Category Archives: Police

Cat >>>>> Pigeons.

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The race for the new police commissioners job here in Kent is starting to hot up. I don’t know who all the candidates are, but Col. Tim Collins, he of the impassioned eve of battle speech seems to be the early, runaway favourite. No doubt the rest of the card will be made up of the barely successful local politicians, or those fading from greater glories.

He’s made a bold statement today, one that will not have gone down at all well with some. His claim?

Former Army officer Colonel Tim Collins, who wants to become Kent’s police and crime commissioner, has said he would only need to work part-time.

Eleven people are standing for election for the post, which will replace the county’s police authority this year.

Col Collins said he did not see there was full-time work in the role.

Seems a little cocky, but Collins is not a man afraid to put his neck on the line.

The 51-year-old, whose availability for the role is limited by existing work commitments, said: “It would be a part-time role for me. I don’t see there’s full time work in it.

The Police Federation don’t agree.

The Kent Police Federation said it was “nonsense” to say the role, currently filled by 16 police authority members, could be carried out part-time.

Yes, sixteen members.

In the US, they’ve had this model of elected police chiefs since, well, forever as far as I can make out. It seems to work for them. But for the public servant the idea that one person can do the work of 16 is unthinkable, hell most of them would probably have you believe that 16 people can’t do the work of 16 people. (Bear in mind that the expenses run to £212 per person, per day, plus transport and up to £30k per year in ‘annual allowances’ dependent on position held, this looking at the list of members is ‘part-time’ work. By my very, very rough back of a fag packet calculations interspersed with some assumptions of 10 days a month work, we’re looking at around a cool half million a year minimum for the current system.)

A canny operator, Collins. The Colonel takes care not to piss off his Majors and Captains:

“the reality is that we’ve got a very effective chief constable who has got a great team around him. They can do the policing.”

Absolutely, there’s nothing worse than a politician walking around with the police, on the beat, wearing a stab vest, going back and telling everyone that they know what’s going on because they’ve been there. It’s rubbish.

This is why I support the concept of elected police chiefs, if they can direct the uniformed management, hold them accountable, whilst being accountable themselves, then surely it must be an improvement on what is effectively an anonymous group of local worthies with no real accountability.

The elected police chief can set his/her stall out and say, a vote for me is an indication that you want policy A, B and C. If s/he delivers, then all well and good, if s/he doesn’t then s/he’s out. They also need the power to remove uniformed managers who disobey, obstruct or obfuscate the policies of the elected chief.

A part-time role? Well, who knows, only time will tell. In a Conservative county, I’d be amazed if Collins, the old war hero and Conservative candidate didn’t get the nod from the electorate, but if he sets a dangerous precedent and one man can do the work of 16, then others may pick up on this. It could be a dangerous time to be a senior civil servant.

Now what on Earth is that supposed to mean?

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Flippant, glib, disrespectful, self-serving and a sign of total denial. That’s the only conclusion I can draw from Inspector Gadget’s response to the news that the DPP has reconsidered the decision not to bring charges against Simon Harwood over the death of Ian Tomlinson. It simply reads:

Maybe, if we work at it, we can get PC Harwood charged with the Kennedy assassination.

It would appear that the Inspector does not agree with the decision to bring charges.

I can only guess why, as the Inpsector is unusually brief. Given his rather fatuous comment about the Kennedy assassination, I think I can safely put some words into his mouth.

The problem seems to be that a police officer who kills someone in the course of his duty should not, in Gadget’s opinon, be subject to the same laws as the general population. This obviously gives a lie to the seventh Peelian principle:

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

In other words, from his short posting, I can only draw the conclusion that Gadget believes that the laws the police enforce do not apply to them.

I can also only assume that Gadget feels it is also wrong that the affair was subject to an inquest, and that obviously the inquest returned an incorrect verdict of unlawful killing.

That’s unlawful killing.

That’s a police officer, on duty, taking the life of an innocent man, without any lawful grounds, a man who was walking away from him, apparently peaceful, nothing to do with the protest that was going on, indeed trying to get away from the protest.

Are we to suppose, Inspector, that you consider this inquest should not have gone ahead? Because I have a real problem with that.

I do not want to live in a country where the police can act without any fear of accountability, where they can kill people in the street without fear of consequence.

Gadget would no doubt point to the fact that Tomlinson had been drinking and was over the legal drink drive limit.

So? Does that mean he deserved to die?

