The Government Pantomime 2010 – The Wizard Of Oz

The Pantomime season is upon us, and New Labour have already started rehearsing their parts, as was witnessed by Jack Straws' perfomance last week!

Here's our take on the Pantomine farce that Labour expect everyone to sit back, enjoy, and clap loudly with appreciation!

Starring :-

• Gordon Brown as the Great and Powerful Oz
• Jack Straw as (you’ve guessed it!) The Scarecrow with no brain
• Alan Johnson as the Cowardly Lion with no courage
• Peter Mandelson as the Tim Man with no heart
• Harriet Harman as Dippy Dorothy
• John Prescott as Toto The lapdog

We all know the story so let’s jump forward to the scene at Number 10, the Emerald Palace, where our heroes have killed Wicked Witch “Maggie” of Britain and now want their reward. As they enter the great hall, the booming voice of OZ bellows “I can’t believe my eyes, why have you come back?” 

Dorothy: “Please, sir. We've done what you told us. We've brought you the broomstick of the Wicked Witch of Britain. It took us twelve years, but we’ve done it, we’ve melted her. We’ve ruined her economy, we’ve flooded her country with immigrants, we’ve strangled her health and justice system with mountains of paperwork, and we’ve done such a good job on her police force, confidence is at an all time low. They really tried to beat the system you told us to put in place to do the job properly, but we beat them! - So we'd like you to keep your promise to us, if you please, sir. We want to be re elected so we can keep playing this great expenses game.”

OZ booms out : “Not so fast! Not so fast! I'll have to give the matter a little thought. Go away and come back tomorrow!”

Dorothy: “Tomorrow? Oh, but I want to be re-elected now.

TIN MAN: “You've had plenty of time already! Twelve years in fact”

LION: “Yeah!

OZ: “Do not arouse the wrath of the Great and Powerful Oz! I said come back tomorrow!”

At which point, Toto scampers over to a curtain in the left of the great hall, and starts to pull at it.

DOROTHY: “If you were really great and powerful, you'd keep your promises!”

OZ: “Do you presume to criticize the Great Oz? You ungrateful creatures! – you don’t know much about this political wizardry stuff do you? We never actually keep our promises. The trick is to make everyone think we have! If we can’t do that, then we wait till its time to re elect the Wizard and we blame everyone else, like the police, just ask the Straw-Man – he’s the expert! – Good job this week with the coppers Scarecrow – that will really fool the voters!”

Toto pulls back the curtain to reveal the Wizard behind the curtain, at the controls of the throne apparatus . . . . . They all see him for what he really is, a pathetic excuse for a wizard after all.

 

OZ: “Think yourselves lucky that I'm giving you audience over the next few months, instead of twenty years from now. Oh -- oh oh! The Great Oz has spoken!

Seeing the curtain has been pulled back and his pretence at Wizardry revealed, the Wizard peers out from behind the curtain -

DOROTHY: “Who are you?”

OZ: “Well, I -- I -- I am the Great and Powerful Wizard of Oz”

DOROTHY: “I don't believe you!”

WIZARD: “No, I'm afraid it's true. There's no other Wizard except me”.

SCARECROW: “You humbug! I could do the job better than you”

LION: “Yeah!”

WIZARD: “Yes-s-s -- that...that's exactly so. I'm a humbug!”

DOROTHY: “...you're a very bad man!”

WIZARD: “Oh, no, my dear -- I'm -- I'm a very good man. I'm just a very bad Prime Minister, I mean Wizard. Uh - now, please don't be angry with me. I'll - I'll do anything you say, only... only if you don't shout at me. It makes me nervous!”

SCARECROW: “It makes you nervous?”

WIZARD: “Yes. I get scared you want my throne”

SCARECROW: “What about us? What about the heart that you promised Tin Man-delson?” And the courage that you promised Cowardly A-Lion? (Alan – geddit?)

TIN MAN & LION: “And Scarecrow's brain?”

WIZARD: “Well, I-- but you've got them. You've had them all the time! Boys, you're aiming low. You not only surprise, but you grieve me. Except you Tin Man, no one would believe you had a heart even if I could give you one".

steps closer to the Scarecrow --

WIZARD: “Why, anybody can have a brain. That's a very mediocre commodity. every pusillanimous creature that crawls on the earth – or slinks through slimy stuff like you do, has a brain! Back where I come from we have universities, seats of great learning, where men go to become great thinkers. And when they come out, they think deep thoughts -- and with no more brains than you have.... But! They have one thing you haven't got! A diploma in deception!”

The Wizard reaches back and obtains several diplomas – selecting one and presents it to the Scarecrow as Dorothy, Tin Man and the Lion look on –

WIZARD: “Therefore, by virtue of the authority vested in me by the Universitatus Committeeatum e plurbis unum, I hereby confer upon you the honorary degree of D.D”.

SCARECROW: “D.D.? - hope it's more authentic than the honorary degrees they threw at me”

WIZARD: “Yeah -- that...that's Dr. of Deception! – Look at how well you’re deceiving the Wicked Witches people into believing their policemen like staying in the station more than catching crooks – better still, you’re getting them to believe that none of the problems are our fault – your already brilliant Straw-Man!”

