Try Sticking The Handbrake On

Really Mr McKeevor? This is what you're going with?

“A lot of that is based on people taking ill-informed positions. Demonstrations like that are extremely difficult to police and a lot of the criticism has been very unfair. There is a broad-ranging bandwagon rolling and it is of concern. There seems to be a disconnection between commentators in the media and the public, and what it is that police officers do.”

You don't think that recent murmurs of concern coming from the public and parts of the government over the style used to police the recent G20 protests may actually have some basis in fact at all? I don't know, maybe you've been too busy thinking up your little defensive speech there to take a squint at some of the videos, pictures and accounts that have been pouring into places like the IPCC. Maybe you should have a quick peek. You see, otherwise, it sounds a bit like you think whacking people in the face with riot shields, or dishing out back-handers to feisty bystanders or shoving sauntering men to the pavement is all a reasonable part of policing legal and overwhelmingly peaceful protest.

The fact that the metropolitan police described themseves as 'up for it' before G20, that officers were largely dressed like a cross between the racing car baddies from an A-Ha video and Deathstar storm-troopers, that officers concealed identifying numbers and covered their faces, that they were rather too free and easy with the old nightstick, surely that is actually relevant to some of what took place during the protests? It can't really be that difficult to imagine that footage of police misusing the Public Order Act to order the press to clear an area for no reason other than 'we say so' might leave people feeling a touch uneasy about the direction policing might be heading in? And looking beyond G20, I don't think that questioning the pre-emptive arrest of protestors constitutes unfair criticism.

I do actually have some sympathy for the police. I'm sure it is difficult to police a large, increasingly (if understandably) hostile crowd of people. And some of the videos and photographs alleging police brutality are pretty ridiculous, perhaps even lacking any merit at all. But let's face it, there wouldn't be a fucking 'anti-police bandwagon' for members of the public to jump on in the first place if the police hadn't provided the materials themselves and then got busy with cobbling the vehicle together.

(Hat-Tip Chicken Yoghurt)