Let’s reverse the roles for a moment, shall we? Let us assume that  an individual shoved a policeman with significant enough force that the officer died. Let us assume that the officer who had died had just been walking the beat and had not been engaged in any controversial activity.

Would Inspector Gadget be so dismissive of an inquest verdict of unlawful killing? How would he react if a non-police blogger made a jibe about fitting the individual in question up with the murder of Keith Blakelock as well? Not well I’m assuming.

The Inspector will know well that in the public at large you get bad people and good people. Bad people will do bad things. Sometimes good people will make poor decisions. Sometimes people do things in the heat of the moment which are out of character, actions which they regret. Would the Inspector suggest that as this was out of character it is somehow unfair that they are called to account and held responsible for these actions?

PC Simon Harwood did a bad thing, one of the worst things someone can do. If Gadget would expect someone who does not wear uniform to stand trial for doing a bad thing, then he must surely expect someone who does wear uniform to stand trial? To suggest otherwise leads us down a road that finishes with scenes similar to those we have seen in Egypt, with a police force that is detested by the whole of society, not just those whose illegal activities mean they dislike the police.

I support Gadget’s railings against the idiocy of those in management positions in the police, but I will temper it with the observation that I don’t hear the Police Federation making much noise on the subject, an indicator of a lack of pressure being brought to bear by the membership, perhaps?

What I cannot agree with is Gadget’s seeming inability to consider that anyone below the rank of Ch. Inspector is capable of any wrong doing. It does him and the police no favours at all.

Mixed feelings.

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Things have been a little busy round these parts for the last few days, hence my silence recently. There are three stories which I’m having trouble getting a handle.

The first is the biggie, the death of Osama Bin Laden. Like Martin Luther King Jr said, I cannot celebrate anyone’s death, even someone as evil (and that isn’t a word I throw around lightly) as OBL. That being said, the world is undoubtedly a better place for his departure. In the long run, I’m not sure what effect his death will have. Al-Qaeda and the Taliban lot seem so fragmented that it has probably just been like cutting off the head of a hydra, there’s plenty more.

The conspiracy theorists are out in force, but I don’t buy it. I’ve never bought the idea that the Americans were somehow complicit in 9/11, and I don’t believe this is a set-up. OH has a bit of photographic detective work over at his place, and no doubt the truthers, birthists and moon landing loons will seize upon it. I reckon the reason is that once the Navy SEALS had done their thing, there probably wasn’t much of his face or head left, one story I will not support is the idea of US special forces firing just one kill shot when confronted with the biggest enemy they’ve had since Hitler. Uh-uh, I don’t think so. Even the release of the video footage that Obama and pals were supposedly watching wouldn’t suffice, it would be dismissed as CGI or something, the quality of footage would be too bad to make a judgement, or too good to be genuine. I guess you just can’t please everybody.

For me, the most encouraging thing has been the ‘Arab Spring’, irrespective of the outcomes in Libya, Syria, Yemen and Bahrain, I think it shows that the population has had enough of this shit, and that will do more damage to extremism than all the coalition missiles and bullets could ever do. True change and freedom can only come from within, it cannot be imposed or gifted.

Then on to Ian Tomlinson, another case which I just can’t get a grip on. I take no pleasure in the fact that a jury found PC Harwood had unlawfully killed the newspaper seller. It is reasonable to assume that if the CPS reconsider their decision not to press charges, and if the evidence in court is presented in a similar light, that a jury will return a guilty verdict in a manslaughter case.

In high profile cases involving the police, I naturally turn to Inspector Gadget, he is a man I have a great deal of respect for although I do not always agree with him. He rightly lambasts the managers in the police for their detachment from the front line and reality, their craven and self-serving target and political correctness driven style and general wrong headedness.

However he is, in my opinion, a little too quick on occasion to leap to the defence of rank and file officers who have done wrong. This is reflected on his comments regarding the Tomlinson verdict:

the man who was five times over the drink-drive limit with a diseased liver and a heart complaint who died after being pushed over by a police officer in London.

Well, he wasn’t driving, so I don’t see how his blood alcohol levels were relevant, unless he was acting in a disorderly fashion and in a manner which had resulted, or was likely to result, in a breach of the peace. He may well have had a diseased liver and a heart complaint. I don’t see how that is relevant either. Had I, as a private citizen, pushed him to the ground, without provocation (despite Harwood’s claims of fearing for his safety, it is obvious the jury did not accept that) and he had died, then I would be up on a manslaughter charge. His poor health would have been no mitigation. As a believer in the Peelian principles I hold by the phrase that the public are the police and the police are the public. The police are not seperate from us, they are part of us, and thus what is legal for me must be legal for them, and what is illegal for me must also be illegal for them.

