Increasingly it seems we cannot trust the police and why should we? They used only to have to consider whether a crime was being committed and what action they would take. Now they make their own decisions, not as to whether a crime is being committed, but about whether they are going to stop it when a crime is clearly being committed. They have become increasingly politicised and have begun acting more like left wing social justice warriors. We could be forgiven for thinking that the rights of criminals are prioritised over the victims and that a crime is only a crime if it involves male stale white conservatives.
In my city the only view you are likely to get of our coppers is when ‘blue-lighting’ down a road, concomitantly alerting every criminal within earshot of their presence. If not that then they will be hovering overhead for hours in their state of the art helicopter achieving God knows what except shooting footage for the next episode of Traffic Cops or another of these lame and unentertaining real life drama programmes.
Our police have even taken to circling in a special plane, again for hours, in pursuit of a justification for the millions of pounds they have spent on it. I have no doubt the occasional ne’er do good is apprehended but it certainly wasn’t the ones who broke into and stole expensive equipment from our garden shed twice in rapid succession or the ones who pinned me against a wall in London and made off on their scooter with my mobile phone.
In the case of our shed, they were caught on CCTV, but the police refused to visit us or the neighbour who filmed them to review the footage. Reporting the theft of my phone to the Met simply led to offers of psychological support and a clear indication that no follow up action would be taken. As Peter Hitchens has repeatedly indicated, the police are not short of money. But as their budget has increased, we see fewer of them on the street and more pen-pushers in the back offices and, increasingly, on the front desks of police stations. They have lost interest in preventing crime by being on the beat, preferring to wait until crimes have been committed and then being selective about the ones on which they will follow up.
The last time I saw a police officer on the beat was nearly a decade ago on my own street. Since then, they have been replaced by Police Community Support Officers. From a distance they bear a superficial similarity to police officers. But as they get nearer it is apparent that they are usually obese under achievers who clearly could not cut it in the real Police Force (sorry, Police Service) with a terrified expression on their faces which says, ‘please don’t report any crimes to me’. The one thing they share with the police is that they are dressed as if they had just done a runner from Sports Direct and wear a ridiculous tool belt around their waist with all manner of gadgets, none of which seem to make them any more effective.
But the problem with our police is not just the crimes they ignore; it is the unutterably stupid things they follow up on. Remarkable in recent years was the attempt to prosecute the podcaster Darren Grimes for what one of his guests said. The guest was the outspoken historian David Starkey who misspoke, and immediately apologised, in saying ‘too many damn blacks’. He was refuting the point that the slave trade was equivalent to genocide.
Starkey, one of our finest and most original historians, has since been defenestrated and, in typical fashion, it has made him more outspoken that ever. And there, you might think, it would have ended. But the police followed up with Grimes, who had merely asked a question. Eventually, the investigation was stopped but only after considerable distress to Grimes and an unknown number of real crimes going unsolved.
Then the case of Harry Miller, himself an ex police officer, who had his thinking checked by a local upstart bobby over a few comical comments on Twitter about transgender athletes. This, apparently, constituted a ‘non-crime hate incident’. In other words, not a crime but something that was recorded and which the police would have to provide for Disclosure and Barring Service checks and could cost someone a job. This was not an isolated incident. The police were wasting their time on this to the tune of thousands annually.
Little fuss had been made as most people did not know that they had been recorded as hate incident non-criminals. But as Miller reckons, and with the help of the Free Speech Union, the police picked on ‘the wrong man’. He took this all the way to the Court of Appeal and won. Now the police must waste more precious hours expunging non-crime hate incidents from their records.
And now to the statue topplers or ‘The Colston Four’ as they will go down in history. These reprobates were filmed attaching ropes to a statue of slaver Edward Colston near Bristol harbour before pulling the statue down and throwing it in the harbour. The police were also filmed but standing well back. They did not prevent the crime that was taking place and only arrested the four people later. When this came to court, it appears that the police understood the frustration of the protesters that the statue was still there. With the silky words of their QC, the jury at the county court was bamboozled into being on the ‘right side of history’ and acquitted the vandals. So far, no appeal has been lodged by the police against the decision and is unlikely to be.
It seems that the question of trust is one that the police should be taking more seriously. While they play up to minority groups, emphasising inclusivity and painting their cars with rainbow colours, they are ever more obviously partisan and do not represent the interests of the vast majority of the people they purport to serve. If they want to see how badly wrong that can go then they need look no further than some of our nearest European neighbours. It seems that the police, almost universally armed, cannot keep order without the routine use of riot shields, tear gas and baton rounds. This is not because people are bad, it is because the police are there to enforce the will of the state. As we have even witnessed in our own country over lockdown protests (but not Black Lives Matter protests) force is increasingly applied. Every time riot shields are used, and elderly ladies are seen being dragged off the street, our trust in the police is eroded.