The Scarecrow recites the Pythagoras Theorem -- reacting with joy –

SCARECROW: “The sum of the square roots of any two sides of an isosceles triangle is equal to the square root of the remaining side. Oooh, I feel lots more deceptive stuff coming on . . . Do you know I went to a Grammar School and then got my buddies to oppose selective education? I got a full grant at University – then my pals brought in student loans. Here’s a good one… I refused to join the Cadet Corps at school on conscientious grounds – then we sent thousands of soldiers to war. I ordered a review into police use of cautions in Nov 2009 – then my son escaped a criminal record by being cautioned for drugs offences in 1997. I spent £170,000 of taxpayers' money on fancy artwork to decorate my offices, £130 million

refurbishing headquarters, and £2,745,000 on new furniture and fittings - £915 per square foot, 18 times the cost of standard refurbishment in the private sector. What a wheeze this is! This is just the tip of the iceberg too – I used my MP’s expenses to claim full council tax despite only paying a 50% rate – and I’m the Justice Secretary! Oh joy, rapture! I've got a brain after all - ! – What’s that other thing I’m missing? – Integrity and honesty? – Pah! Who needs them when I can fool the voters I’m an alright sort of bloke! ”

SCARECROW: “How can I ever thank you enough?”

WIZARD: “Well, you can't. Well actually, there is one thing. Keep doing what you’re doing - making the voters believe it’s all somebody else’s fault. You never know, we, might get enough of the daft beggars to vote for us again and we can keep this gravy train rolling!”

EPILOGUE
Last week, Jack Straw's remarks about lazy coppers are politically driven and imply he knows little about the nature of grassroots policing.

Labour has an election ahead, and if, as seems likely, they don’t win, Jack Straw will be a candidate to lead the party. Little wonder the “Straw-man” has jumped on the police-bashing bandwagon. He knows the majority of people only encounter the police when being stopped for a minor motoring offence, or when the police are failing to clear up a deeply distressing crime. In the words of one senior officer who disliked Mr Straw's remarks, this was a cheap shot.

In fact, his comments amount to treacherous hypocrisy. Straw's four years as home secretary from 1997 to 2001 gave birth to the bureaucracy and crippling procedures and statistical fiddling that have prevented our police officers from doing their job the way they and we would want – and these deceptions were born and led from the Home Office. The police ceased to be crime-fighters and became an instrument for the imposition of political correctness. New Labour came in to power with a perverted set of beliefs about minorities, and made the police the enforcers of their doctrines. Criminal Justice spiraled downhill from that point.

Mr Straws priorities were to appease minorities first, fight crime second. Essentially bureaucratic, it was assisted by the 3000+ laws and regulations inflicted on the police by the Government of which Mr Straw has always been a very senior member. Sadly, some greedy and ambitious chief constables implemented a doctrine of political correctness that brought their officers into contempt and boosted the crime figures.

The police have been put in fear of their livelihoods from nonsense accusations of racism or homophobia from the public. It has stopped capable officers doing what they expected to do when they joined the force – fight crime and protect the public. It has left them with some leaders who are completely out of touch with the public and what proper policing should look like. The saddest consequence is that it has given birth to sections of society where delinquency and criminality are second nature. It will take a courageous Government to sort the mess that has become the legacy of New labour.

Don’t expect the "Straw-man" to admit his part in all this. But make no mistake, he has played a very significant role throughout the twelve years of Labour mis-management. Those senior police officers who have perpetuated the deceit of successful policing to further their ambition are unlikely to admit to their part in the deception either. The result is that society has become more dangerous and a large section of it has lost its moral compass.

Serving, retired and former police officers take great exception to the remarks made by Jack Straw about lazy coppers who would rather stay in a warm police station than patrol their beats.

As a former home secretary with responsibility for policing, Jack Straw has in the past shown great support for the police. It can be no coincidence that he has waited twelve years, until a few months prior to the election to make his comments. The “Man of Straw” surely cannot believe that any intelligent voter will fail to see through his latest deception. As Home Secretary, then Justice Secretary, let us remind you Jack…. You are responsible for the Criminal Justice system we now have to fix. You broke it with your idiotic and subversive policies. And now you expect us to be taken in by your efforts to shift the blame onto the front liners who have been forced to implement your failed strategies.

There are too many forms and strangling levels of bureaucracy and Straw should shoulder most of the responsibility.

Straw is now working to his own political agenda, so don’t be surprised to hear lots more of this nonsense and fingerpointing. Just remember this Jack. “When you point your index finger at the frontline police, look at the direction your middle, ring and pinky finger are pointing…. Three fingers pointing straight back at YOU!”

FUDGING CRIME STATISTICS IS NO WAY TO RESTORE PUBLIC CONFIDENCE

WHOOPEE!! Pass the rose coloured spex, crime is on the decrease, detections are on the increase. Or so the Government would have us believe.

Whilst the production of crime statistics remain the responsibility of the Home Office, the public faith in the Criminal Justice System will not be restored.

There are now countless examples of how this Government have manipulated the numbers to portray the impression that all in the garden is rosy.

According to research by the Committee on Standards in Public Life, trust in government Ministers to tell the truth is down from 27% (2006) to 22% (2008). Polls show politicians at the bottom of the list of professionals trusted by the public. What’s gone wrong, and what can be done about it?

At the most basic level, the Home Office has relied on the British Crime Survey to argue that violent crime has come down by 40% under this government, ignoring formal warnings by Sir David Normington, that ‘levels of the most serious violence are higher than they were ten years ago’. The BCS is an obviously poor measure of violent crime. It does not count homicide offences, rape and multiple assaults. It also excludes some of the most vulnerable victims of violence, including: the homeless, elderly people in care homes, students in digs and – until this year – all children. In fact, we know that police recorded violent crime has nearly doubled since 1997.

The Home Office clearly place great importance on the British Crime Survey (BCS), as this quote from the Home Office website confirms :-

"The BCS includes crimes which are not reported to the police, so it is an important alternative to police records. The BCS is a particularly important survey because it can provide a more complete picture of crime than police recorded crime statistics alone. The BCS includes crimes which are not reported to, or recorded by, the police and is therefore unaffected by changes in recording practices. It can provide the best guide to long-term trends in crime".

