This is the question I have been struggling with since my woke awakening in the summer of 2020 due to being cancelled. I began to notice the damage the woke were causing within society, including the very individuals this ideology claims to be helping.
If we compare police forces across the world our police are still an excellent public service. But is this an unfair comparison? Is this the same as comparing our beloved NHS to the public health system in Somalia? This type of comparison is called a strawman for it is easy to knock over and get the answer you wanted in the first place. Of course, our police force is better than what you find in India, China, Nepal, Mali and Chile.
It use to be a common phrase to say that ‘the British Bobby was the best in the world’ – not surprising considering a British man, Robert Peel, invented the modern police force. This is why call them Bobbies, Bob is short for Robert, we also use to call them Peelers. No one utters this proud phrase any longer. What happened to the British police?
There are many reasons for the demise of this institution, ranging from technology to social trends. Part of me feels the police have been a victim of their own reputation and the desire to keep it - they lost sight of what was important.
I have always been a supporter of the police. I spent my early teens planning to join Greater Manchester Police. I attended police career events, police conferences and even visited a police training centre. In the early 1980s, Greater Manchester Police had a Police Cadet scheme where school leavers joined as a full-time paid job. When you reached 18 years old you were promoted to police officer. Cadets were a little like PCSOs (police community support officers) who support the police and local communities today. It was basically an apprenticeship.
I planned to apply to join in 1984 as I left school. I had spent three years working up to this point. Life has a habit of throwing spanners in the works – this year was the one they decided to cancel the scheme. The police wrote to inform me of their changes to recruitment. I was told to apply when I was 21 years old. Five years seemed a long time to wait so I rejected the notion and went to college with no idea of what I wanted to do with my life. Several decades later, I would find myself based in police stations as a council-manager strategising on crime reduction. I trained police officers on community engagement and directed patrol plans.
Like many boys, I grew up watching films with strong confident men who risked their lives to protect their families, community and country. I shared a bedroom with my grandad who spent many evenings telling me stories from his days in the Royal Navy during WWII. He sailed the world, visited exotic lands and had many stories – just like Uncle Albert in Only Fools And Horses. Decades later, I sat in Hong Kong eating a snake while thinking of my grandad's story of how a snake tastes like chicken. He was correct – but he did not tell me about drinking the snake's blood first.
All males are born to be protectors, it is an innate trait programmed into our DNA. Social conditioning also plays a part, but this is a secondary factor and only reinforces what we already are. This explains many of the choices I have made and the career I stumbled upon.
Anyway, back to the police. This innate trait within men was why historically most men joined the police. They saw it as an honourable career that generated respect within the community. It was a perfect career for ex-forces and those who were not academic but far from stupid. The job relied on common sense and putting the community first, not the criminal.
I am not for one moment saying that our police use to be perfect for they were not. There was corruption, just like today. Some police officers administered their own justice on a regular basis, meaning sometimes innocent people got a beating. I do not condone such behaviour for I truly believe no one is above the law. Vigilante culture feels right until you are on the wrong side of it as an innocent person. A civilised society needs laws that the majority agree upon.
Where did our police start to go wrong? The first chink in the armour was the promotion of the role as a career for women – my misogyny raises its head again. I am not saying that women should not be allowed to join the police for this would be unfair, only that recruitment should be on merit. To accommodate women they started to lower their standards so more women could pass recruitment. Height. Fitness. Strength.
Think of this scenario. You are in the middle of burgling a house and hear a police siren outside. You look out of the front window and see a 5'1" female police officer weighing 8 stone. You rush to the back of the house, look out of the window and see a 6'2" male police officer weighing 14 stone. You have the decision to make. Which door do you run from? Front or back? We all know the answer.
A criminal conviction used to be enough to bar you from joining the police, but no longer. Inclusivity means we now accept everyone, including criminals. I can understand this relaxation if the police were struggling to recruit new officers but this has never been the case. The opposite is true. The police should be pickier to get a higher standard of officers - but this does not generate diversity.
This lowering of standards did not stop at female recruitment. It continued so more ethnic minorities would pass the recruitment process and make the force look more like the local community. Diversity again. This is so insulting - people want effective policing, not identity politics. If migrants need police officers who looked like them, then they would not have left their homeland in the first place. But they did. They wanted a country that put competence above tribal instincts for this is how you develop a more successful nation.
Twenty years ago, I worked with an African-born PCSO. He was extremely forgettable as an officer apart from his discipline record which was comprehensive. He was caught asleep in the police station and disciplined. He was caught and convicted of drunk driving and disciplined. He then was convicted of domestic assault and disciplined. Finally, he was caught submitting false overtime - he was sacked. I asked his Inspector why he had not been fired sooner. He grimaced and explained he did not want the headache of sacking a black member of his team.
A Chief Inspector told me a story of an officer he had recruited at an interview who he later arrested for theft. A recruit of Bangladeshi heritage passed all the tests at the interview but a red flag appeared in the written exercise. He was asked to write about the best day in his life – this was to appraise writing and descriptive skills. He wrote a story about how he met a married woman in a nightclub and had great sex. She was so good that he phoned in sick the next day so he could spend more time with her before she had to go home to her husband.