The thing is this, these episodes, or to be more precise episodes not as severe as this, are becoming more and more common place. We hear regular stories of photographers being hassled when lawfully taking pictures, of buskers being arrested on suspicion of racism for singing an old 1970′s hit record in seeming innocence, of crimes being left uninvestigated because the alleged perps belong to a minority group, kids being arrested for being in possession of an egg with intent to throw. All these actions are carried out by front line officers, some because they are instructed to do so, but by the same token also by some because that is the course of action they have chosen for themselves. It is not the Chief Supers and Borough Commanders out on the beat doing this, it is the PCs.

I despair, not because I’m anti-police, far from it, I work quite closely with the police from time to time and I understand very well that they do a bloody difficult job, under impossible management, with little thanks from above or the public, I envy them not one jot and as an organisation respect them a good deal. But there has to be an acceptance that whilst the number of officers are what still makes our police one of the model forces in the world, there are also a number who let the side down. It was ever thus.

What concerns me is a feeling of powelesness from the public when such an individual is encountered. I’m talking in generalities here, I don’t know enough about Harwood as a man or as a police officer to pass any comment. Nor am I naive enough to believe that it would have prevented what happened from happening, but I do believe in cases such as these that directly elected police chiefs would provide an invaluable link between the public and their police.

Gadget would throw his hands up in alarm at this, citing the sort of people who live on ‘the swamp’ being allowed to elect their own police chief and the sort of person they would put in the job, but let us also remember that these same people have the opportunity to elect the people who make the laws the police enforce. Wherefore the burglary legalising MPs?

It wouldn’t be a panacea, but I would submit that any police chief who ran a force/constabulary/borough where officers were off on diversity training instead of visiting burglary victims, and where officers take half an hour to assist in an event where someone is confronted with a group of knife and chainsaw toting ne’er do wells and then take away that person’s means of self-defence, would find themselves out of a job PDQ.

And whilst we’re on the subject of elections, I almost made my mind up for the local council ballot, I’ve a choice of candidates from the cast-iron Blue Labour party, LimpDims and Liebore, there’s enough boxes on the paper to write ‘l-i-a-r-s, a-l-l’ or ‘b-a-d p-e-o-p-l-e’. I can’t make up my mind which, or I may draw my own box and mark it ‘none of the above.’

The real decision is over the AV referendum. I was initially quite positive about the yes campaign, and attended the local meet of the yes campaign group. My ardour was cooled pretty quickly by the LimpDims and Watermelons (Greens) using it as a recruiting tool for their parties. It may surprise you to learn that I didn’t see eye to eye with them. There were a couple of the ‘The Queen is a Space Lizard’ brigade with gently swivelling eyes and then the frustrated middle aged early retirees who found it absolutely vital that they were in charge because they knew best and needed to feel very important. I didn’t go to the second meeting.

That being said, I think FPTP is grossly unfair, I’m not sure AV is much better, but I think it is a bit better. I’ve been turned off by the no campaign banging on about ill babies and limping kittens, but the constant high pitched whine from the LimpDims has turned me off from the yes campaign. Cameron wants me to vote no, so I’m minded to vote yes. Miliband wants me to vote yes, so I’m tempted to vote no.

Truth be told, I don’t want AV. But nor do I want FPTP. I think I want FPTP less than I want AV, and I don’t particularly want AV. Maybe I am naive, but perhaps if this referendum is carried, the genie will be out of the bottle. I’d like to think so, but I won’t be holding my breath.

I think I’ll mark my referendum ballot paper with a small ‘x’ in favour of yes. Small change is better than no change, I suppose.

What goes around comes around.

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Lord Prescott criticises Met’s handling of phone-hacking inquiry.

Courtesy of This Is London.

“I just don’t trust the Metropolitan Police to conduct a proper inquiry,” he said.

“I can’t trust them to carry out a proper inquiry and that’s why I asked the courts for a judicial review on the Metropolitan Police and the way they’ve conducted investigations.”

You reap what you sow, John. This sort of thing was fine all the time your lot were holding the Commish’s leash, but now the other lot have got their turn, all of a sudden a politically directed police force ain’t so much fun, is it?

