Leave your weapons at the door

When you invite somebody over for a meeting and ask them to leave their weapons at the door, you insult them. The insult is deliberate.

Asking the person you are meeting to leave his smartphone in custody with your employees is an outright statement of mistrust, and that is why it is an insult.

What you are saying there is that you think he might record you covertly. So of course, he takes offence. Anybody would.

You can’t begin a meeting in that spirit. It’s best not to begin it at all. So when the Police Minister, who looks to be little better than his predecessor, asked a union leader to divest himself of his phone before coming through, the union leader walked out instead. Good for him. The Chamber of Commerce has issued a statement in his favour, saying that the minister’s request was unacceptable. What the Chamber of Commerce couldn’t say, but I shall, is that it was the most appallingly bad manners.