One thing I can say I've learnt from this year, is to be more open. I therefore read the comments of Jack Straw and think why? You've read my last post where we didn't get the chance to sit around drinking tea in the warm. If it was really quiet we would have done so, but as a one off on what should have been a special day where basic humanity dictates, that even the criminals take a day off. I can't even remember the last time I heard a 99 being called.
I think the truth is that NuLabor have never liked the police service and always seen us as a necessary evil. Perhaps Jack Straw is just having another Pinochet moment !! All the political tinkering has never been about providing a better service to victim's but more creating some sort of centrally controlled arm of the state. If the Tories had attempted to pass half the laws this lot created, the masses would have been rioting in the streets. Instead everybody just let it happen because life was comfortable and nobody cared that it was all on borrowed money. They don't need the police any more as they head to oblivion so resort to type.
It's been a bad year of PR for the police service and maybe that suits certain people. I've heard several rumours about the year's hence. One is that our pension contributions will rise to 14% instead of the current 11%, with no increase on the actual pension pay out. Another is that after 2012 officer's will be pensioned off early. One thing for definite is that there will be cuts in officer numbers. Will it matter to the front line? I think not as we are already working on "less". The community team's are currently red circled but as I've said before those models will be re-visited.
A couple of high profile police trials coming up in the New Year will drag us down more, whatever the outcome. I hear Michael Mansfield might be out of retirement to represent Ali Dizaei, and I've stood up already and hopefully called it right for PS Smellie from the G20.
I usually at Year's End raise a glass to those I've put away. For the past 10 year's or so this has averaged 20 to 25 people a year inside because of me helping out on certain operations. It made all the stresses and long hours worthwhile. This year I've decided to cut back because it wasn't actually doing me much good health wise. I'm not even beating myself up for not doing so much but can still have a slurp to the 5 inside for this year. So sorry Jack you've had your pound of flesh from me and the difference between you and me next year. I'll still be here.
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11 comments:
SOC - Well said mate. If only the masses knew what a demotivating and demoralising effect this shower of sh*t have had on the good blokes who sincerely started out with the right intentions.
All credit to you for sticking it out in the face of all the crap. I only hope Chris Grayling and his team can do a better job for you.
Rest assured, he is keeping an eye on what the front liners are going through. He reads our pages and lets us know that when he gets chance he scans the police links too, to get the real picture. I just hope he doesn't turn out like all the rest and raise our expectations only to get drowned in the trough.
But how stupid and out of touch is Jack Straw and his cohorts? Slash the overtime budget, open door immigration with 14% of our prisons overcrowded with foreign nationals, a criminal justice system that's on life support, single manning and now he accuses coppers of preferring a nice cosy nick with a warm cup of tea to locking villains up. Shit, it would have to be one sexy bird serving the tea to beat the thrill of locking a scrote up.
The blokes lost the plot as well as any vestages of hope for police support!
Ok, every job has its shirkers, but they're certainly not in the majority. A bloke in his position is totally irresponsible making public statements like this. Any shirkers should be dealt with discreetly by supervisors and their colleagues, NOT by public media trial. And this idiot heads up the gang that say the only true measure of performance is by increasing public confidence, (PAH!) and pushing a policing pledge that promises officers on the street 80% of the time. Yeah well Jack, you really know how to inspire public confidence don't you? What a complete and utter pillock.
The Independent seem to have captured the feelings best :-
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Simon Reed, the vice-chair of the Police Federation, said that Mr Straw's remarks were "irresponsible and inflamatory". He added: "It was not not police officers who brought in 3,000 new laws. It wasn't police officers who brought in a 30-page prosecution file. And it wasn't police officers who brought in multiple forms and authorities to use a pair of binoculars. This was all done by politicians. Police officers are not the architects of bureaucracy, they and the public are the victims of it."
Mr Reed said that he had received messages of anger from officers around the country following the broadcast, adding: "New Year's Eve is probably our busiest night of the year and for police officers to hear that from a politician who will be in the warm while they are out dealing with violent and drunken individuals will upset a lot of officers.
"I've had emails from various officers telling me how outraged they are. Many of them have mentioned the name of PC Bill Barker who died protecting the public during the floods in Cumbria. He did not stay inside in his warm office. It is fair to say that the mood of frontline officers upon hearing these comments is outrage. We are livid.”
Chris Grayling, the shadow home secretary, said: "What we have now is a group of ministers who are utterly out of touch with what is really happening in policing. They heap more and more bureaucracy onto our police, leaving them filling in form after form, often with the same information on it, and then pretend that nothing is wrong. It is not police officers who are sitting at their desks in the warm – it is ministers stuck in their ivory towers. They should get out a bit more and find out what is really going on."
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Get back in the warm Jack, your tea's going cold! Oh and don't forget your expense form for the BBC interview.
Stick in there SOC, there are some of us out here who are 110% behind you and want common sense coppers like you doing the job for the rest of us.
Bring on the election to get shut of this shower of sh*t!
Has ANY government really suppored the police?
Thatcher did support the police for a while as she wanted them to do a job on strikers. As soon as she was finished with that, she dropped the police like a hot brick. In the interim, she caused a lot of damage to the reputation of the police, dragging them into politics.