Did you really think that Cameron would allow the sniffer dogs to be set free whilst his comms bod was in the firing line? Would you have done it? No. Of course not.

Thing is, you had 13 years to make sure this sort of thing could never happen, but you embraced the concept of being able to call the shots over police actions completely, without hesitation and without reservation.

Tough shit.

You have the power.

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It is important to know what you can do and what you can’t. OH for example has run a couple of articles on this very point. I neither condone nor condemn Holby’s suggestions for behaviour. Your rights are not conditional upon anything, written down, they are a simple statement of fact. How you use your rights is up to you.

Don’t assume that people in ‘authority’ will always play by the spirit of the rules, if not the actual rules themselves. Whilst ‘they’ may not actually be breaking any rules, some people will attempt to use your ignorance of the rules to get the better of you, or by hiding things in plain sight to trip you up.

As Ambush Predator pointed out the other day:

She said: ‘We couldn’t believe it and were annoyed that other people in our group got in. I would like to know what we can and can’t do.

So go and find out then. No-one is going to tell you, you’ll have to do some research and some reading, no biggie, just takes a little thought. It is in nobody’s interests but yours, so don’t expect anyone to take an interest other than you.

However it does not follow that people in authority WILL attempt to hoodwink you or bully you, but one should be aware of the potential. Always think before you act or speak, and as a general rule of thumb, if you’re not sure, do and say nothing.

The Libertarian Party blog has posted up a notice from an acting police inspector about the fitwatch website. Now, I’ve little time for the students and their protest. Firstly because they are asking for money to be taken from people under threat of imprisonment to give them a material advantage over others. That sounds like extortion to me. Secondly, as soon as you start throwing objects at police officers any sympathy I do have vanishes.

The police often get it wrong, usually in the Senior Management suite, occasionally on the ground. I believe that when they get it wrong in the nice big leather chairs it is because they are self-serving, promotion chasing opportunists who neither understand nor care what is happening on the ground. When individual officers get it wrong on the ground it is in the main, I suspect, because there is no chance for them to keep on top of the endless parade of new legislation which makes little or no sense. To keep on top of it all would probably involve a police officer being in the classroom for a fortnight every month. There will of course be a number of people in the uniform who are completely unsuited to the job through attitude or aptitude.

However the vast majority of police officers you encounter will be trying to do their best in very trying circumstances with nowhere near the resources and support they need.

On this occasion, the police inspector has got it very wrong.

APPLICATION FOR CLOSURE OF A UK BASED DOMAIN NAME

Fitwatch.org.uk – IP 69.175.66.250

To whom it may concern at Singlehop

Op Malone

In connection with our criminal investigation into registration or use of the domain name set out in this letter, we hereby confirm that:
* The domain is being used to undertake criminal activities.
Attempting to Pervert the Course of Justice, contrary to Common Law
We hereby request Singlehop to de-host this website for a minimum period of 12 months. Please note that this request will be also sent to the domain name registrar for the website. You should provide the following contact phone number, email address and reference number to the registrant: 0207 230 8100 pceu@met.pnn.police.uk

REASON FOR CLOSURE 

This website are committing offences of attempting to pervert the Course of Justice under Common Law. The website is providing explicit advice to offenders following a major demonstration in Central London. The demonstration was marred by violence and several subjects have already been arrested with a major police operation underway to identify and arrest further offenders.

The person controlling these websites has posted material held to be contrary to Common Law within the UK. Therefore to prevent the domain names from being used in crime we request that the domain name is suspended for a minimum period of 12 months (or until expiry of the domain name if earlier).

This common law offence is committed where a person or persons:-
(a) acts or embarks upon a course of conduct
(b) which has a tendency to, and
(c) is intended to pervert,
(d) the course of public justice.
Registrant Information for fitwatch.org.uk
Registrant : [DELETED]

All other personal details withheld

Registered on : 17-Nov-2008

Authority to close the website and IP address given by
Will Hodgeson, Acting Detective Inspector
Metropolitan Police
CO11 Public Order Branch

Many Thanks in Advance

Yours faithfully

DI Paul Hoare
Police Central e-crime Unit (Computer Crime Unit)
SCD6 Economic & Specialist Crime Command,
Metropolitan Police.
1st floor, Indigo Block, Cobalt Square
1 South Lambeth Road,
London
SW8 1SU
0207 230 8100
pceu@met.pnn.police.uk

As Guthrum points out, there is no word for any magistrate, judge or court. I’m sorry, but in this country you cannot restrict peoples’ freedom of expression on the word of an acting inspector, it just doesn’t work like that.

