Tom Anderson wrote:

On Fri, 17 Apr 2009, Mizter T wrote:

Whatever, the police really need to get their act in order.

Oh, you noticed that?

I am really utterly perplexed by how the police maange to get away with
being a bunch of incompetent thugs. Not that there aren't good individual
policemen, but there are certainly some very bad ones, and the
organisation as a whole is a disaster. It just seems that nobody with the
power to do anything about it gives a toss. Or has it just not occurred to
people that things could be any better?


The government is well aware of the problem. A couple of years ago it
tried to bounce police forces into merging into a much smaller number of
much larger forces. Unfortunately for the government, the police
rebelled, and so did the local councils whose ineffectual police
authorities may well be at the root of the problem.

I don't pretend to know whether bigger would be better, but the Home
Office seemed to be convinced that it was.

Of course the other problem is police recruitment. There are too many
people of low intelligence in the police. The problem is, attempts to
promote better educated officers to senior positions have been strongly
resisted by less well educated policemen who believe that promotion to
high office is their right, as it had been for many decades.

The police therefore still contain too many ignorant, brutal, racist and
misogynist officers who have no respect for the law and for civil liver
ties in particular. These people are at the root of the problems
policing major demonstrations and are behind the seemingly orchestrated
hostility to people taking photographs.