We must all learn to respect the law
ANOTHER weekend is marked with the horrific news of an attack on a police officer on our streets. In the space of just SIX days in London, two officers have been assaulted, with one of them almost being kicked under the wheels of a bus, and a third has been stabbed outside a railway station. While it is a great relief that his condition is said to be not life-threatening, he was still in hospital yesterday with serious injuries.
As suspects have been arrested and, in one instance charged, in these cases further comment is currently not possible. But what damned well needs to be addressed is what is taking place in this country to allow this appalling decline into violence against men and women who are merely doing their job.
In the case last weekend, the officers had just performed a routine “stop” on a vehicle in South-West London and were assaulted as a result. In the case of the female officer, it appeared that one of the gang launched a series of kung fu kicks on her that almost propelled her under the bus.
It seems nigh on impossible for anything to be worse than that yet what happened during the attack is, strangely, just as sinister. A passer-by elects to film it with his mobile phone and provide a running commentary.
“He’s hanging on to him, look!” reports the asinine oaf doing the filming. “Oh dear, no. He just kung fu kicked her in the head. Look, I’m getting this all live, boys and girls... just have a little watch!” he adds, as he sees two coppers being beaten to the ground.
Fortunately, other passers-by show some sense of public duty and considerable courage, and do get involved to help the police. We can only assume the coward who turned into a type of sports commentator was thinking of how he could sell the video on.
None of us have any idea how we’d respond if faced with a similar situation. It’s called fight or flight. As for me, while I’d like to think I’d pitch in, I’m absolutely bloody certain I’d be using my mobile to call for reinforcements not to film it.
A few months ago, two officers were assaulted – again in London, this time in Hackney. After that, Metropolitan Police Federation chairman Ken Marsh spoke candidly of the “breakdown of society”. He added: “There is an element of people out there who just have no respect whatsoever and don’t care. They don’t care about their actions and don’t care about the consequences, and we are left to face that 24 hours a day, seven days a week.”
Since then, countless officers up and down the land have been victims of some form of assault, many lowerlevel, of course – and now we have this grim toll in less than a week.
It is the word “respect” that rings out from Mr Marsh’s words and, regrettably, it appears to be an increasingly rare commodity.
At school, no one is allowed to be told their work, dress or demeanour is unacceptable. Children have been allowed to show utter contempt towards teachers and if they are threatened with punishment, either their parents arrive at the school wanting to punch the teacher or the lily-livered teachers and governors fight shy of enforcing exclusions.
With no concept of respect, these youths – often from families who have little or no interest in them – are allowed to turn increasingly feral and therefore the first time they ever come face-to-face with any form of real authority it is with a police officer.
Chillingly, what can happen next is why three officers have been hospitalised.
The modern-day force was set up almost 200 years ago by two-time Prime Minister Sir Robert Peel and that’s why one of the many nicknames for the force was the Peelers. Less favourable ones are available, of course! He spelt out the key points he believed were needed so they could do their job, and those tenets became known as Peel’s Principles of Policing.
Principle two reads: “The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon public approval of their actions.”
He’s right, of course. But now that “approval” must move to support – and respect can no longer be allowed to be as rare on the streets as a day when an officer is not attacked.
A final word on this for readers in and around London. As I’ve mentioned, in six days three Met officers have been attacked. Prior to the stabbing in Ilford, what do you suppose London Mayor Sadiq Khan was up to? Banning junk food advertising on public transport.
Good to see he’s got his priorities right.
THEY’VE rightly earned virtually every imaginable nickname from Dad’s Army to The Gang That Can’t Shoot Straight. Yet this bunch of politicians past and present, businessmen and a Dutch customs expert (why?) with a collective age of 458 had the breathtaking gall to present themselves last week as the saviours of a Brexit deal.
Candidly, you’d be excused for thinking some of this troupe might struggle to find the bathroom, let alone a solution to the biggest constitutional issue this nation has faced since a world war.
Arch-Brexiteer and supposed plotterin-chief Jacob Rees-Mogg has managed, in just a few days, to go from being seen as a possible future leader of the Conservative Party to behaving like the incompetent assassin from Carry On Cleo. He’s clearly no Mr Mogg-tivator!
Conservative heavy-hitter David Davis now presents Brexit as being as simple an event as deciding on whether it’s red or white wine at lunch, yet he was Brexit Secretary for TWO years and seemingly achieved precious little.
The nation’s mood is moving.
Up and down the land – and crucially away from Westminster – people support Theresa May and her singular determination to get a deal done.
Increasingly this less than Magnificent Seven seem nothing more than a bunch of stupid (old) boys.
‘There has been an appalling decline into violence against people merely doing their job’