But go back and actually read what the statement says. Go on, I’ll wait. . .

Did you see it?

We hereby request Singlehop to de-host this website 

Request. There is no order, no command, no obligation. A request. But if you got that letter, would you see it that way? Unlikely. It is hidden in plain sight. I said the police officer got it very wrong. Well, not wrong, he’s perfectly within his rights to ask the host of this site to take it down, but without an order from the court, the host is well within their rights to decline.

Not just in situations dealing with the police, but with every authority figure you come into contact with, every contract you sign, every time you agree to something, take the opportunity to consider what is going on and what has actually been said or written.

Don’t assume that people you deal with have your best interests in mind, because likely as not, they don’t.

Don’t think ‘Oh, but they wouldn’t do that.’ Because they would.

Look out for yourself, because nobody else will. If you are ever uncomfortable with a situation, say so and state that you will pause the situation until such time as you find out your rights and the truth. Power companies calling at your door to get you to switch providers are a good example of this. Don’t get your rights from them, don’t get their ‘truth’, find it out for yourself. For 99% of things to happen to you, you have to consent. So withold your consent until you are absolutely sure about the consequences and recourse available to you.

If you are unsure (and it is perhaps good practice even if you are sure), politely and calmly, yet firmly, challenge the person in front of you. Who are you? Where does your authority come from? From which Act of Parliament? What sanctions are available to ‘them’ if you do not comply? Where is this set out?

Don’t be abrasive or smug, point out that you ask because you want to know, to understand. Anyone who is on the level will explain and provide evidence and/or will not object to a delay whilst you establish the facts.

Once they try to tighten the screw, to apply pressure, to hurry proceedings along, to give a garbled or over-complicated explanation, or fail to offer any explanation at all, then it is time for your alarm bells to ring. In the instance of a private company, show them the door, in the instance of the police, say nothing and make sure you get a solicitor who can answer your questions to your satisfaction (remember, the duty brief is not free, you’ve paid for them via your taxes), and never ever sign anything until you’ve had the chance to read and digest the document, even if it is only a mobile phone contract, and if the beneficiary is hovering over you to get it done, walk away, they’re up to no good.

More of this please.

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The best way of learning is through one’s mistakes.

So when Saeed Khan, the man who, as far as I can make out, runs the only remaining branch of the Post Office in Kent not situated in a bastard WHSmith, was robbed in his shop, he considered the chain of events and wasn’t about to make the mistake of being caught unprepared again.

So. . .

Saeed Khan, 62, was alone in his shop in Byron Road when a man armed with a knife entered and demanded money. 

Mr Khan said he had kept a hammer near the counter to protect himself after his shop was targeted last month.

He said: “I hit him on his arm, but then he tried to come closer so I raised the hammer again and that’s when he ran off.

Fair play to Mr Khan. Mr Khan sounds like just the sort of chap we need more of in this country.

However. . .

Mr Khan, who has run the post office for 27 years, said he believed the same man was involved on both occasions.

So it would appear our robber has now learned a valuable lesson; don’t try and turn over Saeed Khan’s Post Office, because he’ll hit you with a hammer, and that bloody hurts.

The outcome? Well, this may be a little shocking.

You think I’m going to tell you he’s been nicked for twatting this cretin with a hammer, don’t you? Well, he hasn’t been. I doubt this is due to an outbreak of common sense at Gillingham CID, it is probably down to the fact that the robber has not come forward to make a complaint.

No, the outcome is actually quite predictable.

Det Insp Ann Lisseman said: “(Mr Khan) was very brave but I wouldn’t advise that people make use of weapons nearby or try and physically challenge offenders.” 

Now, if we had country where the Police (and I attach no blame to the rank and file here) actually arrived when asked and had a better than average chance of catching the little scrote, where protestations about being hit with a hammer whilst engaging in the act of robbing a Post Office being a flagrant breach of one’s human rights would be dismissed with suitable alacrity, and where the judiciary had the latitude and disposition to lock these arseholes up in a proper prison for a term longer than the 50% handed down, then this would probably be decent advice.

My advice would be the opposite. Keep a hammer near, and if someone tries to turn your gaff over, go at him with said hammer like a kid with ADHD at a fairground whack-a-mole stall. Once someone tries to harm you and/or yours or to take you and yours stuff, all bets are off. You get what you deserve.

