Doesn’t Play Well With Others
David Cameron had better be prepared to park within the lines and drive below the speed limit for an extended period the way things are going between him and the British police.
The CBC reports that U.K. police upset over U.S. ‘supercop’ consultant
Several U.K. police organizations have blasted Prime Minister David Cameron for turning to a U.S. law enforcement expert to help tackle gang violence in Britain in the wake of recent riots in urban centres.
Former New York city police commissioner Bill Bratton was confirmed Friday as the government’s anti-gang expert, offering his services for free and saying the British government cannot “arrest their way out” of systemic problems facing the country.
The criticism, led by Association of Chief Police Officers leader Sir Hugh Orde, underscored deep tensions between police and Cameron’s coalition government over who was most to blame for the failure to stop the four-day rioting that raged in parts of London and other English cities until Wednesday.
The UK police shouldn’t be upset, because Bratton will probably recommend a return to the traditional police practice of ‘community policing’, i.e. get the cops out of cars onto the streets they patrol to establish a connection to the community.
Cameron won’t do it because it means more officers. The whole purpose of patrol cars was to reduce the number of officers, and since Cameron wants to cut the budget, he won’t go along.
Naked Capitalism has a sizable list of experts in multiple fields who have been warning about riots for some time: Austerity and Runaway Inequality Lead to Violence And Instability.
If you don’t trust the ‘liberal academics’, read the MI6 or Pentagon versions. They are all saying the same thing – austerity is a really bad idea if you want to maintain public order and avoid riots.
15 comments
i see you have a new header – it came up when i clicked on this post.
That was up before, Hipparchia, I just decided it was time to put it back in rotation, given that Zero and Village want to see a re-run of the 1930s.
Oh, yes, Mr. Duff, and all of the burned out police vehicles and videos of the rioters battling with the police were staged in the same studio that faked the moon landing and World War II, right?
If you don’t have the people to send, or the authority to call up reserves, you do what you can with what you have. You don’t want to pay for police protection, you just want it to magically appear. It was the Conservative politicians who couldn’t be bothered to come back from their holidays to deal with things, not the police.
If you want to see real, massive looting look in the City, not Tottenham.
I wouldn’t be too annoyed if Bratton took over the Met. From what I have read about him there is rather more to him than zero tolerance. Not sure how he will be able to function with a big cut in finances. The words poisoned and chalice spring to mind.
I see your pet troll is back Bryan
Jams, the old-style community policing requires more officers, and that means more money. It is a matter of paying for what you want. Bratton is also going to recommend that the police service look like the people in the communities, which means hiring more minorities. These things work in the large cities in the US, but there is no guarantee they will work in Britain. What is known, is that the present system can’t cope with the scale of the problems that austerity causes.
Mr. Duff, the City and Wall Street destroyed TRILLIONS of dollars in assets. The price on the recent rioting is coming in MILLIONS of dollars. A Trillion is a Million times larger that a Million. The reality is that the people in the bespoke suits caused a Million times more damage than the people in hoodies and trainers.
You seem to be looking into the wrong end of the telescope.
You forget Bryan… Trolls live under bridges, where the sewers are. 🙂 Everything looks like effluvium to them! Just ignore it. It’s just another dumbassed wannabe coolaid drinker. As with all such wannabe’s, it doesn’t have the will or ability to achieve anything other than wannabe fantasies. What does anyone sane and rational expect from them? 🙂 I expect nothing at all, and get exactly what I expect. I’m satisfied. 😛 😆
But yes, I think you are correct in your assessment of *suits vs hoodies*. But the suits will always believe they are the victims, and morons will always believe them! 🙂
Clothes do not make the man, they create the perception in shallow people. The people who steal the big money can afford expensive clothes, and the expensive clothes help them steal even more.
Blaming the riots on a ‘moral collapse’ is true in part. When the financial industry can destroy Trillions in assets and no one is prosecuted, that is definitely a sign of ‘moral collapse’ and a failure of the justice system.