Call Me Dave's bunch may do things differently. He may cut the form filling, but he'll expect "efficiencies" (i.e. headcount cuts) to make up for it.
Take your pick; form filling under Labour or job cuts under the Tories.
Hope they don't cut numbers. So many heads are tied up in non operational roles that could be freed up if they cut through the bureaucratic crap.
Contraversial, but there are 16500 PCSO's whose wage bill might be better spent on 12,000 full time PC's, with the power to actually deal with the situations they face.
Whoever takes over, they'll need some grit to reverse the trend back to common sense coppering. We can be sure that if Labour stay in, by some freak of voting, it will be business as usual.
My view - from a very ordinary member of the public living in a very average part of this country ......
We need more proper Police Officers and fewer "community" officers.
We need to see you on the streets and feel we know you. I'd love to be able to have a chat with a neighbourhood PC.
Traffic crime is serious .... but until anti-social behaviour has been dealt with I want to see fewer cops in cars chasing stolen vehicles and speeding motorists and more cops where we live and where many feel under siege from yobs.
I want convicted criminals to get longer sentences. We must build more prisons if they are required. It must be so frustrating putting all the time and effort in to secure a conviction only to see the yob get a few weeks in prison.
I want you guys to be paid well, know you can expect a decent pension, and know that most citizens value you. I think we just feel a little distanced from the Police.
Happy New Year - Hope things improve....
steve
I don't think they do anything without a reason for doing so.
MarkUK
One can hope but I think Tories will bring in Town Centre Team's and try and reverse the 24 hr drinking. It's a start.
Let's hope they talk to some of the front line first. I work in a Tory area and they've been very pro us with cash etc - but we need an overhaul of working practices.
Cambridge Lady - I think you suffer where you live and will never have loads of uniforms to cover such a large area.
Law abiding people never get to see the police unless you become a victim, or are a student with a bike and no lights.
We get paid OK and just need a fair pay mechanism.
Happy New Year to all BTW - just enjoying my first Guinness of the year
I think Comrade Jeremy's comments are quite revealing. I doubt they were a "gaffe" as such. Labour is on a core vote strategy now - they need every one of their die-hard supporters to get out and vote to avoid a 1997-style annihilation.
Great post. I look forward to your efforts in 2010!
Labour have never forgiven us for the Miners strike in 1984.
It was their Class War and they lost mainly due to us holding the line.
This is the root of their hatred.
Bah humbug!
INSPECTOR GADGET makes cowardly boasts with the zeal reminiscent of Aesop's crowing donkey.
There was never any honourable gain to police in baiting and abusing the Miners. Less still to seen fumbling amongst the mud for a few pieces of silver reward tossed at police feet.
Without the likes of GADGET, the UK police service could not have been prostituted into the ineffective and International laughing stock it is today.
"Dr?" MTG,
The frontline police have always been the political pawns (and whipping boys) for parties of all persuasions.
To quote Peel "Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law".
"The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder".
Despite what you might believe, frontliners do not always agree with the politics. The basic mission is to prevent crime and disorder and uphold the law.
As in any disorder situation there is a potential for improper conduct. This is neither condoned by or representative of the majority.
Your comment is typical of those who seek to promote their cause by grandstanding on incidents that represented a tiny percentage of the whole. I can speak as one who was on regular mutal aid miners duty throughout 84-85, including Orgreave. There were flashpoints of inappropriate conduct, on both sides.
On balance though, the majority of tours were peaceful, with more compassion, understanding and mutual respect for views and circusmtances than you might be prepared to accept. Positive compassionate policing, with the public interest at heart, doesn't grab headlines or help your cause does it?
Your criticism of Gadget is well out of order. From all we see, he is a fair man with balanced points of view. His efforts to raise public awareness about what is wrong in the UK justice system are be applauded. Any reforms his comments might contribute toward, will only improve society. No one is suprised that your ill informed contributions are so heavily moderated across the various sites
If Chief Officers were less detached from the real world of frontline issues, and there was less political interference, their observations may be given more credence.
Until that time Gadget and others like him, provide an essential balance between the blue sky theorists and those directly in touch with the problems in society.
It is ridiculous to suggest that officers like Gadget have contributed to the present malaise with the police, when he is clearly well intentioned in wanting a better justice system that serves society properly.
However, the derision, scorn and contempt that your remarks so frequently attract, reflect that you are clearly best qualified to use the words "ineffective and international laughing stock".
@17:30
Are you the old version of the scruffy kid with bad breath who mulled the schoolyard with a bag of sweets trying to buy pals?
That Thatcher's team planned the Miners strike is a no brainer. She was out for domination and revenge for the winter of discontent that ousted Heath. Prior to the `79 election victory, the Edmund Davies pay review (that recommended a 40+% pay rise for officers of my service who, at that time, could earn more `on the bins`) was set up by a Labour Gov't. All the Tories did, post victory, was to give us the other half that the Labour Home Sec said he would deliver in two years. But judging on actions rather than words, New Labour and the likes of the man of Straw are no friends of mine or the police of this land. They just don't cut it.
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