Tony Polson wrote:
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.

However, it's interesting that most of the complaints come from the
Metropolitan Police area, the same police force that shot an innocent
man on a tube train, and incidentally the biggest police force in the UK.

One of the arguments against the mergers was the local accountability of
smaller forces.

I'm extremely concerned that this government has allowed the UK to drift
towards being a police state, in the name of "security". I will vote
for any party that has the guts to repeal anti-terror legislation and
reverse the drift towards authoritarianism.
--
Jeremy Double {real address, include nospam}
Rail and transport photos at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jmdoubl...7603834894248/

On Apr 18, 9:20*am, Jeremy Double wrote:
Tony Polson wrote:
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.

However, it's interesting that most of the complaints come from the
Metropolitan Police area, the same police force that shot an innocent
man on a tube train, and incidentally the biggest police force in the UK.

One of the arguments against the mergers was the local accountability of
smaller forces.

I'm extremely concerned that this government has allowed the UK to drift
towards being a police state, in the name of "security". *I will vote
for any party that has the guts to repeal anti-terror legislation and
reverse the drift towards authoritarianism.
--
Jeremy Double

Unfortunately, you have to vote for them before they do it. Do NOT
forget Michael Howard as Home Secretary. He'd have had CCTV in your
toilet by now.

Jeremy Double wrote:

Tony Polson wrote:
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.

However, it's interesting that most of the complaints come from the
Metropolitan Police area, the same police force that shot an innocent
man on a tube train, and incidentally the biggest police force in the UK.


True. It's also the force that leads nationally on anti-terror
operations. Worrying, isn't it?


One of the arguments against the mergers was the local accountability of
smaller forces.


Perhaps too much local accountability to parochial politicians is seen
as a problem? I really don't know.


I'm extremely concerned that this government has allowed the UK to drift
towards being a police state, in the name of "security". I will vote
for any party that has the guts to repeal anti-terror legislation and
reverse the drift towards authoritarianism.


I don't see much sign of any of the main parties being in a position to
promise that.

Tony Polson wrote:

and for civil liver ties in particular


Oops! Should be liberties, obviously. ;-)

On Apr 18, 8:56*am, Tony Polson wrote:
Over the course of a few years? *

This particular page on the website only went live in the last few days.

Possibly "this particular page", but there's been similar verbiage on
the website for years and years.

The Internet Archive seems to be down, but here's someone in 2004
discussing a similarly confusing page:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.tr...d01a683a000f40

U

"Tom Anderson" wrote in message
rth.li...
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?



Despite all the publicity from last week's incidents there is another
example of a police officer with his identification numbers removed from
his uniform.

http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/standa...+ID/article.do

Senior officers are expressing surprise about this but must have been
aware, the Sergeants and Inspectors from being on the streets with them and
the higher levels from watching CCTV. It is impossible that they were
unaware of the practice.

The lower levels must also have been aware of the alleged practice of
swapping numbers around to confuse identification.

Mr Thant wrote:

On Apr 18, 8:56*am, Tony Polson wrote:
Over the course of a few years? *

This particular page on the website only went live in the last few days.

Possibly "this particular page", but there's been similar verbiage on
the website for years and years.

The Internet Archive seems to be down, but here's someone in 2004
discussing a similarly confusing page:
http://groups.google.com/group/uk.tr...d01a683a000f40


Thanks. I withdraw my comments.

On Apr 18, 9:20*am, Jeremy Double wrote:

Tony Polson wrote:

Tom Anderson wrote:

[snip]

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.

However, it's interesting that most of the complaints come from the
Metropolitan Police area, the same police force that shot an innocent
man on a tube train, and incidentally the biggest police force in the UK.

I don't actually think that basing a critique of the Met on that event
- the killing of de Menezes - is particularly effective at all. Be in
no doubt, it was an abhorrent screw up of the first order, but to
extrapolate from this one very unusual event ideas about how other
more regular day-to-day policing happens in the capital is not a
strong argument at all.

That's not to say that I endorse how more regular day-to-day policing
happens, but the notion that the Met are out there shooting innocent
people all the time is just plain daft and does nothing to help the
credibility of any argument - yet it is a point people make over and
over again. The Met's armed response units are out on the street 24/7,
they are unfortunately called out to particular incidents far too
often, and yet I understand it's far from common for them to pull a
weapon on anyone, and they hardly ever actually fire a shot.

This isn't meant as some great spiel on why the police is great -
that's not my point, merely that they are not out there shooting
people all the time.


One of the arguments against the mergers was the local accountability of
smaller forces.

I'm extremely concerned that this government has allowed the UK to drift
towards being a police state, in the name of "security". *I will vote
for any party that has the guts to repeal anti-terror legislation and
reverse the drift towards authoritarianism.

In article . li,
(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?

It's far from a new problem, I'm afraid.

--
Colin Rosenstiel

On Apr 18, 10:55*am, Mizter T wrote:
I don't actually think that basing a critique of the Met on that event
- the killing of de Menezes - is particularly effective at all. Be in
no doubt, it was an abhorrent screw up of the first order, but to
extrapolate from this one very unusual event ideas about how other
more regular day-to-day policing happens in the capital is not a
strong argument at all.

Well no, because the worst part of that event was the reaction of Ian
Blair - the bull**** spewing on the first day and then the complete
lack of acknowledgement that there'd been any sort of **** up or that
the **** up was anything at all to do with him. It was just absolutely
astonishing, as was Ken's support of him*. One of the few good things
about Boris is the acknowledgement from day one that Blair is a
complete ****ing buffoon.

I've no idea if the new guy is any better, though the Met seems to at
least acknowledge they were in the wrong about the G20 stuff and the
image deleting story, which probably still isn't worth anything but is
a million times better than what happened with De Menezes.

(* can anyone explain what Ken's motive for this was?)

U