Mr. Khan, I salute you.

As an aside, and to highlight the wonderful stupidity of some of the criminals within our midst, a couple with whom Mrs. Wolfers and I are friendly with had cause to have a late supper at one of my city’s numerous Indian restaurants recently. They were surprised when the old bill arrived during an unremarkable dinner service and thoroughly enjoyed the sideshow as two men sat a table nearby were arrested following the inspection of CCTV footage shot within the restaurant earlier that evening.

It transpired that the two gentlemen in question had entered the restaurant earlier that evening and had swiped the tips jar sat on the counter. No doubt having exchanged the contents of the jar for some drinks in one of the city’s fine hostelries, they felt a little peckish and decided to go for a curry.

In the same place they’d turned over earlier, where they were instantly recognised by the staff.

/facepalm.

Still it continues.

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Time and time and time and time again the message is sent out.

You cannot do this.

Time and time and time and time again this message is ignored.

Two stories today.

Firstly the NUJ report that a photographer has again, amazingly, been threatened with arrest by the Met Police for taking photos in public, and was made, quite unlawfully, to delete the images she had taken.

How many times do they have to be told? You cannot do this. It is illegal. If a police officer is incapable of acting within the law, then he/she should be sacked. Possibly prosecuted. It is the one message that ACPO send out which is actually correct and desirable.

It may be irksome, it may be inconvenient. But you cannot prevent people from taking photographs in a public area, or arbitrarily destroy the images that have been taken just because you don’t like it.

This is not how the police in a civilised, free society act.

I support the police, but fuck me, they make it difficult to justify that support sometimes.

Stupid, thoughtless and unilateral acts like this do nothing but stir up resentment and mistrust.

And if it isn’t the police, it’s the local council.

If you or I were to break the law, we’d be arrested and probably locked up. Well, that’s not true, if we put a brick through someone’s window, or knocked a granny off her electric buggy we’d suffer no penalty at all. If we didn’t pay our council tax or TV licence, then it would be land of the stripy sunshine.

Is anyone going to lose their job over this? Anyone going to be locked up for a shocking episode of overbearing surveillance?

The bloke on the front line might, but the chap who authorised the operation will probably get out unscathed.

Not good enough.

Actions like these are incitement to civil disobedience.

The One That Is Waiting For The Axe. . .

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We all have to take our medicine, and it can taste bitter. Lord knows my medicine bottle is on the horizon, and I may yet have to take a drink. But I’ll cross that bridge when and if I come to it. One thing is for sure, the axe will fall in my department, it only remains to be seen if my head is nicked off or not.

Being a public servant with a degree of concern over my job, and a Libertarian who absolutely believes that government is far too big, far too intrusive and far too expensive puts me in an invidious position. Sometimes I sound like the turkey voting for Christmas, knowing that the policy I support could result in my standing in the dole queue. But there you go.

So it is not without sympathy that I learn 75 public sector jobs are to be lost with the disbanding of the British Film Council. But I find myself asking the question, ‘whilst the BFC may have had a hand in the production of some fine movies, is it really the place of the state to be making them?’

The arts is without doubt important, but it is also very divisive. Is it acceptable to throw large amounts of public cash at the opera or the ballet, despite the minority appeal? Many would say not. Is it more or less acceptable to do the same for a more popular entertainment medium?

I don’t know how the BFC works, but I do know how the public sector works. Whilst films like Vera Drake and the Last King of Scotland were undoubted artistic successes, and I should imagine made a profit, would private investors want to be involved? There’s a simple answer, it is yes. If there is a profit to be made of course private money can be attracted. But I’m betting that the bureacratic restraints that the public sector will always bring to the party scares off more private investors than it attracts. Thus it becomes a self fulfilling prophecy that films are hard to make without the help of the BFC, but the BFC makes it hard for people to make films. Sounds rather like the benefits system.

It is rather predictable when Tim Bevan, chairman of the Film Council says, ‘Abolishing the most successful film support organisation the UK has ever had is a bad decision‘. Well, he would say that, wouldn’t he?

It is also rather predictable when the UCU lecturers’ union warned that an expansion of the private sector would be a “disaster” and that the creation of a new private university was the “beginning of a slippery slope.

Note that there’s no suggestion that any existing universities will be closed, but apparently, “Encouraging the growth of private providers and making it easier for them to call themselves universities would be a disaster for the UK’s academic reputation. It would also represent a huge threat to academic freedom and standards.”

