About a year ago a number of people were discussing whether the anti-cuts movement should be fighting cuts to the police, prisons, probation services etc. There was discussion about how the police were simply another public service doing their job and the poor boys in blue were in the same position as the rest of us.
Meanwhile the police got on with their jobs and attacked anyone attempting to engage in meaningful action against the cuts (i.e. anyone who wanted to do a bit more than walk through London blowing a vuvuzela before listening to Ed Miliband give a speech). In the past month a number of people have been convicted in relation to the policing of anti-cuts protests. These include 10 people arrested, charged and last week finally convicted for entering ‘Fortnum and Mason’ and sitting down. The grounds for the prosecution was that it upset some people and logically implies that any protest that is noticed by the people being protested against is potentially illegal. Of course we are not at that stage (yet). But a quick look at some of the recent prosecutions for violent disorder suggest that politically motivated policing is alive and well. How else do you explain young people with no previous convictions receiving 18 month sentences for throwing two sticks? Or for being on a train platform where a fight broke out? Why else is Alfie Meadows facing a trial for an offence that carries a five year sentence following his daring to complain about needing brain surgery after a close encounter with the TSG?
A recent story on Indymedia drew attention to the fact that some people in police have actually realised they are going to suffer as a result of government policy too. One of the Police responses seems to be to aim to spend as much money as possible and then argue they can’t cut anything, hoping the Government will bail them out. This seems to explain the Met’s public order strategy. On November 9th. 4000 officers (including undercover officers) were used to police a demonstration they claimed only had 5000 people on it.
The problem is, the army thought that because they were fighting two wars and might soon be fighting one in Iran they would be exempt from cuts. Unfortunately they learned that the only one exempt were the Generals and Admirals. Now Britain has more Admirals than ships and more Generals than regiments. The troops on the ground received redundancies and lost equipment (resulting in loss of life) while being told to get on with it. There is nothing to indicate that the boot boys in the police will be treated any differently. As they receive pay cuts and redundancies they will be expected to hit people harder and be oppress faster.
Of course some officers have realised this. A quick glance at police blogs on the internet show that a lot of them are whingeing. For doing the dirty work of the rich they expect more, not realising that they are nothing special. Any idiot can swing a truncheon and there are always more thugs lining up to do so. The birth of the PCSO has already proved that you don’t need a fully trained police officer to do the basic work of a policeman and since serving officers will always side with the rich they can’t do anything about cuts in pay and being replaced by private security guards or thugs with slightly less skills.
Yet one Sergeant has said enough is enough! Sergeant Nigel Tompsett has taken a stand! He has taken action!
He hasn’t involved himself in the anti-cuts movement or attempted to build links and solidarity with the rest of the working class. That would involve changing sides. It would involve admitting that the cuts are not benefiting the whole of society. No, he has decided that the police, because they are so loyal to the rich and government, should be a special case. While everyone else deserves to suffer as a result of the public sector cuts, the police should be exempt. So he has started his own protest (just like the police occasionally do their own marches where only police can take part). He started this action by doing an e-petition requesting that police (and only the police) should have their pensions exempt from government reform because of “the absolute uniqueness of the role of Police Officer.”
So in Nigel’s opinion the police pensions should be protected, but all other public sector pensions can be cut. Look after the police and everyone else can go to hell!
If he wasn’t already a police officer I would call him a self-centred scab, chasing his own interests at the expense of everyone else. Imagine if teachers marched under a banner saying ‘We support (and will help to introduce) all the cuts, except the ones that effect us!’ However he is a police officer, so all I can say is that this is what you can expect from the men and women of this organisation.
Yet the police regularly tell us about how they have the support of the majority of the public. You would think that people would be flocking to sign Nigel’s petition. Surely Nigel’s fellow officers would show solidarity for their own profession, even if they can not find it for the rest of their class.
Police blogger ‘Inspector Gadget’ even paused from his usual blog, drawing attention to the petition. Instead of his usual themes of arguing that police should be free to kill, demonstrators should be put in concentration camps and courts and prisons are too easy, the Inspector wrote in support of Nigel. Surely with the backing of a blog that claims to have 6 million hits and is the regular internet forum for police officers who want to make rape jokes about people sent to prison, Nigel would easily get the 100,000 hits needed for the petition to succeed.
Sadly not. The petition has so far managed a miserable 9,286 signatures. Just 9,286 people think the police should be a special case. Just 9,286 people could be bothered to sign a cyber petition on behalf of the police. In the UK there are more that 9,286 police officers. Some of them even have family members who are not policemen. Yet Nigel has not got enough of them to believe that MPs should debate whether the police should be a special case when it comes to the cuts.
Many people will probably point out that the petition has a long time to run yet. However this issue (if you believe the police) should not be a slow burner. It is somehting that everyone supports. After all, everyone loves the police and they do a job a normal person couldn’t do. (Actually I agree with this last point). I have no doubt that people like ‘Inspector Gadget’ will eventually drum up anough support for Nigel’s petition. But considering that the police are a special case and they are currently treated badly is repeated over and over again by the whingers in blue 9,286 is an extremely small amount of support. Considering the number of people who will have seen or been informed of the petition (after all I found out about it) 9,286 is a laughably small amount of support.
9,286 people surely shows the level of popularity the police enjoys. It shows the number of people who think they do an exceptional job that no one else can do. It shows the Britain may still support the police, but only 9,286 people actively support the myth the police spread about themselves!
Sussex Calling! 