Plod has been getting a bad press recently. His efforts to convince us that he is underpaid and under appreciated considerably hampered by the string of ‘News International’ arrests as part of Operation Elvedon, showing that he could always chose to augment his income with a nice cheque for £15,000 or so from Uncle Rupert whenever anybody reasonably newsworthy came within reach of his handcuffs. Quite why all the bad publicity and charges attach themselves to the journalists who handed over the cheques – as they would have done to any member of the public who came up with a good story – instead of to the policemen who were at least guilty of a breach of confidentiality, I do not know. One of the mysteries of the media.

Still, there is always overtime to be had. As if endlessly listening to the middle aged ramblings of dotty old ladies who don’t want to pay their BBC licence fee and think claiming that Savile patted their bum 50 years ago might do the trick was not enough, pity the latest task inflicted on the woebegone Yewtree coppers. Monitoring the ‘Big Brother House’ transmissions 24 hours a day! No really, so concerned are they that the latest celebrity policeman (the sorcerer’s apprentice?) Daniel Neal, not long of the parish of Yewtree, will let slip who will be the next Yewtree arrest to be released without charge, (that’s ‘without charge in the form of criminal charges’, not as in ‘free of charge to News International’) that they have a squad of ‘experienced chid protection officers’ condemned to watch Big Brother round the clock. I was already concerned about the effect on their minds of the constant diet of Level 1 pornography (non sexualised pictures of the neighbours kid’s fully dressed….) but now I fear they will be in need of lengthy specialised psychiatric nursing. I’ve only ever seen 20 minutes of Big Brother and the scars remain to this day…

Down in sleepy Glastonbury, a couple of ‘Fools from the National Academy’ (I kid you not!) dressed respectively as a giant penis and a giant vagina, were attacked by an outraged bystander. I don’t think the bystander was Mark Williams-Thomas, though he does have form in these matters. Anyway, this bystander was taken more seriously by the local police – and they turned up and demanded that Ms Vagina change her clothing. What? Victim blaming? Surely a woman has the right to dress as she pleases, without a policeman telling her that it is her fault she was assaulted! Are there no feminists in Glastonbury, no Vera Baird to speak up for her – particularly since the penis was allowed to continue on his priapic wander. ‘Steady as you go, Sir’.

Joanne Tremarco, who was dressed in costume as female genitalia, told a police officer they did not want to press charges against the man.

“Then he explained that I needed to take the costume off, or I could be arrested,” she said.

Speaking of Vera Baird, as we reluctantly do in these parts, from time to time, I now see the effect of having a vigorously feminist Police and Crime Commissioner. Resources are poured into her pet obsession of domestic violence. Newcastle now has no less than 7% of the nation’s entire network of support services for sexual exploitation. 2 of the 18 national sexual assault referral centres – there are none in the East of England or in North Wales! It’s very own rape crisis centre – even its own specialist domestic violence court to deal with offenders. All for just 4.3% of the total female population. (Domestic violence doesn’t happen to men in the Bairdlands). You might put this down to the men of the North East being particularly violent, or maybe just bored – but curiously, it seems that they have little time for such domestic jollies – for the North East now holds the title for the most number of  thefts, vandalism, frauds, and assaults against workers in local businesses. 

That’s what happens when Plod takes his eyes off the testicle and concentrates on the vaginas. A stunning average of 24, twenty four, against each and every business in the area. Will Vera be calling for specialist ‘business violence centres’, or wailing that advice from local police on how to protect your business is ‘victim blaming’? I wouldn’t hold your breath.  So far she has been remarkably sanguine about the figures.

She said: “If we’re doing things wrong then they need getting right. Statistics for crime against businesses are down on the whole – it’s just that we have come to the top of the table because our figures haven’t gone down as much as other regions.

I look forward to a similarly sanguine comment on domestic violence – ‘not that much of a problem, just that our figures haven’t gone down as much as elsewhere……!

