If you have scared of social media posts or memes, avoid the internet and live like a monk.

Didn't the USSR have gulags which were used for re-education?

This is quite an old story isn't it?

All I would say to any officer coming to see me over something so trivial is the question, when you first thought about becoming a policeman/woman, is this really what you envisaged and consider the fight against crime?

We have a story from a small convenience shop in my neighbourhood. There is a man who is about 6ft 3inches tall and who has become a woman and has been for a few years. They are over 60. I think he may have done the full sex change, not just be a trans woman, with the bits attached still. The owner of the shop called the person "sir" because actually despite the female clothing they look like a man still in so many ways, from the size, the face to the way they walk. For the "crime" of letting slip the polite word "sir" at this person when being served, formerly very much a "sir", this person called the police who took them seriously and the police went to the shop and advised/told the owner to say sorry and apologise immediately and face-to-face with this mis-labelled person. Yes, it really is happening. The person does appear to have activist tendancies and had some local media exposure previously.

So someone labelled them incorrectly. Are some people so pathetic that they cannot deal with it themselves? What are such people really at when they want police involvement like this, what do they really want? They could have got an instant sorry if asking for a quick correction themselves at the time and that would be the proper end of the matter.

Meanwhile the little old man who had his bike snatched while he was in the same store for a few moments, his only mode of transport to give him independence, received absolutely no police attention or interest in his genuine crime and upset.

That's British community policing in the 2020's for you.

The Police don't set their own priorities the Government does.

This is like blaming the ventriloquists's dummy for swearing...

Maybe old but very important, remember those who have lost their jobs, future and Peter Lynch RIP.

Wyot wrote:
The Police don't set their own priorities the Government does.

This is like blaming the ventriloquists's dummy for swearing...

The police should tell the government there are more important things to investigate than silly social media posts. People wanted a left-wing leader, and they have got one. Be careful what you wish for.

Try to talk to a copper in person when you are broken into a robbed. You will get a crime number and a NFA.

We don't have freedom of speech like they do in the States.

Wyot wrote:
The Police don't set their own priorities the Government does.

This is like blaming the ventriloquists's dummy for swearing...


I answered this comment last night but my post does not seem to have appeared today for some reason.

In short what I said was that the government sets the culture the police work under but they do not micro manage individual police responses. Individual forces and officers within those organisations are responsible for their own actions and choices of what they follow up on. This police culture has been formed under 14 years of Tory governance, which is quite shocking. It's the kind of thing you would imagine more under the type of Labour we have now if they'd been in power since 2010.

Why did successive Tory Home Secretaries allow this policing culture to develop?

Rich wrote:
[quote]Wyot wrote:


In short what I said was that the government sets the culture the police work under but they do not micro manage individual police responses. Individual forces and officers within those organisations are responsible for their own actions and choices of what they follow up on.

Nominally I would agree Rich.

But as in any organisation priorities are set by the top generally for the benefit of their careers. Police are accountable for meeting Government set targets, which drive their priorities, and in turn the middle ranking cops all the way to the beat cop making the decision on the ground.

Or flip it around: if the Government wanted proactive Police on the streets preventing real crime and anti-social behaviour and were prepared to pay for this, do you not think this is precisely what we would have?

So yes of course the Government does not micro-manage individual officer's decisions but I think you underestimate the constrictive - and prescriptive - powers on those cops; and in reality they have far less autonomy than you imagine.

Indeed, cultural pressures and norms within an organisation can result in more consistently directed outcomes than error-prone micro-management.

The central problem I think we agree on. Politicians, top cops, middle rankers focused on their careers rather than Policing. And the very idea of what the role of the Police should be has been lost.

The Police like so many other of our public institutions need de-politicising.

There is no chance of a Starmer administration doing this and the Tories took the same approach, as you note.

Meanwhile the little old man who had his bike snatched while he was in the same store for a few moments, his only mode of transport to give him independence, received absolutely no police attention or interest in his genuine crime and upset.

If you want the police to investigate theft, tell them the thieves called you a "faggot".

I have 2 crime numbers from the police over theft at my property and 2 NFA.

I'm actually amazed there is isn't far more crime in the UK.

Poverty doesn't come cheap.

Oh, there is Hedda. The government, the establishment media choose what to report, cover up or expose.

Operation Mockingbird comes to mind again.