This story exposes many moral flaws within this individual, including his willingness to lie to his employer. But also a lack of judgement in thinking this was an appropriate story to discuss at a job interview. We have all made mistakes at job interviews, but this has to be one of the biggest. The Chief Inspector vetoed this candidate but was overruled because the force needed more Bangladeshi representation. Several years later, he investigated a claim of police corruption and ended up arresting this Bangladeshi police officer for stealing shoes. The corrupt officer's friend worked in a sports shop and would sell this police officer a pair of trainers, but hand over 8 to be resold and the money split. All caught on video.
I am not for one moment saying that all ethnic minority police officers are incompetent or corrupt for they are not, I have worked with many who are exceptional. My point is when you lower the bar you allow unsuitable candidates to progress who then need sacking in the future - this is gold for the race-baiters who use it as proof of institutional racism. It is a no-win situation.
Over several decades, traditional professionalism declined as a result of lower standards. It is common now to see unshaven police officers dressed as if homeless. Tattoos used to be a sign of criminality and someone to avoid, but now many officers are covered in them, including female officers. Let us not even discuss the lack of polished shoes or freshly ironed uniforms.
This lack of professionalism is not a small sub-group of officers but the norm. We see it on TV in fly-on-the-wall programmes that follow the police during a shift and record engagements with the public. I end up screaming at the TV. Police officers should never refer to a member of the public as 'pal' or 'love' – it should always be 'sir' or 'madam'. Is this too much to ask?
A new phenomenon is online videos where members of the public film their engagement with police officers. Some of these individuals purposely try to antagonise the officer so they can capture it on video and upload it to YouTube. But this is no excuse when a police officer is rude, unprofessional, bullying or simply lying. Officers who cannot cope with dealing with annoying members of the public should not be police officers. Why would you employ a surgeon who cannot stand the sight of blood?
The final step into the abyss was when the police became political. I am not sure when or how this happened – but it did happen. I have seen it first-hand in my previous career based in police stations. I watched as the annual Moss Side carnival was treated with kid gloves and low-level crime was given a free pass. I worked on a plan to stop adult men from having sex with each other in public, only to have it all cancelled in case we were accused of homophobia.
The silliest example I can give is a story of flowerbeds and undercover cops. When I worked in East Manchester, we had a problem with teenagers tipping over huge flower bed containers outside a row of shops. It was not the crime of the century but it was antisocial and spoilt the aesthetics of this tiny civic centre – it needed sorting out. We had CCTV at the location but the kids knew this so put their hoods up whenever they did something they knew they should not be doing.
The local councillors constantly complained about this issue. One of the councillors was the second highest in the town hall and had real clout. Complaints were made that nothing was being done which was untrue. The local Inspector got his ear chewed off by his boss so this became the local priority. The police set up shifts of undercover police sat in unmarked vehicles opposite the flower beds for days. They were guarding daffodils. It was ultimately successful. On the third day, the police witnessed a twelve-year-old boy walk past the flower beds and pick a flower. The officers piled out of the vehicle like a SWAT team and grabbed him. It was the biggest farce I was ever a part of.
Today it is worse and more dangerous. Police officers can now publicly support any social cause they wish, especially if it is connected to the alphabet people (LGBTQ+). We have officers wearing rainbow flags on their uniforms as a sign of membership or allyship. This sends the message that if you do not support the LGBTQ+ agenda then the police are not a service for you. The British Transport Police told people not to apply to work for them if they disagree with this agenda.
We watched the police enforce tyrannical laws during the Covid lockdown unless it was Black Lives Matter - who went on to riot and injure the same officers who took the knee. It got worse when the eco-terrorists launched a series of peaceful attacks to grind cities to a halt. Police skateboarded with protesters, spoke to them like victims, and offered to do whatever they could to make them comfortable. It was clear to see which protesters were welcome and which were not.
Last year, we had a uniformed police officer in London assigned to a political march who joined in with the protest and shouted 'Free Palestine'. In the same year, another officer on social media complained that a Kuffar had used her cup at work which now had to go in the bin. Kuffar is a slur used to describe non-Muslims.
Let us not forget the horrendous Wayne Couzens, the police officer who used his position to stop, kidnap and murder an innocent woman in London. His background was full of red flags, including his work nickname, 'the rapist'.
It would be disingenuous to try to claim that the British Bobby is still the best in the world for it is obvious that this is untrue. They are better than having no police force at all, that is the best I can currently say. A root and branch review is needed.
I call for a Royal Commission into UK Policing. We need to figure out how to create a professional, competent, non-political police force fit for the 21st century. We cannot leave it to the police to fix themselves for they are the problem and many are invested in the current system. We need a fresh broom.
I still support the police for only a fool thinks that society would be better without them.
But I am no longer an automatic supporter of the police and I do not trust them with my liberty - they have fallen far.
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Absolutely spot on Nick!
I also know for certain that honesty and integrity are virtually extinct at GMP. Is that as a result of the changes that you mention above? I personally believe that the majority of police officers these days, regard telling lies to be a standard and expected part of their job. I truly do. Perhaps only little white lies to cover for innocent mistakes or incompetence. However, when challenged, small lies can then become shocking, evil, corruption.
GMP and the MET have destroyed my lovely life, however I refuse to let them destroy my passion and my soul.
I will definitely be supporting your Lord Mayor challenge Nick, and I will be spreading the word too! The sooner Bent Burnham is ousted, then the sooner we can put the Great back into Manchester. Hopefully then, the rot that infests GMP on a huge scale, will be identified and treated appropriately.
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