One thing about a riot is that EVERYONE has some bollocks to say about it and I am no exception. Labour are banging on about the riots being a reaction against the cuts. I don’t think that Labour even know what cuts. Ed Milliband has jumped on the issue like he jumps on every bandwagon and is talking bollocks about the “absolute priority” for citizens to go about their lawful business while using the disturbances to call for cancellation of the cuts which were due for the police force. The trouble with Ed is that his absolute priority is always the last thing anybody said to him. This week it’s the police next week it will be something else.
I have heard people blaming the immigrants though I’ve seen bugger all evidence that immigrants were involved in any greater proportion than anyone else and though sociologists warned that racism thrives during times of poverty and violence we are now seeing the insidious way this is being acted out. I heard about a group of vigilantes in Enfield protecting their area and to start with had some sympathy for what they were doing. I heard that they termed themselves the Enfield Defence League, a named strikingly similar to the racist English Defence League (EDL). Later I heard that the EDL had amassed in south London also to defend the area against rioters. We should be wary of this sort of thing. Their next step will be uniforms and we should remember that we want security and not fascism.
We British are a bunch of yobs. Every time there is a recession something like this kicks off. I wonder if this may be partly due to our class centred culture. Despite what the “blitz spirit” crowd would have us believe, when things get tough we Brits don’t pull together, we just blame the other classes.
In the case of the riots the yobs blame the rich, the politicians, the police and the press. One difference this time is that they are perfectly justified and any dispassionate observer listening to David Cameron declare that the rioters will “feel the full force of the law” is forced to ask why the bankers, politicians, police and press did not feel the full force of the law over the past few years.
Another difference this time around might be technology. An outbreak of civil disorder 20 years ago would probably remain an isolated incident. In the 21st century these cretins can instantly tell their friends who will tell their friends who will tell their friends and a flash riot will ensue. For this reason the police probably need to react more swiftly than they have done in the past and there are dangers here that they may overstep their authority leading to tragedies such as the death of Ian Tomlinson.
There was a discussion on Radio 4′s PM program this afternoon where some bloke speculated that two years ago, during the G8 demonstration, the police were too heavy handed leading to the death of an innocent man. He thought that perhaps the police had reacted by becoming more restrained.
If this is true then somebody should explain to the police the difference between a legal demonstration and a riot.
A little bit of British folk law that has knocked around my brain ever since I can remember is the phrase “reading the riot act”. According to Wikipedia, the Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain introduced in 1714 that authorised local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action and remained on the statute books until 1973.
It seems to me that there may be a case for bringing it back.
The BBC has reported that a man threw an egg at Conservative peer Baroness Warsi on a visit to Luton in November 2009 has been jailed for six weeks. The man, Gavin Reid, was convicted of under the Public Order Act of intentionally causing harassment, alarm or distress.
The video evidence suggests that the “harassment” occurred in a public place and was witnessed by both the general public and police officers. Hmm….this is very similar to the attack by PC Simon Harwood on Ian Tomlinson at the G8 summit in which Mr. Tomlinson eventually died? Both incidents were witnessed by the general public and police. Both incidents were recorded on video camera.
Amazing that the Crown Prosecution Service managed to convict Gavin Reid for throwing a few eggs yet decided not to even charge PC Harwood for a blatant and violent attack! Is throwing eggs more serious than a violent attack and potential manslaughter?
This obvious corruption allowing the police to escape justice forces all of us to consider every policeman a potential attacker who is immune from the law.
The Director of Public Prosecutions Keir Starmer said today that PC Simon Harwood, the officer accused of assaulting Ian Tomlinson at the G8 summit in 2009, would not face prosecution. Mr. Starmer stated that doctors could not agree on cause of death and so a manslaughter charge could not be brought and that, though a charge of common assault could have been brought, the time limit of six months for bringing charges has expired.
This stinks!
Whether or not the cause of death was the assault by PC Harwood it is outrageous that the time limit for assault was allowed to elapse without bringing charges.
The review of the evidence leading to the decision not to prosecute was carried out by The Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). They, and Mr. Starmer, are experts in the law and the idea that they would have failed to realise that the six month limit was expiring is absurd.
Ask yourself this: If the CPS were reviewing a case that did not involve a police officer or a member of parliament or a senior barrister or a member of the Royal family or any other of the United Kingdom’s elite of vested interests, would they have allowed the time limit to elapse without bringing charges?
