Thursday, August 02, 2007
The British Police Are Insane
A friend lost his dog recently. Searching for it, he walked into a police operation. They seized and questioned him at length. Having established he wasn't the man they were looking for, they threatened to charge him with aggravated trespass and carrying an offensive weapon - a dog lead. They finally gave up on this. The last uniformed cretin to depart told him he was 'a very lucky man'. Today we hear more of the incompetence that led to the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes and the subsequent pathetically ham-fisted attempts at a cover-up. I just heard on the news that some plod wants to store DNA samples of everybody convicted of any offence from speeding upwards. A few days ago there as a story on the radio - can't find it for the moment - about the arrest of a male stripper for impersonating a police officer. In the course of every contact I have ever had with the police - excluding those that happen in the course of my work - I have encountered stupidity and offhand rudeness. This is because they hate the middle classes slightly more than they hate everybody else. The police have evaded every attempt at reform. Read my review of Peter Hitchens' excellent book on this subject. The question is: why is such a manifestly hopeless and unpleasant institution tolerated by the people?
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A blog about, among other things, imaginary ideas - What ifs? and Imagine thats. What if photographs looked nothing like what we see with our eyes? Imagine that the Berlin Wall had never come down. What if we were the punchline of an interminable joke? All contributions welcome.
The comment passed by the former police anti-terror chap in dismissal of these measures. 'that next, some fool will want the DNA, be removed at birth'. Should have kept mum, as there is some git going 'hmmm' at this moment in time.
ReplyDeleteOn another dog related story, driving along a country road once a dog ran out into the road. I stopped the car in time but the poor animal ran off into some woods. Having knocked on the doors of the few houses thereabouts to see if they were searching for their pet I rang the police to tell them that if anybody was looking for a runaway retriever I might have seen it. They insisted I visit the station, having to take time off work to do so, whereupon they took me into an interview room and read me my rights. So much for being a good citizen. they'd probably take my DNA if I did that now so fuck 'em.
ReplyDelete"why is such a manifestly hopeless and unpleasant institution tolerated by the people?"
ReplyDeleteBecause we are never given the opportunity to vote for an alternative. No political party in the UK offers a serious alternative to the increasing attacks on our civil liberties. Hopefully, after Brown wins the next election, the Tories will self-destruct and something more useful will emerge from the rubble.
Blimey!
ReplyDeleteyou have to be mad to deal with, and be accountable to, the ''people''.
ReplyDeletethe alternative, I suppose, is soft, intellectual police officers - do we really want to pay someone to do a job we could easily perform ourselves? no, we need thick, double-hard bastards!
be careful out there...
we put up with it because otherwise we'll find ourselves in bright orange jumpsuits in Camp X-Ray, sans internet privileges.
ReplyDeleteThe only thing cops hate worse than crims are civilians. In addition i guess most cops are stolid Sun-reading white trash, so even more reason for them to hate anyone who's not from a ghetto.
Sad to say, but doing a job that involves high stress, violence, and a great deal of chavs, does bad things to people.
My understanding is that police officers end up with their bottom stained permanently blue as a result of long, sweaty hours sitting in canteens and Panda cars while wearing heavy serge. Police stations are the only places where they can throw off their clothes and admit to their colleagues that "It's all right to be Blue", so naturally it is highly inadvisable for members of the public to disturb them there.
ReplyDeleteOne day, a Home Office bean-counter will realize that there's no need to spend money on expensive flashing blue lights when a policeman bent double under an ordinary white strobe from any branch of Maplins will do just as well.
In the event that an officer performs a reverse bend, the light will change suddenly to red. In this case, members of the public are advised to call for an ambulance.
further, i recall a friend once ran some kind of local G stall next to the police stall in some kind of public event. The police reps were unusually nice, but it turned out they were all homosexual. Perhaps this is the answer.
ReplyDeleteIn LA, apparently the area to be covered means the cops shut themselves up in armed camps, and periodically send out tanks or choppers to launch raids. This seems quite a bad idea. Hunter S Thompson suggested disarming police, but having an armed response team on stand-by to savagely murder anyone who took advantage of a gun-less cop.
At present it looks like cops are encouraged to feel wholly separate to the society they police; so they become stormtroopers rather than bobbies. As they become more aggressive & rude & hateful, they engender corresponding hostility in everyone they meet, so become more so.
Some way out of this has to be found, and surely it is to replace the police force with the Village People?
Excellent example of lateral thinking, Elberry
ReplyDeleteIt certainly worked with the Fire Brigade.
ReplyDeleteI used to think the police were there to protect us, now I think they treat us with as much suspicion and disrespect as they do criminals.
ReplyDeleteRecently my son tried to leave the house but found a car parked across his drive. He found the driver and asked him to move it,the driver flashed his police badge and tried to pull rank. Have they become power-crazed, are they making it up as they go along, are there different rules for the police to those we have to abide by? I think we all know the answers, don't we? I vote for Village People, at least they can dance (but I could never do that YMCA thing with my arms).
that's quite a radical reduction in numbers, elberry. I'm not sure the Dailies Express and Mail will go for it.
ReplyDeletePandas?!! 'evenin' all. 'ello, 'ello, 'ello, what's all this then? fair cop, gov. I'll come quietly.... an no mistake.
A career in the police is a well-paid option for someone with no educational qualifications; this is the root cause of the problem.
ReplyDeleteIIRC, a blogging policeman recently wrote an op-ed for one your papers wherein he alleges the root of the problem is the Home Office need for numbers, any kind of numbers, to prove everyone is out doing a tremendous job catching criminals. Instead, he says, half of them are busy writing reports for the Home Office and the other half are following up on lost pet or personal argument complaints because they are easy to "close" the books on and, thus, make the numbers look even better.
ReplyDeleteThe real crimes, OTOH, like burglaries, rapes, and assault are complicated, time-consuming, and difficult to resolve. If the rate of success in closing cases is below average, or total number of cases worked on low as a result of pursuing the hard crimes, it is a career-killer.
Policemen on the beat is one of those reassuring delusions of safety, delusional like believing a country cottage is somehow comfortable, weatherproof and the summum bonum of dwellings.
ReplyDeleteOnly relieving feature is that they can retire young. Sooner the better, I say.
ReplyDeleteYou Brits should look into drafting a Constitution one of these days. I've heard from some that you can do without one because you are a naturally practical, reasonable race. It couldn't hurt to be naturally practical and reasonable and have constitutionally guaranteed rights to boot.
ReplyDeleteAn armed populace wouldn't hurt, either.
ReplyDeleteDuck, we already have an armed populace - virtually every low-level crook now owns a firearm in this country, and since recent Home Office estimates reveal that 97.5% of British citizens are criminals, we may even be ahead of you lot in the armed to the teeth & ready to kill stakes.
ReplyDeletePersonally i'm all in favour of anything that makes it easier to kill people, but then i don't really approve of human life that much.