Reports from front line officers, of ridiculous levels of bureaucracy and procedure confirms what many of the public already suspect, that their effectiveness is severely impaired. This results in a lack of public confidence in the system of policing in the UK. How can the public be expected to have confidence in either BCS statistics or police recorded crime, when the BCS figures for 2008 suggest that over 10 million crimes were committed, yet the police recorded numbers amount to only 4.7 million?

Again front line officers provide an answer. They tell us that so much time is consumed recording and dealing with so many minor offences that are purely for the purposes of meeting political performance targets, that the most desired objective, providing protection where it's needed most, is the most impossible target of all to hit. This Government have introduced over 3000 new offences since arriving in office.

When Gordon Brown took office, he promised ‘a different type of politics – a more open and honest dialogue: frank about problems, candid about dilemmas’. And the reality? Back in June 2008, he responded to a planted question in Prime Minister’s Questions, by claiming ‘As far as CCTV is concerned, in the most recent experiment, in central Newcastle, CCTV reduced crime by 60 per cent’. Dig below the surface, and the study relied upon was not recent at all – but published in 1995. Whilst burglaries in central Newcastle allegedly fell by 56%, the wider area showed a fall in burglary of just 2%, whilst criminal damage and theft rose by 8%. The Prime Minister ignored as inconvenient subsequent Home Office studies (2005 and 2007) showing CCTV had ‘little overall effect on crime levels’ because 80% of CCTV footage is not fit for purpose.

THE WAY POLICE RECORD CRIME

Public access to information about crime in their local area has improved. And yet the Government still have not delivered on this promise to the full extent the public deserve.

The table below illustrates the 43 police forces of England & Wales, showing the population & households each force is responsible for, and the share of the national crime each polices.

The BCS is published in July each year detailing crime that occurred in the previous year. Six months have elapsed by the time the document goes to print. The statistics are already history, so what's a bit of manipulation and fudging here and there? The public will never know the difference, so why not exploit the opportunity to sensationalise and spin with inaccurate headlines? Alan Johnson, the Home Secretary in a recent speech, said that crime statistics are the least important part of the problem. Well, he would say that when the years of manipulation have served only to diminish public confidence still further.

Only by opening the books and exposing the real picture, will there be an opportunity for reform.

Have a look at the table. Of the 43 police forces 34 subscribe to the same analytical software that the public may view for the current crime in a particular area.

The top nine forces in the table police 41% of the population & households and a massive 48% of the nations crime. Yet these same forces are permitted, perhaps even encouraged to utilise their own software that is not as easily interrogated. The question has to be asked whether this is yet another Government strategy to make the collating of national current crime less accessible. The national picture of current crime is not easily obtained. When 48% of it is made difficult and laborious to compile, there are not many who would bother. And so, once again, the Government continues its charade of falling crime.

Click the table to see full view

Beyond the Home Office, the manipulation of government information has become endemic. The government has fiddled the figures on numbers claiming Jobseekers allowance to mask the true state of unemployment. The Treasury has disguised the level of government debt. Last year, the National Audit Office criticised the government for the way it counts carbon emissions, to overstate its record by up to 12%.

This is bad for policy-making – if you cover up the problems, how can you solve them? It also erodes public trust. Government must be much more honest about the challenges facing the country, if we are to begin to tackle them. Short-term spin must give way to proper long-term strategic thinking. That is the way to restore public confidence.

We would advocate and support the proposal to make crime statistics properly independent. This would remove responsibility for compiling and publishing crime figures from the Home Office, who clearly cannot be trusted to be truthful with the electorate and not to apply their political spin. The reposnsibility should be placed with the Office for National Statistics which is totally independent. The pre-release access that Ministers and political advisers get to crime statistics should be abolished – so the public would be the first to get an honest account of the facts. Any politician can talk about resuscitating public trust. The party that demonstrates their intentions and follows it up with decisive action that is genuinely in the public interest, will have the best chance of achieving it.

Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

CONSERVATIVE PROMISE - IN A NUTSHELL

Following on from the rousing Conservative party conference in Manchester last week, here, in a nutshell, are a selection of observations, quotes and pledges from the speeches of David Cameron and Chris Grayling on the plans they have to reform the Criminal Justice System. 