The assault was captured on multiple cameras and witnessed by numerous people. As soon as it was clear that an assault charge was possible PC Harwood should have been arrested and charged. The investigation as to whether the charge of murder should be brought could have continued as a separate thread.
The failure to prosecute PC Harwood should not surprise us given the dismal failure of prosecution of police officers in the United Kingdom. Ian Tomlinson is yet another victim of a police force which refuses to hold it’s officers to account. The decision sends a clear message around the world: The British Police are a law unto themselves.
This can only encourage the lunatics who recently glorified Raoul Moat and for that alone PC Harwood should be condemned in the same breath as we condemn Moat.
In a BBC article on the police assault on Ian Tomlinson during a G20 protest in The City of London after which Mr. Tomlinson died from a heart attack Peter Smyth, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, said some physical confrontation was inevitable during a large protest.
According to the BBC article he told Radio 4′s Today programme: “On a day like that, where there are some protesters who are quite clearly hell-bent on causing as much trouble as they can, there is inevitably going to be some physical confrontation.”
“Sometimes it isn’t clear, as a police officer, who is a protester and who is not.”
Peter Smyth, the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation
“I know it’s a generalisation but anybody in that part of the town at that time, the assumption would be that they are part of the protest.
“I accept that’s perhaps not a clever assumption but it’s a natural one.”
Mr. Smyth states that some protesters are clearly hell-bent on causing trouble. He states that it is not clear who is a protester and who is not. He states the police assume that anyone in that part of town at that time would be a protester and then goes on to say that this is perhaps not a clever assumption.
It is not only not clever it is entirely irrelevant. Whether Mr. Tonlinson was a protester or not is no justification for him to be attacked by a policeman.
Mr. Smyth is quite obviously TALKING BOLLOCKS and I wonder how a man with such illiberal, anti-democratic and dangerous opinions could become chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation.
The assault on Mr. Tomlinson became newsworthy because the poor man died but I wonder if we would have heard of him had he lived. We must also wonder how many other people the police assulated that day who’s story has not hit the news.
Last Friday I listened to Any Questions and I think it was Hazel Blears (though I’m not sure) who said that there were a small minority of protesters out to cause trouble and sited this as a justification for the police using heavy handed and, to my mind, illegal tactics such as “kettling”. Kettline is at beast the denial of the right to protest and at worst borders on abduction.
If we pan back a bit here we might consider that the Blair/Brown New Labour catastrophe that overtook Britain has pandered to a powerful elite who became rich off the back of Gordon Brown’s imprudent and arrogant management of the economy. Now that the ghastly hyper-capitalist edifice has crashed around their ears New Labour are using police in riot gear to intimidate protesters while blaming the protesters for the violence.
So far we have seen little violence from protesters but blatant aggression from the police.
Considerring that most crimes committed in Britian’s streets are captured on CCTV and that this crime was committed in an area that is, presumably, seething with CCTV, it will be interesting to see the footage. Either that or some lame excuse about how every single CCTV camera just happened to be pointing the wrong way.
The first head to role from this crime should be the chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, Peter Smyth for assuming that all protesters are fair game for the police to assault.
The Guardian newspaper’s timeline of Mr. Tomlinson’s walk home from work
The Guardian also has footage from a different angle.
Below is the response by Peter Smyth to a protest registerred at the web site of the MPF.
Thank you for your e-mail.
If you listened to the BBC broadcast from which Press
Association cherry-picked a couple of quotes, you will recall that I had specifically
declined to comment upon the events surrounding Mr Tomlinson.
I was instead invited by the presenter to voice observations
on the sort of occurrences which are encountered policing large protests in
general.
Reports about my comments should be seen in this context.
In numerous interviews yesterday I explained that I
am not allowed to make any comment in relation to an ongoing investigation,
I also repeatedly asked for the officers involved to come forward and to cooperate
with the investigation.
I read an article on the BBC web site today quoting
an interview with Peter Smyth, your chaiman, where he stated that some protesters
are hell-bent on causing trouble, that it is not clear who is a protester
and who is not and that the police assume that anyone in that part of town
at that time would be a protester.
Your chairman has completely missed the point. Whether
Mr. Tonlinson was or wa not a protester is no justification for him to be
assulated by the police.
