May the force be with you, Suella
HOW much has your view of the British police changed over the years? Say, compared to when you were growing up? I know mine has – a lot.
When I was a kid in London in the Sixties and Seventies, I and most of my mates had an almost instinctive, reflex respect for policemen and women. A touch of fear mixed in there too. Coppers were an empowered elite, with no hesitation in stepping in to feel a malefactor’s collar and haul them before the local magistrates (who back then were a lot less reluctant to send someone down than they are today).
Officers looked smart, too – crisp white shirts, sober ties, smart navy tunics, pressed trousers, gleaming black boots. These days most of them are indistinguishable from sloppily-dressed traffic wardens (who also looked the business once upon a time – remember their peaked caps and dark uniforms with those distinctive yellow flashes?).
Unless you were a hardened criminal, or mentally unbalanced, the idea of attacking a police officer, or even swearing at one, was pretty much unthinkable.Try any funny stuff with a copper and the roof would come down on your head.
Compare that to what happened in towns and cities across Britain this week. Teenagers lit bonfires on busy main streets, blocking them, and when police arrived they came under a barrage of attacks from large fireworks; rockets, thunderflashes, mortars, all aimed directly at officers without the slightest hesitation or apparent fear of the consequences.
This is incredible. When I was an adolescent the thought of attacking police with fireworks would have no more crossed my mind than offering to fight MuhammadAli.And these potentially lethal assaults were, in many cases, clearly planned in advance. Some forces reported responding to what turned out to be hoax 999 calls luring them into well-organised ambushes.
This tells us two things. Firstly, that many young people have zero respect for, or fear of, today’s police.And secondly, that they have no fear of the courts either. Magistrates dispense the soggiest of justice now, especially to juveniles. Laughable lenient sentencing is the norm. (Unless, of course, you are caught doing
24mph in a 20mph zone on an empty road at three in the morning. Motorists are the new whipping boys, the soft targets, for our enfeebled justice system.) We know that burglars and car thieves don’t give a thought to the risk of arrest as they ply their trade, because it’s fallen close to zero. Meanwhile it emerged this week, shockingly, that thousands of officers are themselves criminals – they have records, are linked to gangsters, and pose a direct threat to the public. But ludicrously lax vetting means they are allowed to continue to “serve” – or, rather, “self-serve”.
Our new and embattled Home Secretary Suella Braverman, left, could do a lot to shore up her position if she bared her teeth and announced root-and-branch reform of the police. Someone’s got to do it. Braverman by name... you get the rest.