• Criminals aren't caught because the police are stuck at desks doing paperwork.
• Violent offenders, sex offenders and heroin dealers get off with cautions because it’s the least hassle.
• Even if they go to prison, the Government releases them automatically after a fraction of their sentence to reoffend on the same streets as before.
• People think our criminal justice system is broken.
• Worrying too much about the criminals and not enough about the justice.
• It makes me furious. It makes you furious. And law abiding, decent, people are asking - who’s looking after me?
• That’s why need radical reform in every part of the system. The police. The CPS. The courts. Prisons. Probation. We need to sort it out, so there's no more excuses, no more buck-passing, no more nonsense. We need a criminal justice system that is focused on fighting crime and that is exactly what we plan to deliver.
• No one thinks that the Government’s 24 hour drinking regime has led to the creation of a “continental café culture.
• We’re not talking about stopping people enjoying a few drinks in the pub. But things have gone far too far. Our town centres on a Friday and Saturday night can be battle zones for our police. Local parks and local estates are blighted by gangs of young troublemakers…. fuelled by alcohol given to them by irresponsible adults.
• I have talked to people up and down the country whose lives are being ruined by antisocial behaviour. It’s time we stood up for them.
• We’ll start with the problem of fourteen year olds hanging around with bottles of super-strength beers or ciders. It’s much too easy for them to get very drunk quickly and cheaply.
• We will increase the price of a four pack of super strength lager by £1.33. We will more than double tax on super strength cider. And our planned increase on alcopops will raise the price of a large bottle by £1.50. These tax changes will not hit responsible drinkers.
• We’ll tear up this Government’s lax licensing regime. Right now virtually anyone can get a licence to sell alcohol. We even have all night takeaways selling more drink to people as they stagger home from the pub. We will change that.
• We’ve also got to deal with those who commit the acts of antisocial behaviour and disorder as well. Right now they can offend again and again and just get away with it.
• Our criminal justice system is sending all the wrong messages. We need real punishments for young troublemakers. Not to send them home with a rap over the knuckles. That’s why we are working on a range of instant punishments for antisocial behaviour.
• Like grounding the offenders for up to a month. Or making them do community punishments, like cleaning up local parks. Real consequences for the trouble they’ve caused. But that’s for low level offences.
• For the more serious incidents, things must be different. We were all shocked by the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington. But let’s be clear. What happened to her wasn’t antisocial behaviour. It was criminal.
• Giving someone a caution or a fixed penalty notice means box ticked, case closed, another solved crime. But we know the system is being misused.
• But when serious offenders, like people carrying knives, also get off with a caution, when they should be behind bars.
• I think anyone who assaults a police officer should end up in court facing time behind bars.
• It’s time for a new deal with our police. We’ll deal with the things that frustrate them. We’ll get rid of the mountains of bureaucracy that make it easier to cut corners. We’ll provide them with proper protection against violence. We’ll get rid of the target culture that makes it easier to issue a caution than to prosecute. And we’ll give them back more power to charge criminals themselves.
• But in return we want real action against the troublemakers. And we want them to be more accountable to the communities they serve. The next Conservative Government will get rid of Britain’s caution culture. And will demand real moves to tackle antisocial behaviour. It’s time justice was really done on our streets.
• We will tear down Labour's big government bureaucracy, ripping up its timewasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.
• The police, the prosecution services, the prisons … is failing under the weight of big government targets and bureaucracy. The police aren't on the streets because they're busy complying with ten different inspection regimes.
• The police say the CPS isn't charging people because they have to hit targets to reduce the number of unsuccessful trials.
• And the prisons aren't rehabilitating offenders because they're focused on meeting thirty three different performance indicators.
• This all needs to change. I'm not going to stand here and promise you a country where nothing bad ever happens. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with this problem of crime and disorder.
• We cannot rebuild social responsibility from on high. But the least we can do the least we can do is pledge to all the people who are scared, who live their lives in fear and who can't protect themselves, that Chris Grayling, with Dominic Grieve, will reform the police, reform the courts, reform prisons.
• I see a country where you're not so afraid to walk home alone, where you're safe in the knowledge that right and wrong is restored to law and order.
• But if we pull together, come together, work together — we will get through this together.
• And when we look back we will say not that the government made it happen … not that the minister made it happen … but the businesswoman made it happen … the police officer made it happen … the father made it happen …the teacher made it happen.

You made it happen.

 

Right now it seems that the Conservatives are closest to the real issues and have the desire to bring about the reforms that are essential if we are to enjoy a more peaceful society. The message we would send out to whichever party is elected at the next election is this. Show us that you have learned from the lessons, mistakes and errors of judgement of the past. Waste no time on party policital spin, we've had a belly full of it. Ditch the blame culture once you have cleared the decks. Show us the truth about the state of the Criminal Justice System as it stands now, then waste no time on blame, show us with your actions that you are healing the wounds inflicted on this country over recent years. Then you will have our blessing, support and confidence. 
 
One last thing. There will be sectors of society waiting for you to trip up. Show us your guts and determination to succeed for us all. Don't give them the ammunition to shoot you. There will be those who will accuse you too, of having your noses buried deeply in the trough. Be aware of that. Act with transparency and honesty so that we will not feel our trust is misplaced.   
 
The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited
 
 

David Cameron : We'll Put Britain Back On Her Feet

David Cameron today pledged to defend “family, community, country” as he set out his vision for “a responsible society” under the Conservatives.

Promising he had the character, temperament and judgment to lead Britain, he described “how good things could be” if Government was cut back to help “put Britain back on her feet”.

He started with "I want to get straight to the point.We all know how bad things are: massive debt, social breakdown, political disenchantment. But what I want to talk about today is how good things could be. Don't get me wrong, I have no illusions. If win this election, it is going to be tough. There will have to be cutbacks in public spending, and that will be painful. We will need to confront Britain's culture of irresponsibility and that will be hard to take for many people. And we will have to tear down Labour's big government bureaucracy, ripping up its time-wasting, money-draining, responsibility-sapping nonsense.


"Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility.
Recognising that what holds society together is responsibility, and that the good society is a responsible society – that’s what I’m about, that’s what any government I lead will be about,” Mr Cameron told the Conservative party conference in Manchester.

On Law and Order . . . .

The instinct to protect the people we love is so strong. Nearly two years ago it was that instinct – that love – that drove Fiona Pilkington to do something desperate.


When I first read her story in the paper I found it difficult to finish the article – it's one of the saddest things I've ever read.

Fiona was so driven to despair by the vile thugs that bullied her and her lovely disabled daughter Francecca and by the police that didn't answer her cries for help that she could only see one way out. She put her daughter in her car, drove to a layby, and set it on fire.

If no one would protect them then by ending their lives, she was keeping them safe.

No one could hurt them anymore. Just think about what we allowed to happen here in our country. This goes deep and it's been going on for years.