Iceland is the only country that has actually charged bankers for their crimes, while the rest of the world threw buckets of money their way.
“Trolls live under bridges, where the sewers are.” – Kryten
Then why don’t they cease troubling us and just commit “sewer-side”?
I have met a number of people who lived under bridges (in my cycling days, which were also the days of rampant homelessness in the Reagan era). Most of them are ordinary people in dire circumstances. Most of them would not tolerate an arrogant SOB like Duffy for one minute.
I especially love it when the trolls come on and make statements that blithely contradict the scientific study that you just cited, without any evidence of their own, just their unshakeable belief in the nonsense spouted to them by their Party commissars in official Party publications such as Faux News or via official Party doctrinal handbooks (such as Atlas Shrugged). They never bother to question the “truth” handed to them by the Party. That, in the end, is what differentiates the reality-based set (where reality has a liberal bias) from what passes as modern conservatism — we’re willing to look at evidence and change our beliefs to match reality. Modern conservatives never will, which is both their strength (their steadfastness) and their weakness (sometimes reality simply whacks you over the head with a frying pan whether you are willing to believe in it or not).
So it goes. War is peace. Democracy is tyranny. Big Brother Murdoch loves you and wants only the best for you.
– Badtux the Orwellian Penguin
Steve: I have seem them also, sadly. I meant, thus:
Readers may find this thread interesting or even useful: 😉 😆
HOWTO: Troll Sniffing 101
As Anatole France is quotes as stating in Le Lys Rouge (The Red Lilly), 1894:
The law, in its majestic equality, forbids the rich as well as the poor to sleep under bridges, to beg in the streets, and to steal bread.
It way well be the *equality* of Law, but it is far from equity of Justice (which is his point of course). *shrug*
And no, I would never expect the troll (or any wingnut) to understand the difference between ‘law’ & ‘justice’! They obviously don’t understand anything as basic as the difference between ‘right’ and ‘wrong’.
BTW Brian (and any others), if you are interested, here are a couple Aussie satirists take on recent affairs of the World! 😉 😀 I like their take on Murdock. 😆
These are short vid’s, usually 2-3 min, or a text transcript is available (but is lacking compared to the vid). 🙂 From the ABC’s 7:30 Report, Special Feature (usually on the Thursday evening program), John Clarke and Bryan Dawe:
Special Feature: John Clarke and Bryan Dawe
I’ve posted them before. Love these guy’s! 😆
On this anniversary of the 1811 ‘Peterloo Massacre” in Manchester, when a political meeting was broken up by troops, resulting in the deaths of 11 people, and injury of hundreds more, I think we can agree to the methods the Conservatives approve of using against people who disagree with them.
One of the primary reasons gangs form in an urban environment is a lack of security provided by the police. Later they expand their activities beyond mutual protection.
I rather liked the Newsbiscuit story about the senior looters apologizing to the residents of their communities for inflicting visits from politicians on them.
People should note that the affected communities are coming together to fix things, because they know that the government they support with their taxes won’t help them. They already know that any investigation will be designed to prove that everything was their fault. It is difficult to integrate into ‘British society’ when it has been obvious for some time that ‘British society’ doesn’t want you.
The only problem for most people with those guys, Kryten, is that you have to really pay attention to get the humor. They really play it so straight, that a lot of people would assume they were serious reporters.
That particular problem is why John Stewart makes all of the faces and gestures, to ensure that the majority of his audience understand that it is sarcasm.
Well, it doesn’t help, Bryan, that the so-called “satirical press” end up being more reliable than the official Party-approved news media too. Reading The Onion or Newsbiscuit is like reading next week’s newspaper, anything seemingly over-the-top they put there, reality is going to top next week.
– Badtux the Oracular Penguin
This is what happens when ‘true believers’ take over the political system, people who ignore reality in favor of their own beliefs, no matter how far from the facts those beliefs may stray.
It wasn’t that long ago that I would have been considered a centrist, and now I supposedly on the left fringe. Very strange indeed.