Well, I hate to break it to you, but our academic reputation ain’t what it was. We have people going into remedial classes when they start uni because they karnt rite proper, and when they do get a degree it is a BA in Eastenders or a BSc in Climate Change Management or somesuch guff. My experience of uni, where I did a perfectly useless journalism (sort of) degree was that the tutors were more interested in using us as guinea pigs for their PhD research and making us parrot their political dogma than actually delivering anything of worth. A private uni won’t have that luxury. Fail to deliver a course in an acceptable manner and that is worth something, and pretty soon the university will be closed.

As for academic freedom, a bigger lot of rot it is hard to imagine. When has a centralised system ever resulted in freedom?

And finally to the boys in blue, their not at all political brass are complaining about elected commissioners. Sir Hugh Orde, president of the Association of Chief Police Officers[. . .] said Acpo would “need to examine in detail the government’s proposals for maintaining operational independence against the practical reality of directly-elected police and crime commissioners“.

Operational independence? Give me a break will you. Firstly, the police are not independent. Chief Constables have been effective political appointments for years now, as evidenced by the Sir Ian Blair mess. Secondly, the Home Sec says jump, you jump. Unless that is a new Home Sec says something you don’t like, then you ignore it. So by independent, do you actually mean unaccountable? I think so.

Finally, the police should not be independent. They should be wholly dependent, dependent on the support and wishes of the community that they serve. If you aren’t producing the results and performances that the public want, then too bloody right your arse should be shipped out.

I refer you to the Peelian Principles:

The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.

That does not mean impounding kids toys such as happened at the Kingsnorth power station protest.

That does not mean beating a man sufficiently to kill him, such as happened with Ian Tomlinson.

That does not mean demanding innocent people delete photographs such as happens time and time again.

Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.

You are entirely dependent upon us. You would do well to remember it.

Any candidate Commish who promotes such a simple, clear and effective policy will get my vote in a heartbeat.

The One That Is Touching On A Couple Of Points. . .

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My break continues apace. . .

Errrrm. . .

Right.

OK, a couple of little things that have grabbed my attention over the last few days, all completely unconnected.

Firstly, regarding our (hopefully) soon to be erstwhile Prime Minister.

Grumpy Old Twat has a graph which makes interesting reading. It is entitled ‘worrying’, and here it is in all its glory:

If that graph follows the trajectories shown thus far, then it would seem that come election o’clock that Broon and Cameroid will not have a (banned in enclosed public spaces) fag paper between them.

Good.

Whilst the instant gratification of seeing loads of Labour MPs getting the gooner would be nice, I think the longer term benefits of seeing an immasculated hung parliament will be better. What we need to do now, I believe, is just stop, let the willy waving pass and then see what is left of the detritus can actually acheive when they have no option but to actually, properly engage with other people.

Of course, things still don’t go well for Brown, so I think the graph above says more about people’s uncertainty surrounding the plastic man in charge of the Tories than it does about any resurgent support for Brown.

This bullying story simply won’t go away. I’m not surprised that Brown appears to be a bully, Rawnsley certainly seems to think so, and Raedwald hits the nail squarely on the head when he says that if it isn’t true, then Brown needs to back up his claims of lies with action in the court. I’m not convinced he can, because in my opinion, it is probably true.

Again, this is not a comment on Brown individually, but in order to get to be the leader of a large political party you have to be willing to tread on toes, willing to smear and willing to be not very nice at all. Unfortunately for Brown, he comes across as being charmless and graceless, so this makes it all the easier to believe.

On a different tack completely, one of the less reported, but most revealing stories of the last few days has been the storm about young teenagers/old children being taught to drive.

The immediate response when reading the headline is that idiot parents are taking their progeny out on public roads before their 17th birthdays. But they’re not. These are kids being taught on private land and closed tracks.

So where’s the problem?

The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents has warned the courses could make youngsters over confident and more likely to crash.

Well, that’s fine. I’ll quite accept the position. I don’t accept the argument, but RoSPA urge caution when unwrapping a kit-kat, lest the tin foil you hold find its way into a plug socket which you have carelessly left turned on and with no safety child plug in. That’s what RoSPA do, it’s their job, although so scared are they about everything that I’m surprised they don’t all work from bed via telepathy to remove any risk from the day at all. (Hang on, what about bed sores?)

Indeed, let’s hope these kids do crash on the closed course, without injury and learn that over confidence is not an aid to driving. The reverse is also true, when learning on public roads, having never sat behind the wheel the problem of timidity and nerves also appears.