Even Our Vera isn’t the end of the bad news for Plod this week. Paul Lewis, the Guardian’s ‘Special Project Editor’, has a new book out next week. Paul is the Guardian journalist who uncovered undercover policeman Mark Kennedy. This time he has his sights on another undercover copper – Bob Lambert. He has made the stunning revelation in this book, that Bob Lambert was the author of the famous McLibel. The defamatory leaflet alleging a host of very ‘ungreen’ practices in the MacDonalds’ cook house. It led to the longest running and most costly libel battle in British judicial history – estimated to have cost MacDonalds millions of pounds and terrible publicity. If this claim is true, I suspect MacDonalds will be heading back to the law courts. The Metropolitan Police will be lucky to have enough spondoolies left for a single doughnut.

Mind you, Paul’s information has come from the same group of activists that were fined £60,000 over that episode and are now engaged in a civil case with the Met over a series of children allegedly fathered by the under-the-bed-cover cops….

We shall see.

Any more entries for Police News of the week?

miss mildred
June 23, 2013 at 10:58

The police have so much to cover now, poking and probing into all sorts
that they never took any notice of before. I’m not surprised they make fools
of themselves so much. Managements and regulators making a mess of their jobs
too. Afraid of employment tribunals and the compensation culture they can
hardly take proper action due to all the rules and regs. Wallowing on fat
salaries, they get lazy and incompetent. They know that if they blow it they
will get a mega golden gladhands and then pop up somewhere else to continue
their mad management ‘skills’. Making their mark, like dogs watering lamp
posts then on to the next lampost…..er hospital trust, to leave mayhem in
their tracks. This has been going on for years and years and years in the NHS.
One disreorganisation after another, for at least the last 50 years or so. In
spite of that, progress with treatments has been mind blowing. The public do
not always appreciate this fact. They expect miracles. If miracles don’t
happen the lawyers are waiting to hear and extract the cash.

Moor
Larkin June 22, 2013 at 22:14

Darn…… Missed it………

ACPO ‏@PoliceChiefs 25 May
Don’t forget to follow police forces this
weekend who will tweeting their experiences of alcohol related crime on 25
May
https://twitter.com/search?q=%23alcoholharm&src=hash

Glos Police ‏@Glos_Police 25 May
This time a drunk woman staggering in
Bibury Road Gloucester. Keeping us all busy #alcoholharm

Frankie June 22, 2013 at 21:14

‘…Any more entries for Police News of the week?’

I think the next part of the unhappy tale of woe for the boys in blue, that
has been dumped on those helmeted heads by Ms. May, and her acolytes will be
the introduction of a system that will permit compulsory redundancy being
visited upon the rank and file at the whim of a Chief Constable and his PCC.

This decision was to be made earlier this year but was deferred to late
June/early July 2013.

Crucially, however, the Winsor report explicitly excludes the police being
granted the full legal status of an employee.

So, the worst of all worlds…

Moor
Larkin June 24, 2013 at 09:24

@ I think the next part of the unhappy tale of woe for the boys in blue,
that has been dumped on those helmeted heads by Ms. May, and her acolytes
will be the introduction of a system that will permit compulsory redundancy
being visited upon the rank and file at the whim of a Chief Constable and
his PCC. @
Wrong

“Peter Francis, who says he says he posed as an anti-racism campaigner,
served in the Met’s now-disbanded Special Demonstration Squad”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-23026324

Is there anything they do not have a “squad” for?…………..

Anna
Raccoon June 24, 2013 at 10:04

Is there anything they do not have a “squad” for?…………..

Let’s see – your house getting burgled, your car being stolen…

Frankie June 24, 2013 at 22:20

OMG! I have that old sinking feeling again… Boys in Blue trying
skullduggery = Boys in Blue in the shit… again.

IF this is true the Met have royally ‘screwed the pooch’… again. It
just defies belief that they could have been so stupid, but…!!

