Politicians Vs. Police

The ongoing argument between Cameron and Tory Cabinet Ministers and the Police is nothing short of childish mindgames. The Government is attempting to score points and win support, and attempting to establish the old Tory ‘tough on crime’ image, whilst the Police are grasping at straws to restore the public’s confidence in them.

My father has just sat next to me, laughing at Theresa May as she argues on the BBC that Politician’s role is first and foremost is to reflect on the public’s opinion on how the police dealt with the riots over the weekend. My father is laughing because, being a Police Officer himself, he’s aware of the difficulty the Police face in dealing with situations which require force on the police’s behalf. His words were along the lines of “as if they don’t know” – it is important, however, that those who are accountable to the public are able to inform the police how the public feel, and tell the public why the police made certain decisions.

In my opinion, politicians should not be responsible in drawing up Police tactics. Unless those politicians have had real experience within the police, in drawing up tactics to deal with similar situations, politicians should only reflect on what happened and relay public opinion. A similar argument used in terms of the NHS.

The police need to be given the powers necessary to act, without the interference of government.

Should we really be cutting rioter’s benefits?

“An e-petition calling for rioters to lose their benefits has hit 100,000 signatures and become the first to be considered for a Commons debate.”

At risk of sounding like a broken record or a parrot, I’ll just say it how it is or how I see it. These riots (again, if they can be called riots) are unjustifiable and unfair on the remaining, majority, law abiding citizens – they are completely void of any reason, far removed from the original protest last week, and is purely law breaking and criminality. However, I don’t agree with the 100,000 (plus) people who would see the rioters who receive state benefits lose their benefits. Society has a social responsibility to ensure that the people who need help, the people receiving state benefits, have all the help and, more importantly, guidance to help themselves to ensure a standard of living for them and their family.

Cutting their benefits will not only affect them directly – as they’re likely to serve a prison sentence and lose their benefits anyway. It will indirectly affect their family, their children, and the elderly mother they could possibly be taking care of. Who looks after their immediate family, who can’t get work, can’t support their family once their lose the only income they receive? Those who commit the crime should bare the consequences, not those around them.

Yes, those who have caused complete chaos across some parts of England over the past few days, disturbing people’s day-to-day lives and terrifying others need to be brought to justice (the only thing that prison sentences really do), but those around them should not suffer for other’s transgression.

From a party political stance, the Liberal Democrats should not stop talking about social justice and social liberty. As opportunistic as it may seem we need to show to the public that we do stand aside from the Conservatives who would just lock them up, from Labour who blame the government’s cuts and would just aimlessly throw more money at these ‘pockets’ of people who have been directly or indirectly involved with the rioting over the past few days.

This is an opportunity for the Liberal Democrats, but more importantly for government and the police to re-establish law and order, to re-establish policing powers and demonstrate the full ability of the law.

People’s reaction to the riots

The riots are disgusting and are unjustifiable, but people’s reaction (mostly online) has been appalling and unfair.

People seem to have either forgotten or are completely ignorant to the fact that these riots began following a protest for the justice for someone who was killed during the G20 protest last year. They’re not even riots now – in the sense of rioting during the Miner’s Strike for example – it’s just vandalism, looting (everyone’s favourite word at the moment) and chaos. It’s not the ignorance and complete misunderstanding that annoys me, though.

The people who are rioting are being stereotyped in terms of class (if you can argue that we still live in a class-based society), race or where and how they live. While some of the stereotypes may be true, it’s blatantly ignorant to judge these people based on pre-empted stereotypes. I’ve seen ‘gypos’ – these people aren’t travellers, comments that these people could be receiving state benefits – many of these people are school-aged and/or working, comments about their age – there is a mix of ages. Stereotypes that people avoid, stereotypes which carry deep-rooted opinions which are often not completely true. The sooner people ditch the stereotypes, the sooner we can really address the issues which cause events like the rioting. Governments think throwing money at these communities will solve the problems, without taking the time to understand what needs the money and attention, and a majority of the general public would have them locked up, or left to their own means – and look where both ‘solutions’ get us.

Social media has shown how ignorant and, to put it bluntly, stupid people are. I know they’re meaningless facebook groups and comments but they are, all the same, representative of how the individual feels about certain issues and events. There are groups about bringing Raol Moat back to sort the riots out, groups about the fact that these are ‘English’ riots, not Welsh/Sottish/Irish riots, groups about stealing certain things, groups about why certain people aren’t rioting (the ones I’ve seen are about the fact that the “Welsh are too busy spooning sheep to riot”). I mean, people have statuses condemning these people, yet there are such stupid groups floating around. The hypocricy of people who feel as though they come across as cultured, or informed with statuses about the riots and the contradiction with the groups they join is just uncanny.

This blog post is a rant about rants; but it’s just so frustrating that I had to write – somewhere – about the stupidity and arrogance of it all.