If you believe he might have been taken out of context and was actually criticizing the police then you could just look up the exchange yourself. (Spoiler: nope)
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Or selection in return for favours
He is an Independent, his support for the Tories was an anti-Corbyn position.
Neither of which excuses his behaviour.
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Most of today’s lords aren’t hereditary. The downside is you get people like this guy, the upside is that you get people like Doreen Lawrence or Ara Darzi.
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Indeed, they already assaulted a couple of journalists for a local independent newspaper, but it was only when they beat up someone from Mirror group that it got any attention.
Normally protests in Bristol don’t get this heated, because generally Avon and Somerset are sensible enough to sit back a let it run out*. See last year when they (sensibly I thought), stood back and let people knock over the statue of Colston, rather than try and intervene which would have likely kicked off more violence.
Except of course the Tory government started putting pressure on the police. Tthe Home Secretary insisted that the police arrest people for taking down the statue (I suspect that left to their own devices Avon and Somerset would have given them a bit of a talking to and let it drop), and I can’t help thinking that they’ve been ordered to be more heavy-handed.
To be fair though, some of the local twats are clearly using the otherwise peaceful protests as an excuse to start shit. I guess they’re bored, lockdown is getting pretty long.
(*) They have an official-unofficial policy not to bother with arresting people smoking weed, instead concentrating on harder drugs. Seems to work just fine normally.
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I dunn about where you are, but if they spent time hassling people smoking weed, the understaffed police here would literally get nothing else done.
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I’m in Bristol, and by ‘not arresting people’ I mean you could walk down the street smoking a joint and the police would just walk past. Not something I’d try doing in most places in the UK.
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I agree… and the thing that I didn’t understand in @beschizza post, until doing a bit of reading, was the concept of “policing by consent” which essentially means that policing the public is a mutual agreement… the police are part of the public and the public agree to the police being in their lives for the public’s well being… their safety.
Below is from the Wikipedia definition of the nine principals of ‘policing by consent’ and I found this particularly poignant with regard to the murder of George Floyd by the police officer Derek Chauvin.
The nine principles of ‘policing by consent’:
1 To prevent crime and disorder, as an alternative to their repression by military force and severity of legal punishment.
2 To recognise always that the power of the police to fulfill their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect.
3 To recognise always that to secure and maintain the respect and approval of the public means also the securing of the willing co-operation of the public in the task of securing observance of laws.
4 To recognise always that the extent to which the co-operation of the public can be secured diminishes proportionately the necessity of the use of physical force and compulsion for achieving police objectives.
5 To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws, by ready offering of individual service and friendship to all members of the public without regard to their wealth or social standing, by ready exercise of courtesy and friendly good humour, and by ready offering of individual sacrifice in protecting and preserving life.
6 To use physical force only when the exercise of persuasion, advice and warning is found to be insufficient to obtain public co-operation to an extent necessary to secure observance of law or to restore order, and to use only the minimum degree of physical force which is necessary on any particular occasion for achieving a police objective.
7 To maintain at all times a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and that 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 on every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.
8 To recognise always the need for strict adherence to police-executive functions, and to refrain from even seeming to usurp the powers of the judiciary of avenging individuals or the State, and of authoritatively judging guilt and punishing the guilty.
9 To recognise always that the test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, and not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with them.
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They’ve also given themselves the all clear for their heavy handedness at the vigil
And in NI the lack of police board oversight over the past few years has seen them revert to being the RUC and underplay the loyalist terrorists threat. They could just ask their colleagues what they plan.
I was looking at English police message boards a few years ago during rioting and their thirst for and desire for violence and sense of invincibility “geared up I went full RoboCop” makes sense in the context of a seemingly endless Tory domination
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"We investigated ourselves, measured against the rules we drew up, and it proved conclusively that we acted within our guidelines.
We are relieved at our decision to exonerate ourselves completely and look forward to acting with impunity in the future."
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Phew! I was worried what I saw was brutal, misogynistic, and disproportionate. Glad to be wrong.
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It is a relief to know we were just over-sensitive and the abuse was actually well within acceptable limits.
I feel safer already.
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I suspect that the women in question didn’t know their place but have now had that explained to their satisfaction by the officers. A real learning experience.
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A corpse flower by any other name…
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