It is about a breakdown of all the things that are meant to keep us safe … a complete breakdown of responsibility.

A breakdown of morality in the minds of those thugs a total absence of feeling or conscience. A breakdown in community where a neighbour is left to reach a pitch of utter misery. And a breakdown of our criminal justice system.

Every part of it, the police, the prosecution services, the prisons … is failing under the weight of big government targets and bureaucracy. The police aren't on the streets because they're busy complying with ten different inspection regimes. The police say the CPS isn't charging people because they have to hit targets to reduce the number of unsuccessful trials.

And the prisons aren't rehabilitating offenders because they're focused on meeting thirty-three different performance indicators.

This all needs to change. I'm not going to stand here and promise you a country where nothing bad ever happens. I do not underestimate how difficult it will be to deal with this problem of crime and disorder.

We cannot rebuild social responsibility from on high. But the least we can do the least we can do is pledge to all the people who are scared, who live their lives in fear and who can't protect themselves, that a Conservative government, with Chris Grayling, with Dominic Grieve, will reform the police, reform the courts, reform prisons. We will be there to protect you.


Why is our society broken? Because government got too big, did too much and undermined responsibility.


Why are our politics broken? Because government got too big, promised too much and pretended it had all the answers.

Of course it was done with the best intentions. And let's be clear: not everything Labour did was wrong.

Devolution; the minimum wage; civil partnerships, these are good things that we will we keep.

But this idea that for every problem there's a government solution for every issue an initiative, for every situation a czar …

It ends with them making you register with the government to help out your child's football team. With police officers punished for babysitting each other's children. With laws so bureaucratic and complicated even their own attorney general can't obey them.

To read the full speech transcript click here

Chris Grayling: A no-nonsense approach to crime and disorder

The shadow home secretary, the Rt Hon Chris Grayling MP spoke today at the Conservative Party conference. He oputlines some of the plans he would implement as Home Secretary in the event of the Conservative Party being elected to Government in the election next year.

Let me tell you a story about life in Britain today. About one of our soldiers in Afghanistan. He was home on leave In his local town centre on Saturday night. Out of the blue he was attacked and beaten by two drunk youths. The police were called. The two attackers were arrested.

And let off with a caution. Not tried. Not put behind bars. Not even given a community sentence. Just given a legal slap on the wrist.

Time and again the troublemakers just seem to get away with it. The gangs, the drunks, even those who commit acts of violence. They just get away with it.

Criminals aren't caught because the police are stuck at desks doing paperwork. Or because they aren’t listening to the communities they are supposed to protect.

Violent offenders, sex offenders and heroin dealers get off with cautions because it’s the least hassle option for police and the Crown Prosecution Service. And even if they go to prison, the Government releases them automatically after a fraction of their sentence to reoffend on the same streets as before.

People think our criminal justice system is broken.

Worrying too much about the criminals and not enough about the justice.

It makes me furious. It makes you furious. And law abiding, decent, people are asking - who’s looking after me?

Well, my message to them is that a Conservative Government will start looking after you.

That’s why need radical reform in every part of the system. The police. The CPS. The courts. Prisons. Probation. We need to sort it out, so there's no more excuses, no more buck-passing, no more nonsense. We need a criminal justice system that is focused on fighting crime and that is exactly what we plan to deliver.

But today I want to focus on the antisocial behaviour that blights so many of our communities. And the drunken disorder that so often causes it. No one thinks that the Government’s 24 hour drinking regime has led to the creation of a “continental café culture”.

We’re not talking about stopping people enjoying a few drinks in the pub. But things have gone far too far. Our town centres on a Friday and Saturday night can be battle zones for our police. Local parks and local estates are blighted by gangs of young troublemakers…. fuelled by alcohol given to them by irresponsible adults.

I have talked to people up and down the country whose lives are being ruined by antisocial behaviour. It’s time we stood up for them.

Last week in Brighton Ministers announced tweaks to the system so they could claim to be doing something about it. They aren’t. We will.

So let me tell you how we’re going to tackle binge drinking and antisocial behaviour.

We’ll start with the problem of fourteen year olds hanging around with bottles of super-strength beers or ciders. It’s much too easy for them to get very drunk quickly and cheaply.

So let me today give you more detail of our plan to introduce big increases in the tax on super strength alcohol.

We will increase the price of a four pack of super strength lager by £1.33. We will more than double tax on super strength cider. And our planned increase on alcopops will raise the price of a large bottle by £1.50. These tax changes will not hit responsible drinkers.

The ordinary pint in the pub will not be affected. and there’ll be exemptions for some local traditional products. But we’ll call time on the drinks that fuel antisocial behaviour.

Then there are supermarkets which boost the sales of other products by selling alcohol below cost price. That also fuels Britain’s binge drinking culture. So we will ban them from doing so.

We’ll tear up this Government’s lax licensing regime. Right now virtually anyone can get a licence to sell alcohol. We even have all night takeaways selling more drink to people as they stagger home from the pub. We will change that.

Local councils will have the power to stop town centres being taken over by pubs, clubs and off-licences. We’ll give communities a right of veto over new licences in their area.

There’ll also be tough new rules for existing licensed premises. Councils will be able to restrict opening hours. There’ll be strict penalties for pubs and off-licences that break the rules. Much bigger fines if they sell to under age drinkers. If they do it again, we’ll close them for a few days as a penalty. And if it still happens, we’ll strip them of their licence permanently.

There’s also the huge cost of policing areas that are already dominated by pubs and clubs and off-licences. Under a Conservative Government late night problem premises will pay more for their licence. So we can pay more for policing in our town centres to tackle the blight of antisocial behaviour after closing time.