A friend suggested to me that we should go to Manchester and topple the statue of Friedrich Engels. After all he enslaved his own workforce in Manchester and was half of the duo who brought the most destructive ideology to the world which, wherever it had been tried has led to the deaths of millions. I am tempted to have a go at Engels’ statue, but I am afraid we may be found to be on the wrong side of history.
Remember Peter Simple’s “Prejudometer”? Or George Orwell’s “Memory Hole”?
In the world of the Metaverse, yesterday’s satire is tomorrow’s reality.
And if you want some idea, just look at what the “Royal” Shakespeare Company is doing to the great playwright’s work “for every school”, or how the Eugenics Education Society has morphed into an active Anti-Eugenics Forum, or how the “National” Trust….oh, don’t bother.
The police cannot be everywhere, but these days thay dont seem to be anywhere. As we witnessed during the first lockdown, the police were able to call upon endless resources and manpower whenever it suited them. I do not believe that confidence in the police will ever return after the experiences of the last two years.
I enjoyed my time at Oxford in 1985, but I did not recognize the city when I returned in 2020. English culture, and the traditions of its historical people seem to have disappeared.
@Johannes
Same experience, but sooner. My own Pembroke College is one of the worst offenders with its (apparently “white”) Modern History Don a director of global “Race & Resistance” and an admirer of Malcolm X. On the collapse of university education from Oxford to Ontario, see Jordan Peterson, “National Post” online, 19 January. Keep an eye on Big Brother @ the Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right, online.
It appears that this Centre for Analysis of the Radical Right is partially funded by the SPLC Action Fund (Southern Poverty Law Center), a fund that collected 119M in offshore funding last year (undisclosed donors) and tens of millions from a group named Arabella Advisors which, as you may have guessed, is predominetly funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Buffet Foundation, and the Soros Fund. The SPLC Action Fund also funds two neo-marxist organizations named Bamn (bamn.com) and Colorofchange (colorofchange.org). Without going too far down the rabbit hole, I’d say the dark money funding the destruction of western values is quite substantial.
Thank you very much for that most important “discover the network” and “follow the money” information. This needs wide distribution.
Gates, Musk, Zuckerberg, Bezos and Soros – billionaires versus true civilization.
The idea to topple a statue of Engels is excellent!
Good article except for the wording “statue of slaver Edward Colston”. It would have been better to put ‘statue of Edward Colston, philanthropist to Bristol, who had connections to the slave trade through his interests in the Royal African Company’. Colston’s statue is in Bristol because he was good to Bristol, not because he gained some indeterminate amount of wealth from the slave-trading of companies he was involved with.
To describe Professor Olusoga OBE as “eloquent” in his intervention in the Colston statue has been described as “racist”. He merely has a natural sense of rhythm.
The BLM damage to society and police impacts in the US are well documented by David Horowitz in his strongly recommended “I Can’t Breathe” (Regnery 2001) and there have been comparable repercussions in the UK. English-speaking “white”-skinned people can be subjected to racist harm, including vilification of their institutions and history, with impunity, but woe betide any of them who criticise, however accurately and justifiably, the behaviour or culture of members of any other “ethnic” group. So much for “white privilege”.
There is also the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation which has produced a fertility control implant and promotes gender and race equity globally. What next?
Their divorce and alleged Epstein links make no difference.
Gates professes concern about world population growth. The chief problem is Africa, which is an exception to the escalating birth-strike in developed countries. A generation (!) ahead Black people will make up a quarter of the entire global population. Where will they go? Have a guess, readers.
You certainly are curious Werdna Odd or strange. Weird even.
EX-COMMUNIST FRANK FUREDI HAS AN ARTICLE ON THE “RIGHT” SIDE OF HISTORY @ SPIKED ONLINE.
WHY NOT PUT TRACKABLE ANTI-RACIST, ANTI-SEXIST ETC IMPLANTS IN EVERY BRAIN?
Engels must fall, then Marx, then Mandela, then MLK…
Let’s party!
Engels was a “racist” and “homophobe”.
Gandhi was a another “racist”.
We have had enough “parties” – and “parties” – however.
I am sure that every single outstanding man or woman in the world history has sinned against the commandments of political correctness in some way or other.
To be sinless under this new religion you have to be a militant mediocrity.
My reply was put into Tonio’s comment by mistake.