He's arguing against debanking people and organisations for expressing their political views, by comparing it to a heinous crime that doesn't get a person debanked, and pointing out the double standard.
The interesting question is to what extent should people have their ability to partake in modern society restricted based on their political views. It's a freedom of expression issue, like the ones tech companies have to grapple with when they close people's accounts for similar policy reasons.
Well, as he himself points out - while the account was in her name, it was the children (who are not criminals as far as I know) who were using it. His argument is very weak in comparing them - he even had a goal lines up with the recent NatWest/Farage stuff - but instead he picked on a woman who probably hasn't been in the public consciousness for several year.
Also why should institutions not be allowed to express values? By your logic if you believe a baker should not be allowed to bake a gay cake, then a bank should be able to debank customers.
If Rose West's daughter expressed political views that the bank found objectionable, do you think that would be fair grounds to close her mother's account? Given that she is the primary user, on her mother's behalf.
The gay cake scenario is a bit different to this, isn't it? In that case, the baker was being asked to create an object emblazoned with a message he disagreed with, and his refusal to do so was arguably in line with his freedom of expression. I think the parallel scenario to this one would be if he'd refused to make any cake at all for a customer due to their political views.
I realise that a good controversy makes a story spicier, but this seems a bit over engineered.
Title: “… let Rose West keep her account”
Conclusion at the bottom:
> Not punishing Rose West’s daughter was the right call, but punishing outspoken feminists absolutely was not.
And the background:
> Apparently the Co-op bank considered closing West’s account when it carried out a review of customers with criminal records ten years ago. But it decided that the monster from Gloucester should stay as a customer because the account was mainly being used by her daughter, and she would have been unfairly inconvenienced if the account disappeared.
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[ 3.1 ms ] story [ 18.7 ms ] threadWhy is this even posted here?
The interesting question is to what extent should people have their ability to partake in modern society restricted based on their political views. It's a freedom of expression issue, like the ones tech companies have to grapple with when they close people's accounts for similar policy reasons.
Also why should institutions not be allowed to express values? By your logic if you believe a baker should not be allowed to bake a gay cake, then a bank should be able to debank customers.
The gay cake scenario is a bit different to this, isn't it? In that case, the baker was being asked to create an object emblazoned with a message he disagreed with, and his refusal to do so was arguably in line with his freedom of expression. I think the parallel scenario to this one would be if he'd refused to make any cake at all for a customer due to their political views.
Title: “… let Rose West keep her account”
Conclusion at the bottom:
> Not punishing Rose West’s daughter was the right call, but punishing outspoken feminists absolutely was not.
And the background:
> Apparently the Co-op bank considered closing West’s account when it carried out a review of customers with criminal records ten years ago. But it decided that the monster from Gloucester should stay as a customer because the account was mainly being used by her daughter, and she would have been unfairly inconvenienced if the account disappeared.