I know some of those in the drinks industry will complain about the impact of these changes. But I think there are times when it’s right to put the interests of communities ahead of the interests of business.

We’ve also got to deal with those who commit the acts of antisocial behaviour and disorder as well. Right now they can offend again and again and just get away with it.

Our criminal justice system is sending all the wrong messages. We need real punishments for young troublemakers. Not to send them home with a rap over the knuckles. That’s why Dominic and I are working on a range of instant punishments for antisocial behaviour.

Like grounding the offenders for up to a month. Or making them do community punishments, like cleaning up local parks. Real consequences for the trouble they’ve caused. But that’s for low level offences.

For the more serious incidents, things must be different. We were all shocked by the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington. But let’s be clear. What happened to her wasn’t antisocial behaviour. It was criminal.

The people who did that to her should be behind bars.

There are too many serious offenders getting away with it. Our police are too inclined to take the easy option.

Giving someone a caution or a fixed penalty notice means box ticked, case closed, another solved crime. But we know the system is being misused.

Not just for the young men who attacked that soldier. Or the others who get violent on a Friday or Saturday night. But when serious offenders, like people carrying knives, also get off with a caution. When they should be behind bars.

And would you believe this. Last week I met the commanding officer of a local PCSO who had been assaulted by a gang member, and then thrown down a staircase. He was given an eighty pound fixed penalty notice. That is outrageous.

It is the sign of a system that is bust.

I think anyone who assaults a police officer should end up in court facing time behind bars.

Then there was the extraordinary claim by a senior police officer, at the inquest into the death of Fiona Pilkington, that the police are no longer responsible for antisocial behaviour. What complete nonsense. So it’s time for real change.

It’s time for a new deal with our police. We’ll deal with the things that frustrate them. We’ll get rid of the mountains of bureaucracy that make it easier to cut corners. We’ll provide them with proper protection against violence. We’ll get rid of the target culture that makes it easier to issue a caution than to prosecute. And we’ll give them back more power to charge criminals themselves.

But in return we want real action against the troublemakers. And we want them to be more accountable to the communities they serve. The next Conservative Government will get rid of Britain’s caution culture. And will demand real moves to tackle antisocial behaviour. It’s time justice was really done on our streets.

Ladies and Gentlemen. There are two other big priorities for a Conservative Home Office.

The first is our immigration system. For twelve years it has been a complete shambles. Uncontrolled immigration. Widespread abuse of our student visa system. Human traffickers exploiting the vulnerable for profit. So let me make things clear today.

A Conservative government will be robust in the way it controls immigration. There will be no open door to Britain. Instead we will have a system that treats people fairly and decently. That welcomes those who should be able to come and live here. Like the Gurkhas who have done so much for our country.

But we’ll close the gaping hole in our student visa system. We’ll crack down on the traffickers. Britain will have its own, specialist border police force. We will set an annual cap on the number of people who can come and live and work here. I will not tolerate more of the chaos of the past few years.

The Home Office has another key responsibility. The security of our people and of our nation. To take the lead in the battle against terrorism. And the fight against an ideology of hate and violence. An ideology that damages the reputation of decent, law abiding British Muslims as well as threatening life and limb. And let’s be clear. That ideology wants to destroy the civil liberties that make this country what it is. No Government should allow them to do so, and the way this Government has eroded those liberties is shameful and must be reversed.

Our police and security services have done a magnificent job in protecting us against the terrorist threat. We owe them a huge debt of gratitude. But we are still not tough enough on those who spread a doctrine of hate in Britain. So I will immediately ban Hiz b’ut Tahrir, and any other group that actively incites hatred and violence.

We also have extremists using video links to hold meetings with banned preachers of hate from overseas who urge violence against our society. If I am Home Secretary the people who organise those meetings will be arrested and prosecuted. Under this Government the extremists have been free to protest on our streets and incite violence and hatred in the most blatant ways.

We cannot and we will not allow this to continue.

Ladies and Gentlemen.

What people want from the Home Office is a no-nonsense approach to the crime and disorder problems in their communities. They understand that those problems are complex.

That we need to get to grips with the social problems that foster crime …. ….as well as with the crime and antisocial behaviour itself. But right now they are hugely frustrated.

They feel let down by the police. They feel let down by the courts. They feel let down by the Government.

Above all they believe that under Labour those who commit crime and antisocial behaviour are just getting away with it.

They’re right.

They are.

And if we win, it will stop.

ARE YOU READY FOR THE TRUTH ABOUT POLICING IN THE UK?

One of the better police blogs is http://200weeks.police999.com/ which burst into life on September 9th 2005. The site was created by a rEgular police officer who has dedicated his life to the force and area that he serves.

In his own words, the site author has spent his entire life "in the trenches" as a front line officer. In February 2009, the author hung up his boots and truncheon, and after 30 years service, became a civilian in his police force control room, a vantage point from where he is able to continue his insightful reports on policing as it really is in the UK today.

A prolific and intelligent writer, "200" posts regular articles that provide an honest and informed view of the challenges that face police officers in their attempts to deliver a fair system of justice, despite an ever increasing burden of bureacuracy and idiotic procedures.

The articles reprinted below are two fine examples from "200" of real world of policing in Britain in 2009.

NOT IMPORTANT ENOUGH

The dreadful case of Fiona Pilkington whose life was blighted by anti social youths on her estate to such an extent that she took her own child’s life & committed suicide by setting fire to her car as they sat in it, will have some far-reaching repurcussions. The surprise is that, in the two years since this tragic event happened, there has been just about zero change in the way police deal with anti-social behaviour.

