Is This A Coincidence?
Something called X-Factor starts next week. Is this why so many televisions were nicked last week?
The Police Don’t Like It!
Surprise! Surprise!
The police don’t like the fact that David Cameron is calling in Bill Bratton.
I’ve met a few high ranking policemen and with one glorious exception, they were not a bunch I warmed to.
They generally want to do things their way and just be given the funding to make their own successes and failures.
I once heard a comment from someone who was selling technology to a particular Police Force. The Chief Constable said that he wanted the best system that money could buy, but he didn’t want the company to sell it to any other Force.
Surely, with Police technology and equipment, it should all be standardised, so that each force uses the same equipment, vehicles and computers for the same jobs. Some have said that the dreadful Soham murders happened because two Police Force computer systems were incompatible and couldn’t talk to each other.
Imagine what would happen if the computer systems at Barclays couldn’t talk to those at Lloyds and HSBC.
Chief Constables are always harping on about their links to the local communities and that every Force has different needs. If you believe some of the stories in the reputable Press, some of them have been behaving in the manner of rather poor dictators, led much more by the rules of the Data Protection Act and the Health and Safety Executive.
They must accept that they don’t have a monopoly of knowledge on policing in the UK.
Why We Should Consult Bill Bratton
It is being reported that David Cameron is to consult Bill Bratton, the former Boston, New York and Los Angeles Police Chief.
And so we should!
When you have a serious problem, you should consult with anybody who might have some serious input. Some of these might not be obvious and many will not share your views.
All of my life I have been a scientific or engineering researcher. If anybody was an expert in what I was looking at, I would seek them out and discuss my problem with them. It often paid huge dividends.
The trouble is that too many people, and especially politicians, think totally inside the box. The only reason for having boxes in thinking, is to store good ideas, that might be of use later, but are quite inappropriate at the present time.
So who else should David Cameron consult about the riots?
Let’s start with Terence Conran, Norman Foster, Danny Baker, David Attenborough, Dan Snow, Stephen Bayley, Rio Ferdinand, Jo Hussain and Joey Barton.
Carry On Cutting
This is another heartening story.
Let’s hope, when the damage is all repaired, that this sort of spirit continues!
I Hope Pippa Middleton Is On Commission!
According to that organ of the sex-mad from Tunbridge Wells, the Daily Telegraph, Pippa Middleton’s derriere has inspired a plastic surgery boom in the United States according to this article.
What do they do with all the fat they remove? Perhaps they use it in fast food restaurants. After all there was an enormous fatberg outside an American-owned one in Leicester Square.
The Heroes Start to Emerge
Now that things are starting to calm down, the real heroes of the riots are starting to emerge.
There can be none, who deserves to be called a hero, than Tariq Jahan. Read about him in the Guardian.
How many of us could behave in such a courageous and forgiving manner after their son had been murdered?
Not many I would say!
The Statistics Are Starting To Be Published
This page from the BBC shows how statistics are starting to yield answers.
Let’s hope they analyse them in detail and publish both the data and all the results. I doubt that we’ll see them as an Excel spreadsheet. I would love to analyse that with Daisy.
The Amazing Story of Rudolf Brazda
I’d never heard of Rudolf Brazda, until I saw his obituary today, but it gives deep insight into how the Nazis just didn’t persecute Jews, but a lot of others as well. Brazda was gay and somehow kept himself alive amongst the horrors of Buchenwald.
The Thin Blue Line
At first sight it might appear that just six policemen against a much larger mob in Catford wouldn’t have stood much chance in protecting stores from being looted. But the line held as the BBC reports. Here’s a bit of detail.
A police officer has described how he and five colleagues, armed only with two shields, defended a retail park from a gang of up to 50 hooded youths.
PC Gordon Murphy, 30, said despite their lack of numbers, officers charged at the mob who were trying to loot the stores in Catford, south-east London.
He said: “We decided, as they ran at us, to rush back at them, with only six officers running back at 40.
“The mad thing is, they all ran back so we didn’t even have to make contact.”
It’s all a bit far from a similar situation, I heard of years ago from a British Colonial policeman, who faced up to rioters somewhere in Africa. He said you just identified the ring-leaders and shot them dead.
I suppose that the youths in Catford, had all the courage of mice and felt that running was the best defence.
I think in some ways this story is in a way a return to old-fashioned policing, where police often stood their ground and didn’t call for massive backup.
One of my abiding memories of Liverpool is that on public order duties most Northern Police Sergeants carried long batons, when trouble was expected. They weren’t afraid to use them either. I may have seen them deployed but I never saw one used.
Another policeman in London once told me that the worst thing they ever did for policing was give officers a personal radio. Without these they had to sort the problem out, but with them they always called for backup.
Violent Young Men Will Always Be With Us
David Aaronovitch in The Times today has a powerful and sensible piece.
He argues that young men will always push the limits.
Here’s the last paragraph.
Because, yes, we have been here before, with a relatively small number of young men, high on violence and low on personal skills, finding a way to drive the rest of us mad. This analysis is both gloomy and hopeful. It suggests that, short of a world war to send them to, difficult and violent young men will always be with us. The numbers matter, of course, and we can and should whittle away at them with firmness. But we won’t eradicate them altogether, and if improvement is always slow and adapting difficult, we can — of course — make things worse quickly, by reacting with impatience, prejudice and stupidity.
As he says, all of our responses must be measured. But I doubt they will be.
The Anonymous Widower 