.

Nothing of this, of course, was mentioned by Jones, simply adding that she was limited in what she could say about the specific intelligence underpinning the decision. “These are sensitive matters”, she said, “and it is vital that the police act on information received to protect public safety”.

In light of recent events and to ensure robust oversight, Jones than declared, the Home Secretary has commissioned His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services to review how police forces in England and Wales provide risk assessment advice to local SAGs and other bodies responsible for licensing high-profile public events”.

This inspection, she added, will consider whether police advice takes proper account of all relevant factors, including the impact on wider community relations and whether the balance between public safety and community consideration is being struck effectively.

This left Timothy to complain that the ban on Israeli Jewish supporters “was a disgrace and the justification given by West Midlands Police was, it turns out, based on fiction”. Through his lengthy rant, however, he really didn’t address the point about which body had made the decision.

Through the exchanges, though, more details about the procedure began to emerge. In response to a question from Labour MP Jo White, Jones observed that the SAG had “looked at lots of considerations in terms of what the options were”. These had included: “Should it have been a closed match, for example, with no fans? That sometimes happens. Should the match not have gone ahead at all?”.

Many options were being weighed up, Jones added, but a SAG will not just look at the policing advice when it makes its recommendation; it will also look at other factors. That is why, she said, we want to get to the heart of how the SAG process is working, what kinds of decisions are being made and how it operates.

Then, when Jones was asked whether the Home Office had been fully briefed in advance of the decision, she would only confirm that they had been told when the decision had been made, then adding that “we knew that options were being considered”.

Cutting through the miasma of misinformation, she then passed on in an almost offhand way that comment that: “This is the way in which these processes work: a safety advisory group makes recommendations, and the local authority responds accordingly”. In response to what has happened, she said, “we are asking the inspector to look at the safety advisory groups and tell us whether we need to make some changes”.

Hallelujah! At last we have got there: “a safety advisory group makes recommendations, and the local authority responds accordingly”. That is indeed that way these processes work.

But looking back at the Sunday Times piece, it is not clear that the local authority did respond. Writer Gabriel Progrun states that the SAG sent a formal recommendation to Aston Villa that away fans should be banned.

The club itself said that, “Following a meeting this afternoon (16 October), the SAG have formally written to the club and UEFA to advise no away fans will be permitted to attend Villa Park for this fixture.

Before that, we had the West Midland Police statement which was headed: “WMP supports Safety Advisory Group decision regarding Aston Villa vs Maccabi Tel-Aviv football match”, with the text stating: “While the Safety Certificate is issued by Birmingham City Council, West Midlands Police supports the decision to prohibit away supporters from attending”.

Only then did we get Birmingham City Council’s statement on the day headed: “Statement on Safety Advisory Group’s decision on Aston Villa FC and Maccabi Tel Aviv match”.

This had a Council spokesperson saying that: “The Safety Advisory Group has provided advice to Aston Villa Football Club based on a risk assessment provided by West Midlands Police. If there is a change in the assessment of risk in the forthcoming match, then the Safety Advisory Group will commit to review its decision as appropriate”.

Putting all these pieces together, it does begin to look as if the SAG acted unilaterally – which it had no authority to do – issuing what amounted to informal advice which was taken by the club to be a formal prohibition.

To add to the uncertainty, we have a BBC piece written on 16 October stating that, according to the council website, the role of the SAG “is to offer advice and guidance regarding public health and safety at events, including to ‘reduce any negative impact’, but it isn’t able to approve or reject them”, telling us that the power “ultimately lies with local councils”.

The BBC then cites a Birmingham City Council spokesperson who said a meeting had been held with “all relevant partners to assess safety arrangements” and: “following a thorough review, concerns were raised regarding public safety if away fans attend the match, by the police”. As a result, the spokesperson said, “a collective decision was made to restrict away fan attendance”.

Looking at all this, it seems as if the proper procedure was by-passed, which means that Jones is absolutely right to focus on getting to” the heart of how the SAG process is working, what kinds of decisions are being made and how it operates”. By the same token, Timothy is wrong to obsess about the police involvement. The issue is much bigger than that – potentially, we are looking at a serious system failure.

But, as the ban was a local authority responsibility, it is hardly appropriate that His Majesty’s inspectorate of constabulary and fire and rescue services should be the sole body entrusted with a review.

There is a role here for the secretary of state for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities to exercise statutory intervention powers under the Local Government Act 1999 to appoint an inspector to examine whether there have been any serious failures on the part of the local authority.

It seems to me, though, that none of the parties involved, not the minister, the MPs or the media, really understand this issue and, in their own ways, are exhibiting profound ignorance. So badly are we governed, it seems, that even those who govern us don’t really know how the system works.