I spend every late shift in every town I control not sending police officers to anti social youths. This is despite the fact that I know what an effect it can have on people’s lives let alone their peace. I’m almost ashamed to say but I have anti social behaviour in my street & I never report it to the police, the reason purely & simply is, I know there is little chance of the police arriving before the youths have moved on. If it’s gotten too bad I have gone out there myself & given some ‘advice’, though I don’t like doing this in my own street. (I tend to climb over my back fence & appear from somewhere not near my house so they don’t know where I live).

The apalling crux of the matter is one of mathematics. We have X-amount of officers & we get Y-amount of jobs which take Z-amount of time. When Y x Z > X we cannot possibly get to all the jobs on time, if at all. We either have to make people wait, in some cases days, or we just don’t go.

The problem with antisocial behaviour is that it doesn’t fit in with any targets & we don’t get to tick any boxes. When Jay sends a text message to his ex-girlfriend Leah saying she’s a slag, that’s threats to violence or damage, malicious communications or a domestic, all of which are recordable & may result in a detected crime. When Mrs Miggins is fed up to the back teeth with a bunch of teenage yobs who spend every night shouting & swearing outside her bedroom & pissing up against her fence, that’s just a bit of ASB. Guess which one gets an officer sent to it whether they want one or not & which one gets closed off 2 hours after the youths have gone elsewhere with a ‘no officer available’ closing.

Mrs Pilkington did not have the protection afforded to certain groups within society. Had she been black or Asian, Jewish or gay, she would have had an officer every single occasion she phoned. There are teams within each police force whose sole job it is to look at ‘hate’ crimes against minority groups. I well remember a case of some kids throwing snowballs at a Jewish shop, on a day when the kids were throwing snowballs at everyone & anyone & we didn’t have the resources to deal with all the accidents & crime let alone kids chucking snowballs. Most of the snowball jobs just got closed off because there was absolutely no chance of us sending anyone; we had more important & immediate things to do. The Jewish shop had to remain open because the racism word had been mentioned. Within an hour the Inspector in charge of the diversity unit was on the phone to the control room inspector demanding to know why this racist incident hadn’t been assigned within the 1 hour requirement of force policy.

Nobody phoned up from any police unit who sit on their arses looking at logs in some office somewhere at HQ on behalf of all the other people being taunted by kids with snow. The fact that Mrs Pilkington had a disabled daughter, much of which taunting was aimed at, doesn’t seem to have cut any ice with the local constabulary.

I’ve blogged before about the unfairness of diversity policy & have argued that everyone should be treated on their own merits only. It completely baffles me that, for instance, a 6′6 Afro-Caribbean nightclub bouncer with years in the nighttime entertainment trade, who gets called a rude name is entitled to a better service than a vulnerable teenage girl who may be, unknowingly to us, considering suicide because of some bullying. How can a rule written on a policy somewhere at police HQ possibly differentiate between the effect on these two people & class one as somehow more deserving of a higher response than the other. Where is the leeway to attend based on the individual potential effect on the victim?

Just occasionally, someone will come up with a local operation to target antisocial behaviour. Extra resources will be called in & they will be tasked for ASB jobs alone, unavailable for RTCs, assaults or domestics. This is a clear acceptance of the importance of tackling such behaviour, but if it is important, why isn’t important all the time & on every estate.

Antisocial behaviour is the key to so many more problems in society. Someone who grows up not having consequences for their behaviour will learn that they are entitled to do what they want, when they want, to whom they want. They will grow up with a me, me, me attitude & will spend the rest of their lives demanding everything they can get. A child who grows up to respect other peoples needs & rights will end up as net givers to society.

When I was on the street I actually enjoyed helping to make other people’s lives a little better. One of the reasons I wanted to join the police was to help people who couldn’t help themselves. I held that belief until the day I retired. I still believe it. I am unable to do it because I do not have the resources nor the will from those who run the show to sort the matter out.

After the story of Mrs Pilkington, I will be wondering if the next job I fail to send an officer to will end up with someone murdering their child & topping themselves. That’s simply not fair & I don’t have the power to address it properly.

Time will tell whether the fallout from Mrs Pilkington will make any difference.

AND SO IT GOES . . . .


Twenty years ago Mrs Pilkington would have had a much better service than she got in the years leading up to 2007. There were many thousands less police officers. In March this year there were 144,000 police officers. In March 1987 there were 120,000.

We have 24,000 more police officers yet those available for front line policing have been slashed dramatically. I don’t have access to any figures for the amount of officers available for day-to-day policing calls so I can only go by my own experience. In 1987 one division I worked in paraded 18 officers split between 4 police stations. This did not include 3 rural cars which covered the villages, 1 officer in every neighbourhood beat & a rural officers who shared all the villages between them. We put out 9 patrol cars in the division plus a walker in each of the town centres & the police stations were open 24 hours a day.

Now those same 4 towns have a maximum of 8 officers between them, we are lucky if they can put out 5 cars in the whole division, all of the police stations are closed longer than they are open.

Back in the day the village bobby lived on the patch & knew everyone & everything there was to be known. He probably looked after 2 or 3 villages. Every estate had a neighbourhood officer who lived on their patch, they often had a little police office attached to their house, they too knew everyone, they were a vast source of information. What they knew & what they did couldn’t be recorded in an exel spreadsheet yet their value to policing was enormous.

Then someone in a wendy house somewhere decided that the only way to measure the success of an organisation was to match its performance against a written down set of criteria & the way to do this was to count beans. Suddenly, the value of everything was measured in beans & rural/neighbourhood officers didn’t grow any beans on their patches. Add to that the fact that they lived in expensive police houses.