Moor Larkin is definitely a ‘sayer of sooths’ I think.

ZeroTolerance
June 22, 2013 at 20:29

To misquote the Brit Bard’s (not Baird’s) play-within-a-play. From which
today’s non-Brit Murdochized dumb Brits ‘haven’t learned a thing’.

” WE THINK OUR LITTLE EMPIRE BUILDING OVERPAID THOUGHT COPS PROTEST TOO
MUCH !”

Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, 222–230. Familiar corrupt-cop, copout and cover up
themes: Dishonesty, Deception. Speakers: Prince Hamlet, Queen Gertrude, Player
Queen, Player King.

Prince Hamlet: “Madam, how like you this play?”

Queen Gertrude: “The lady doth protest too much, methinks.”

Often misquoted as “Methinks the lady doth protest too much.”

Queen Gertrude’s line is both drier than the misquotation (thanks to the
delayed “methinks”) and much more ironic. Prince Hamlet’s question is intended
to smoke out his mother, to whom, as he intended, this Player Queen bears some
striking resemblances The queen in the play, like Gertrude, seems too deeply
attached to her first husband to ever even consider remarrying; Gertrude,
however, after the death of Hamlet’s father, has remarried. We don’t know
whether Gertrude ever made the same sorts of promises to Hamlet’s father that
the Player Queen makes to the Player King (who will soon be murdered)—but the
irony of her response should be clear. By “protest,” Gertrude doesn’t mean
“object” or “deny”—these meanings postdate Hamlet. The principal meaning of
“protest” in Shakespeare’s day was “vow” or “declare solemnly,” a meaning
preserved in our use of “protestation.” When we smugly declare that “the lady
doth protest too much,” we almost always mean that the lady objects so much as
to lose credibility. Gertrude says that Player Queen affirms so much as to
lose credibility. Her vows are too elaborate, too artful, too insistent. More
cynically, the queen may also imply that such vows are silly in the first
place, and thus may indirectly defend her own remarriage.

Moor
Larkin June 22, 2013 at 19:26

Crispin Blunt (Reigate, Conservative)
The Channel 4 “Dispatches”
programme took 10 days to establish that the video record was completely at
odds with the police account of events. Since the police have now interviewed
800 officers, spent £144,000 and taken eight months apparently to go nowhere,
might it not be an idea to invite Channel 4’s “Dispatches” to be put in charge
of the investigation, as it appears to be more effective and would certainly
be more independent?
http://www.theyworkforyou.com/debates/?id=2013-06-10a.5.1

Hear Hear!!…..

carol42 June 22, 2013 at 20:20

Good idea, what has happened to that case? it looks clear that there was
certainly lies, the email, and what very much looks like collusion. I can’t
see why it would take so long.

Moor Larkin June 22, 2013 at 20:51

@carol42
Perhaps to give them time to resign first. Mr. Spndler
learned at his own knee.

Chiefs let more than 130 employees walk out at Scotland Yard over the
past year instead of facing a misconduct panel…….. With police conduct
under “unprecedented” scrutiny, Commander Peter Spindler, the Metropolitan
Police’s discipline chief, insisted he was not letting corrupt officers
off the hook. But Mr Spindler, head of the force’s directorate of
professional standards, said in many cases “it’s actually more pragmatic
to let them resign”.
http://www.harrowtimes.co.uk/news/national/news/9446855.Police_chief_defends_resignations/
Mr
Spindler said: “Our main focus is that we have managed to reduce
complaints by 9% over the 12-month rolling period. Ignore what the IPCC is
saying because it is 10 months out of date. It’s been a lot of hard work
to get here.”

