Why A Police Strike Would Be Beneficial
Wednesday, December 12, 2007 at 12:35PM CONGRATULATIONS must go to the government and Gordon Brown in particular. He's been prime minister for a matter of months and already the Home Office has brought the police to the brink of strike action. The reason is that although police officers throughout the UK have been awarded a pay settlement of 2.5%, it will be backdated to September for officers in Scotland only. So, PC Jock gets 2.5%, all others receive a rise of 1.9%. The Police Federation today is meeting to discuss what they will do next and (illegal) industrial action is one possibility.
I say the police should damn the law and strike. It's not as if we'll miss them if they withold their labour. We learn today that they are on the beat for one hour in seven - as much as that, eh? Ministers often make the claim that there are more police officers than ever before and they speak the truth. There are more officers than at any other time, yet the police has never been less visible to Britons.
I do wonder, however, if Britons would be as thankful for the return of the police to the streets as they imagine they would be. Whilst the presence of the police would deter some crime, Britons would be rudely awakend to their new police force - the wholly owned subsidiary of the ruling liberal establishment, kept in existence as a pretend police force but whose real purpose is to ruthlessly enforce state-approved opinions and behaviour. The decent and law-abiding are targetted precisely because they are decent. Yesterday a turd in a police uniform stepped from behind a bush and recorded me driving at 38mph whilst leaving a 30mph zone on my way out of a small rural town. I didn't intend to break any law yesterday and was never any danger to anyone, but he has ze orders to follow, another nick to record, another fine to rack up and I have another 3 points on my licence. Happy Christmas to you too, you cretinous bastard.
So I couldn't agree more when Dr Sean Gabb of the Libertarian Alliance says:
The police nowadays ..... spend much of their time listening to radio discussions in search of people to harass for saying something politically incorrect. If they do leave the fortified compounds we used to call police stations, it is to arrest householders for protecting their lives and property, or to breathalyse every tenth driver on the local A roads ..... A police strike would be the biggest blow for liberty since the abolition of identity cards in 1952. Free from the hot breath of PC Plod on our necks, we could all speak freely again, and take whatever steps were needed to protect ourselves and our loved ones from the other trash infesting this country
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Reader Comments (17)
Bad luck Pete on getting caught in a speed trap. You are right the police do hide in obscure places with their little cameras, yet fail to catch joyriders or drunk drivers. 3 points eh - bad luck.
I think this government is bargaining on the police not to strike. An illegal strike by the police. No - this government will bank on it not happening.
The missus has been stopped four times in two months now - twice by the same pair of useless bastards in the same patrol car they spend their days sitting around in in lieu of doing actual police work. Pete's right, we probably would barely notice the absence of our PC PCs and would actually be able to take out the trash ourselves for once...
It is not the Police who are making a mess of things but the people in charge be they Senior Officers or Politicians. Of course the concentration on speed cameras completely ignores the untaxed and uninsured and those who drve unroadworthy vehicles and drive them dangerously -but these directions come from on high, stupid though they may be and of course they add to the coffers of the Police, Local Authorities and Government. I have a suspicion that the day-to-day, down to earth policeman know this but cannot do anything about it whilst the Senior Officers also know this but do not want to do anything about it.
Regarding the other matter, Pay, it is obvious that this Government does not understand the meaning of fair play nor the significance and importance of being regarded as trustworthy and honest.
When it comes to dealing with what is so nicely referred to these days as "anti-social behaviour" (ie, thugs running amok disturbing the peace and trespassing), I totally agree: We'd be far better off if the police didn't even exist at all these days, so we could take care of the problems ourselves. It has truly come to something when you think to yourself "Uh-oh, chav scum making a nuisance, I hope I can get away with dealing with them and that THEY don't call the police", instead of thinking "I'd better call the police". The police are our enemies on this issue (or rather, the law is our enemy, and the police, by having to uphold such laws, become the human face of the enemy). This is no accident or incompetency; this is precisely what NuLabour WANTS to see happening.
On the issue of speeding though, I have to say that I don't agree. The roads are dangerous and full of complete morons who have no regard for the safety of others, all they seem to care about is stretching their silver dream machines to their fullest limits. Drive within the speed limits and you have nothing to worry about. The limits are not draconian; they're there for a good reason. I wish there were 10 times as many speed-cameras and that the penalty for getting caught by one, just once, was to lose your licence for two years.
Pete
There is a simple way to not get a speeding fine...don't speed and you have nothing to worry about?
The Police are not perfect. Nobody is.
If you think you can do any better...put on the uniform and join them?
The anti police attitudes being expressed here are shameful. The antis seem to be adopting the typically selfish attitude of wanting the police to crack down on other crimes and leave their crimes alone. Tom has made the sensible and balanced point that all unlawful behaviour deserves to be dealt with very firmly. The frustrations at the lack of action on ati-social behaviour is not a reason to demand the police stop enforcing motoring laws.
No, but it is a reason to insist that they pay a great deal more attention to it than they do someone who has slightly exceed the speed limit as they leave a 30 zone. We have speed cameras for this - having PC PCs actually spending their entire time on this issue is ridiculous - we could employ traffic wardens to stand at the roadside with speedguns.