I remeber my first time and was not comfortable. You realise that as well as keeping an eye on what you are doing, you must keep an eye out on all the other drivers, cyclists, pedestrians etc. You encounter other drivers who don’t care about the large red L on the rear of the car you drive. You get pressured, tailgated, flashed at, it isn’t nice. You wouldn’t teach a kid how to make boiled egg in one of Gordon Ramsay’s restaurants during dinner service, would you?

More illustrating is the quote from the Police Federation of England and Wales.

It’s a good-un.

Driving on one of these courses at 11 years old, it’s another six years until you can get a driving licence. How does it replicate the real world, the spontaneous incidents?

Well, it doesn’t. But then that’s not the point, is it? That’s like asking how a child’s toy kitchen set replicates chip pan fires. It gives the child an understanding of the mechanics of the situation and I should imagine is a good way of improving physical multi-tasking, spacial awareness and hand-eye co-ordination.

But. . .

Are kids mature enough at 11, 12, 13 years old to understand what’s happening on the roads, to be able to manage all the demands and pressures?

No, they’re not, that’s why it isn’t done on public roads, but on private, closed courses. That is why a driving licence cannot be obtained until one’s 17th birthday. Do you see? Your point is perfectly irrelevant.

The real issue here is that people aren’t breaking the law, but are only one step removed from breaking it. Some police officers would just love to wade in and nick them anyway, others just think that as the police are now so politicised that they need to act like politicians (shouldn’t) act and tell us what to do.

Uh-huh, WE tell YOU what to do. We make the laws through our elected reps. We pay you to enforce those laws. We do not pay you to enforce laws you want to and ignore those you don’t. We do not pay you to make up laws on the spot. We certainly do not pay you to preach to us about what should and should not be allowed.

Wind your bloody necks in.

The One That Is Ordering A Really Huge Bucket Of Popcorn. . .

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Six MPs and peers may soon face criminal charges of fraud following investigations by Scotland Yard into the abuse of the Parliamentary expenses system.

The Daily Telegraph understands that detectives will imminently pass files on Labour MPs Elliot Morley, David Chaytor and Jim Devine, and peers Baroness Uddin, Lord Hanningfield and Lord Clarke of Hampstead to the Crown Prosecution Service.

Ho ho ho, I think I may even order up a platter of nachos covered with that cheese. Y’know, the stuff that is that yellowy orange colour you don’t find in nature.

Keir Starmer, the country’s top prosecutor, is expected to make a decision on whether to prosecute the politicians as early as January, before a General Election.

And listen to the high pitched whine if any prosecution does come before the GE. Wait for the explanation about how it would interfere with the big three’s divine right to be elected. Justice must play second fiddle to these arseholes and their desires to rule over us. The other argument will be about how the cost of these trials dwarves the amount of money trousered, and that it was a mistake. It being a mistake is a defence that has to be accepted. But only if you are an MP or a Peer of the Realm, if you’re a little person, you’re going down.

That’s not all justice has to play second fiddle to. . .

The most serious suspected frauds are considered to be those of Mr Morley and Mr Chaytor who both claimed thousands of pounds for “phantom” mortgages that they had already paid off. . .

. . . Mr Morley said: “I have always made it clear that I am not guilty of any offence and that I am very happy to co-operate with the police, and the parliamentary authorities and procedures. I have been advised not to comment on press reports particularly when they are based more on speculation than fact.”

Yep, that’s Labour all over. ‘I have declared I am not guilty, therefore it is so.’ Sorry fatboy, if we get our day in court, that’ll be for the jury to decide, and given the rep of MPs in general and you in particular, I don’t fancy your chances old chap. Just think about all that DNA on registers, all those CRB checks for you to get a job once you get out.

In May, HMRC wrote to all MPs asking if they wished to come forward and make voluntary payments.

I’m betting I know how many decided they did want to make voluntary payments. Somewhere between sod all and naff all.

The authorities said last night they had opened formal inquiries into 27 MPs.

Looks like the CPS and the revenue men could be giving us all a belated Xmas present. You see, that’s the thing, all those civil servants and police officers who have had their jobs made more difficult by your constant tinkering, who have seen budgets for proper work cut whilst more and more social cohesion diversity outreach citizen focus equality officers have been put on the strength, they are all little people too, they hate you as well and now they have an opportunity to kick you where it hurts.

Payback’s a bitch.