I wonder how a man with such illiberal, anti-democratic
and dangerous opinions could become chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation.
Regards
Here is another video showing police hitting a woman during the same G20 protest. If you watch the video, in the background you can see that just before the woman is hit a yong man is being pushed around by police.
And we should not forget previous police assaults on the general public: Kettling
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Kettling is a police tactic wherein protesters are prevented from leaving an
area by cordons of police. Peaceful protesters, potential rioters and bystanders
alike are corralled once they have congregated into one or more larger group(s).
Although large groups are difficult to control this can be done by concentrations
of police. The tactic is to prevent the large group breaking into smaller splinters
which have to be individually chased down and for the policing to break into
multiple small battles.[1] Once the kettle has been formed the cordon is tightened
including with baton charges to restrict the territory occupied by the protesters.
The cordon is then maintained for a number of hours in which those within the
cordon are denied food, water and toilet facilities, the aim is to leave would
be violent protesters too tired to do anything but want to go home.[2]
Used in the UK in the may-day riots and the G20 summit, kettling has been criticized
as irritating otherwise-peaceful protesters to the point where they will riot
to break free of the ‘kettles’ (some of which were held in place for several
hours) and for detaining law-abiding citizens.[
Art Photography
The riot bandwagon
Tags: “absolute priority”, bandwagon, bollocks, david cameron, demonstration, Ed Milliband, EDL, Enfield Defence League, English Defence League, facism, Ian Tomlinson, racism, reading the riot act, riot, the full force of the law, the trouble with ed, the trouble with ed milliband, vigilantes
The Riot Bandwagon
One thing about a riot is that EVERYONE has some bollocks to say about it and I am no exception. Labour are banging on about the riots being a reaction against the cuts. I don’t think that Labour even know what cuts. Ed Milliband has jumped on the issue like he jumps on every bandwagon and is talking bollocks about the “absolute priority” for citizens to go about their lawful business while using the disturbances to call for cancellation of the cuts which were due for the police force. The trouble with Ed is that his absolute priority is always the last thing anybody said to him. This week it’s the police next week it will be something else.
I have heard people blaming the immigrants though I’ve seen bugger all evidence that immigrants were involved in any greater proportion than anyone else and though sociologists warned that racism thrives during times of poverty and violence we are now seeing the insidious way this is being acted out. I heard about a group of vigilantes in Enfield protecting their area and to start with had some sympathy for what they were doing. I heard that they termed themselves the Enfield Defence League, a named strikingly similar to the racist English Defence League (EDL). Later I heard that the EDL had amassed in south London also to defend the area against rioters. We should be wary of this sort of thing. Their next step will be uniforms and we should remember that we want security and not fascism.
We British are a bunch of yobs. Every time there is a recession something like this kicks off. I wonder if this may be partly due to our class centred culture. Despite what the “blitz spirit” crowd would have us believe, when things get tough we Brits don’t pull together, we just blame the other classes.
In the case of the riots the yobs blame the rich, the politicians, the police and the press. One difference this time is that they are perfectly justified and any dispassionate observer listening to David Cameron declare that the rioters will “feel the full force of the law” is forced to ask why the bankers, politicians, police and press did not feel the full force of the law over the past few years.
Another difference this time around might be technology. An outbreak of civil disorder 20 years ago would probably remain an isolated incident. In the 21st century these cretins can instantly tell their friends who will tell their friends who will tell their friends and a flash riot will ensue. For this reason the police probably need to react more swiftly than they have done in the past and there are dangers here that they may overstep their authority leading to tragedies such as the death of Ian Tomlinson.
There was a discussion on Radio 4′s PM program this afternoon where some bloke speculated that two years ago, during the G8 demonstration, the police were too heavy handed leading to the death of an innocent man. He thought that perhaps the police had reacted by becoming more restrained.
If this is true then somebody should explain to the police the difference between a legal demonstration and a riot.
A little bit of British folk law that has knocked around my brain ever since I can remember is the phrase “reading the riot act”. According to Wikipedia, the Riot Act was an Act of the Parliament of Great Britain introduced in 1714 that authorised local authorities to declare any group of twelve or more people to be unlawfully assembled, and thus have to disperse or face punitive action and remained on the statute books until 1973.
It seems to me that there may be a case for bringing it back.
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