DSD
People stopped for traffic offenses always adopt the 'haven't you got anything better to do attitude' ignoring the fact that more people are injured and killed on the roads due to careless driving than any other single cause of human on human injury.
I also think it is unfair to claim the police don't bother with other crimes. They are overwhelmed with the increasing yobbishness and criminality of our society and struggle to deal with it all. Why Do you think we have record prison numbers here in the UK. It's because the police are succesfully prosecuting more real criminals . You must have seen those TV programmes which show the police dealing with the most insulting and disgusting behaviour on our drink sodden streets in recent years , a phenomenon occuring in every town and even many villages the length and breadth of the nation. If blame and contempt for law enforcement failures is to be directed it should be at the controllers of our society and culture, not the ordinary policemen and women at the sharp end.
JM -
Come back when you've got a driving licence.
Colm -
the fact that more people are injured and killed on the roads due to careless driving than any other single cause of human on human injury.
And what's that got to do with why I was done? I was driving carefully. I was watching the road front and back, eyes open, alert. I genuinely had no idea I was over the limit even by a low margin.
But hey, it's if I drive at the limit with my eyes shut, stoned or pissed, or fiddling with the radio, or doing anything I like as long the the car is straight and I don;t go over the damned limits yes?!
I've had a licence for 20 years. I do 30,000 miles a year. I've driven half a million miles in every country from Portugal to Russia, in the US, Austrialia and the Middle East. I have never had an accident and no-one has been injured because of me.
Don't lecture me on careless driving.
How to stop crime according to Daily Mail: Walk around aimlessly, and smile at the shop keeper and have a queit word with a few people. Eev-nin all.
Real world.... catch the bastards and do the paperwork that is ESSENTIAL for convictions.
1 hour in 7 plodding around is 1 hour wasted.
Pete
I wasn't lecturing you (but I will now) and I don't recall calling you a careless driver but please feel free to point out where I did, I was simply mentioning facts. The police are required to carry out many tasks and enfocing motoring rules are one of them. Plus it isn't a minor pedantic one. Thousands of people are killed and injured on the roads, hence the need for traffic rules.
Speed limits are there for good reason. Do you think the police should wait until you hit someone before dealing with behaviour that will increase the likelihood that you will. You are just the typical selfish motorist who thinks the law doesn't have to apply to him. Your excuse about genuinely not knowing you were over the limit is pathetic. If the limit on a particular road is 30mph , you stick to it. It isn't rocket science. If you go over the limit expect to be stopped. I know you only want the police to crack down purely on the laws that you don't break but isn't that the sort of world every lawbreaker wants ?
Hear Hear, Colm.
I think you've got to see for yourself a road accident actually happening, or else the immediate aftermath of one, in order to realise just how bloody and dangerous the roads really are.
One more thing....tailgaters, get your cars BACK 50 metres behind me, and keep a safe distance. Ignorant morons.
Tom
One of those tailgaters is probably Pete, impatient that you are observing the speed limit :)
Pete
I've had my full licence for 26 years now (if you must know).
Well said Colm, couldn't agree more.
I was speeding and the Police fined me...bastards! Sad, Sad, Sad.
I've never come across a bigger bunch of panty-wearing metrosexual public transport using nancy boys in my life.
Colm -
At least read what I type when you do get around to lecturing me. There's no safer driver on the road than me. I've done hundreds of thousands of miles all over the world without a single accident. Until the last few years I also did them without any being done by PC Plod and his best friend PC Gatso.
But I admit to a mistake the other day. I kept my chin up, watched the road in front and behind and drove to the conditions.
From now on I'll look down to my speedo instead.
Pete,
I'm with you all the way on this one. I got done for speeding last year. No sweat, I paid the fine and accepted the penalty points.
But I was done on the A1 between Newry and Belfast. I was doing 72 in a 60 limit. This is a road where the speed limit switches from 70mph (the national limit) to 60mph, seemingly at random.
I say random because a few miles away from the scene of my "criminal act" there's a particularly dangerous junction—but the limit, oddly enough, is 70.
On the day of my heinous crime, I was visiting a friend near Newry, who lives near a cul-de-sac off the Old Warrenpoint Road. The cul-de-sac has a speed limit of 30mph. I assure you, even if you're driving a Testarossa, you'd be physically incapable of doing more than 15mph in this street, which has three hairpin bends and ends on a hill.
Then there's the point on the A1 where traffic from the new Bridgewater Park merges. Suddenly the 60mph limit ends, and it's OK to do 70mph—except it isn't; because at that very place there are evenly spaced streetlights, signifying that the limit is 60mph! I am not making this up.
This is why I'm saying that speed restrictions are chosen at random. They take so little account of the actual road conditions. And why haven't we speed limits of 20, 25, 35, 45 mph etc? Is it a case of one or two sizes fit all?
Like you, Pete, I keep rather more of a watchful eye on my fellow road-users than on my speedo, or indeed repeater signs.
I reckon the last two are less likely to kill me than one or more of my fellow motorists.