Let’s hope the real coppers eventually left standing will not only
ignore the IPCC but also the HMIC…

carol42
June 22, 2013 at 21:09

Surely they would not just be allowed to resign? I would have thought
collusion against an MP as seems to be the case must merit criminal
charges and false witness trying to pervert the course of justice. After
all if they get away with this what chance do the rest of us have if the
police decide to ‘accuse’ us of something, very chilling.

charlotte
June 23, 2013 at 00:12

@ Carol
I can’t see how any one can be prevented from resigning
however, I can’t see why an employee’s resignation would prevent their
prosecution if warranted.

Mina Field June 22, 2013 at 16:31

Oh Anna, please tell us that you don’t really believe what you read in the
Daily Mail

jaded June 22, 2013 at 16:57

Seconded.I thought I had stumbled across one of their editorials by
mistake.

Moor Larkin June 22, 2013 at 17:06

Thirded, it’s clear that listening in to Big Brother is the job of
GCHQ…………

I would like to know how the gay policeman became a father of one
though. The lives of others are always more fascinating than one’s own…..

Mina Field
June 23, 2013 at 01:02

@Moor Larkin
Simples. He was straight and got girlfriend up the
duff, then joined the police and discovered he was gay. Whether the
joining the police and becoming gay are connected I don’t know.

Anna
Raccoon June 22, 2013 at 17:51

Of course not, I just like to have fun sometimes….!

Anna
Raccoon June 22, 2013 at 18:03

I do read it though – essential reading these days to try to gauge the
intelligence of the average Briton…..

Ted Treen
June 24, 2013 at 12:35

What about us 60-something year olds whom are still upset by the
demise of “The Beano”?
Although I will say that the PC
‘modernisation’ of Dennis the Menace was a move too far, in my humble
opinion

Are we part of the unintelligentsia? Or elderly children who’ve never
quite grown up?

Anna
Raccoon June 24, 2013 at
13:47

Funnily enough, ex-husband No 2′s previous wife ran the Dennis the
Menace fan club – I’m told she was quite incandescent over the PC
upgrading of Dennis and quit the job!

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 11:06

You can always trust us Brits to do understatement well. Our very own Pussy
Riot, and it merely penetrates the sensitivities of sleepy Somerset

Joe Public
June 22, 2013 at 12:16

I wonder if Mr Penis ‘stood to attention’ when addressed by the police
officer?

It would have been ironic if Ms Vagina had nothing on under her
costume!

The allegation that Lambert ‘helped write’ the leaflet, by the Guardian’s
reporter, could be nothing more than he assisted with correcting the
grammar, such as removing Grocers’ Apostrophes. A very serious allegation
indeed.

Justin June 22, 2013 at 10:46

>If this claim is true, I suspect MacDonalds will be heading back to the
law courts

They will head where they will, either way. If the claim is provably true,
McD will lose, and if not I don’t see how the Met will be paying. Surely it
would be the author / publisher of the libelous piece?

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 11:11

I would have hoped that responsibility for the actions of anyone who
might arguably be considered to be an ‘agent provocateur’ went beyond whose
knickers they were in

Anna
Raccoon June 22, 2013 at 11:19

Vicarious liability.

Ho Hum June 22, 2013 at 11:50

Any chance the Met, or some similar allied agency, may, or maybe even
has already quietly had to, cough up for Child Support Payments? Imagine
auditing those….

Moor Larkin June 22, 2013 at 11:57

Highly unlikely the Met will be sued by Maccy-dees. Not good for
sales. Why do you think they stay open 24hrs?
Back in the 70′s we had
Serpico. No wonder the Plod hate that decade so much….

rabbitaway June 22, 2013 at 10:03

Perhaps they’ll get triple time if they catch any of them saying anything
interesting at all !!

rabbitaway June 22, 2013 at 09:52

@Here Anna – cops paid overtime to watch Big Brother – ha – personally, I’d
want double time ……. they’re watching in case ‘he’ ses too much

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2346165/Police-paid-overtime-watch-Big-Brother-Cushiest-job-Met-officers-amid-fears-Savile-detective-say-much.html