Policemen are not our Enemy

[mirrorshard]

After the Late Unpleasantness at Bishopsgate, I've thankfully seen a very sensible attitude towards the police from all my friends-list. A couple of times, though, I've seen commenters talking about "pigs" or "filth", as though the police were some monumental dehumanized bloc. Please, if someone does this on your journal, point them to this.

Comments

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

I heard Jerry White speak on the history of the Met at the Museum in Docklands last summer, so I know the history fairly well. I suppose it's pragmatism on my part; we're stuck with a police force, so we may as well try for a halfway sane one.

Speaking of misunderstandings, here's (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8007580.stm) a juicy one -

former shadow home secretary David Davis said the actions of a minority of police officers had undermined the trust and confidence of the public.

"We have a police force in this country, uniquely in the world.... [which] comes from Robert Peel's original proposal the police will be of the public and the public will be of the police. They are indistinguishable, they are the public in uniform. And that trust and confidence is critical."

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Yes, that quotation struck me as fairly nutty. I mean, yes, the police are more or less on our side, we're not living in a totalitarian state, but apart from that it really doesn't apply.

How are you finding the way the media is continuing to cover this? From reading the BBC, I think it's improving, but they still do things like quote the police (or their pals) as saying that the kettling was essential to contain the violence, without mentioning that it wasn't a violent situation and that many believe that kettling, when used in those circumstances, is actually more likely to create hostility.

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Oh lovely!

As an aside: Jerry White's NIneteenth Century London argues that the police were deliberately drawn from rural areas, both because of better health and height and precisely because they would have no local loyalties.

[elettaria.livejournal.com]

Which immediately makes me wonder whether they'd have been mocked for accent differences and so forth. Perhaps this is where the "PC Plod" stereotype grew from?

[fjm.livejournal.com]

Good point: the slow voices of the country against the quick fire of the metropolis.

[mirrorshard.livejournal.com]

Absolutely - I thought of that when he was blathering about "the same people, just in uniform".