Political Police

There have been a few instances over the past few week that have made me question the current state of Policing in the UK, especially with regard to Bias, either political or otherwise.

Being a working class lad, I've seen the move away from community Policing where the officers on the beat were a complete cross-section of the community and therefore "one of us", to the "professional Police" we have now with degree-waving graduates with no common sense, no skills, and no life experience put into situations that no training course could replicate.

Now it's all about absolutes: black and white. Now Policing is much more about enforcement rather than common sense and human rights. 

Now we have a Police force with little experience of working class life. Instead the grim estates are something alien to modern coppers and in effect they have moved from being one of those people on the estates Policing by consent, to a bunch of thugs with a war-like mentality against the citizens of the lower classes. Phrases like "War on crime", "War on drugs", only fuel the "Us and them" mentality that pervades the modern Police force.

Aided and abetted by the absolutes of fixed penalty notices introduced by Tony Blair, the Police are no longer interested in keeping the Peace. They regularly break the peace themselves, assaulting citizens to enforce wrongful arrests. 

The mentality of training that says every citizen, from a young kid to a granny should have their hands forcefully jammed up their backs, or be thrown to the ground, when making an arrest is wrong-headed. That's not Policing by consent: that is assault, that is bullying, that is just plain wrong.

Then we have bias in the Police: letting one section of the population off even when causing criminal damage and assault, to Baton-charging another section of the population when being peaceful.

Don't think we don't see the bias. Don't think we don't see the political interference. Not from politicians, but the political animals at the top of the Police Force. From inspector upwards, office politics and then political influences from various organisations sways everyone from inspector upwards.

How else do you explain one protest against lockdown being baton-charged. Yet a black lives matter protest mere days later being left alone by the Police? The same goes for the disruption and criminal damage done by extinction rebellion: untouched by the Police. But who is calling the shots? Who is making the decision to wade into one protest and back off from another? Are the pet political interests of Cressida Dick getting preferential treatment? Who is calling the shots and exactly how and why are those decisions being made?

Politically sensitive agendas are given preferential treatment, I assume to avoid political fallout.

This is not what the Police force should be doing. Their remit is to enforce the law without fear or favour. There should be no bias, no preferential treatment of political causes over others. There should be no abuse of people based on class or colour.

The Police needs shaking up. Those currently at the head of the Police need to be sacked and a new, unbiased leadership brought in.

I would utter the words "Common Purpose" again, but I've already blogged on that organisation and it's influence among the Police and other governmental organisations.

Post-Truth... Post-Expert??

There was an interesting debate on Radio 4 this morning between Michael Gove and Stephanie Flanders on the role of experts in determining policy, reporting on trends and generally advising on all things.

The problem with so-called "expert opinion" is it's just that: an opinion. However, if that opinion suits a media agenda is is jumped upon and reiterated as fact ad nauseum. Despite a mandate for fairness, the BBC are one of the worst culprits, offering no counter argument to whatever claim they are making.But they are no worse than Sky, Fox, CNN, RT or any other news channel.

Doing this is essentially biased reporting and at worst no better than propaganda.

I've watched TV news since I was a kid and the most startling change in my lifetime is the introduction of news processed as drama and the increase of biased viewpoints. Way back when, news was factual with very little overt bias. Any bias was easily identified by an opposing viewpoint and a reasoned brain filtering the outlandish claims from the facts.

I've already noted the issue with Brexit: because the BBC are biased against Brexit (and I suppose their fat subsidies from the EU) they report everything bad as "because of Brexit" and anything good as "despite Brexit". So much so I see Guido has started a #DespiteBrexit hashtag on his website. So called experts are wheeled in front of cameras and microphones to decry leave voters, to prophesy doom and gloom, to the exclusion of the opposing viewpoint. Well, only to expose people with an opposite viewpoint as loonies, cranks or people not to be taken seriously.

The other problem for "experts" is their dire warnings of doom don't occur. Which is what happens with opinions and theories. They are a viewpoint, they are extrapolations of what MAY happen in the future.

Their opinions and theories have no more weight than any other but are touted as absolute truth..

The same goes for any other. Global warming is gospel according to the BBC, the science is settled, with absolutely no physical evidence. It's all heresay, statistical, with no proven mechanism, no proof that increased CO2 drives global warming, let alone man made CO2 is the main influence. It could be that the globe warming is a totally natural process and the increase of CO2 is driven by the warming rather than the other way round. But no science is being done to prove that hypothesis, there's no money in it. Science is very much made to fit the model. You'll never hear that viewpoint taken seriously on any mainstream media.

The phrase post-truth has emerged this year to describe the rise of populism, the rejection of the elitist version of reality reported to us as absolute truth. It's supposed to be an unhealthy thing. But it's plain that the media and elites are just as bad at offering lies as truth.

Getting back to the point, the problem isn't "experts" per se, it's the media's attempt to process opinion as fact, theories as proof, without opposition. Telling us what we should believe, rather than reporting both sides of the story and allowing us to weigh either side of the argument and divine the truth for ourselves.

Dan Hannan Video goes Global.

The stats are unbelievable: Dan Hannan's video is set to excede a million views by the end of the week. Its already over 660,000 views and gone global.

Its now been picked up by the stateside media, with Dan giving an interview on TV over there. I'm sure he'll be asked for more.

But the remarkable thing is its not been picked up at all by the UK mainstream media. The popularity of the video nor the speech in the EU Parliament itself. Nothing, not a ripple. Its either as if what happens in the EU parliament doesn't count, or there's some deliberate attempt to supress dissenting voices against the government.

Dan's speech, the youtube video, their online popularity and the lack of UK media exposure is a great example why people are turning in greater numbers to the online blogger network. The mainstream media can't be relied upon to provide balanced and evenly weighted comment. The BBC was nobbled after the resignation of Greg Dyke and continues to peddle a pro-government agenda. Time and again I've criticised Nick Robinson on his blog for pushing a pro-Labour line (even at one point provoking a terse reply in one of his blogs), which shouldn't be happening given the BBCs remit to be balanced and impartial.
If you notice an increased and more balanced output than normal from Nick over the next few days, hopefully its because I and hopefully a few others have made a complaint about his bias.

The main point is that we are now roughly 12 months from a general election and our mainstream media are pumping out a biased viewpoint, which the majority of the population aren't aware of.

I just wonder how long free and unbiased output from blog sites will be tolerated before some sort of "anti-terror" legislation is proposed in order to control them. The new legislation aimed at social networking sites amongst others needs or any proposed amendments to it will require careful scrutiny I think.

Yet ANOTHER Labour Snout in the Trough

Seems yet another London-based Labour MP has a second home and is claiming support for it.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article5963145.ece

I really am staggered by the depths these people go to. Do they not understand they're our servants?

This really, really, needs clearing up NOW. We don't need a year-long enquiry to tell us. Harriet Harman's court of public opinion has spoken. Lets see some action.

Related to this is the fact the BBC hasn't reported this story anywhere on their news website. You'd think it would be up there on the political home page, but no. We're 12 months away from a general election (much sooner than that if my predictions come true) and the BBC should be bending over backwards to be unbiased and even handed in their political reporting. It seems they aren't even close at the moment.

Update:

Here's the only mention on the BBC website, a video:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/7962504.stm

24 minutes to get from either house to Westminster, so absolutely no reason to have a second home, except to have a nice little nest-egg she can sell when she leaves Parliament financed by the taxpayer.

IT HAS TO STOP!