The theory went that if you did away with neighbourhood & rural officers not only could you pull them all back to the nick where they could produce a few beans, you could also save the expense of maintaining their houses, sell them off & plough lots of lovely lolly into all the new & dynamic projects which were about to hit the world of UK policing. We lost a generation of intelligence which we are only now getting back, amazingly enough, through local PCSOs, who will, within a few years, be just as valuable a tool to police intelligence as the old village bobby.

It made good political – read voting – sense to increase the number of bobbies, so every government promised more. More bobbies means more votes ‘cos we all want more bobbies on the streets, only they never made the streets. They all went into disparate little ‘remit’ teams. You know the teams, they are the ones you ask for help when you’re struggling to meet all the frontline priorities who turn round & say “sorry, mate, not my remit”.

So we had the burglary squad, set up to specifically target burglary beans, the robbery squad busy collecting robbery beans, sexual offences squad, paedophile squad, computer crime squad, diversity squad, more officers means more potential for naughty goings-on so the rubber heel squad was boosted. We had the serious crime units, the bloody serious crime units, organised crime, it goes on. Then there are the units who monitor the other units, who count the beans, who supervise those who count the beans, who make sure the right beans are being counted.

So every time an Inspector of Constabulary comes a-calling & says, “now look here Mr Chief Constable, your force is doing particularly low in detections of spanner-wielding credit-card thieves” we have to have a department whose soul aim is to reduce spanner-wielding credit card thefts.

The problem for those on the front line is that most of the calls we get don’t lead to all the remit-beans. Nobody measures the prevention of crime, nobody measures kids who piss up your garage & chuck eggs through your windows, nobody measures depressed people who threaten suicide but never go through with it. You don’t get a bean for sitting outside a row of shops stopping the kids from spitting at people with special needs.

And if they’re not measured, they’re not important.

If the next Inspector of Constabulary comes round & says “Now look here Mr Chief Constable, the behaviour of teenage yobs in this area is apalling, this chart shows a 150% increase in bad language in front of old ladies, get it sorted” you’ll have so many shiny-arses out of their offices that the problem could be sorted in a year.

It ain’t gonna happen, though.

COMMENT

The authors of this site have been contacted by senior politicians who are capable of introducing effective criminal justice reforms. They tell us that they are interested and paying regular attention to the content on these pages. Whilst the statistical analysis contained in the reports from these pages is our work, the majority of the real life experiences are inspired by or drawn from people at the coal face of British policing, such as the author of the 200 site, Inspector Gadget, PC Bloggs and others contained in the "Thin Blue Line" links opposite.

To the politicians, Home Office civil servants and senior officers that may read these pages, we would invite you to spend some time reading some of the enlightening articles contained on these and other front line policing sites. Be prepared to confront the real world head on through these pages. We invite you to step out of your environment for a while, so that you may empathise with the challenges and obstructions faced by the front line officer. The content is an often colourful, honest view of the framework within which our guys at the coal face of society perform their increasingly difficult duty.

Listening is not enough. Take what you hear to heart. Then take the effective action only you are empowered to take, to make the necessary reforms that may ultimately restore public confidence in the Criminal Justice System that should be the bedrock of a decent, peaceful society.

We know the challenge is a difficult one that will require all your reserves of courage and direct thought. We know it involves accepting openly and honestly that mistakes have been made. Only by applying this level of honesty and transparency in any reforms you consider are appropriate, will your efforts bear the fruit in transforming society.

Britain is broken. You have the power to fix it. Cut through the distractions and obstructions that have plagued modern policing. Let us hear less of the minority projects and more of firm and effective use of police resources. Show us evidence that our taxes are being well spent, that the ratio of frontline officers actually available for real policework, dramatically exceeds those tied up counting beans, creating flow charts and ivory tower projects to justify the perpetuation of departments crammed with wasted resources.

Spend our money wisely. Show us the real value we deserve to see. You will find you have a much greater degree of public support and confidence from the wider public than you may have imagined.

We hope to see evidence of your efforts very soon.

The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

FIONA PILKINGTON - SOCIETY WITH A BROKEN MORAL COMPASS

The tragic story of the suicide of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter Francesca shocked the nation this week. Media attention returned to the events of that fateful day, following an inquest earlier this week when a coroners inquest ruled that police inaction had contributed to their deaths.

Years of torment from young neighbors led the despairing single mother to kill herself and her disabled daughter. Fiona Pilkington, 38, and her 18-year-old daughter, Francecca Hardwick, died when Ms Pilkington set fire to their car in Leicestershire in October 2007.

The ringleaders of a gang of children that terrorised Fiona and her daughter continue to be a menace in the area, the court heard. The children, who have virtually no parental control, are said to remain the root cause of antisocial behaviour on the street where they tormented Fiona and her severely disabled daughter, Francecca, for almost ten years. Fiona Pilkington suffered more than a decade of abuse from a gang of youths who terrorized her family by urinating on her house, taunting her developmentally challenged daughter and beating her severely dyslexic son. The family lived for more than 10 years under siege. A 16-strong gang of yobs regularly pelted Fiona’s house with eggs, they set fences on fire, pushed fireworks through the front door and taunted Francecca.

Most of us will never understand the mentality of feral yobs who stalk our streets. Though we’ve seen enough examples of lawlessness to know these knuckle-trailing neanderthals exist in increasing numbers and have utter disregard for the norms of a polite, civilised society.

Undoubtedly, the Leicestershire force will remain under the spotlight as a result of the crtiticism levelled against them. Time will reveal the degree of responsibility they must accept for the tragic events.

Superintendent Steve Harrod told the inquiry how low-level anti-social behaviour is now a local council’s responsibility. And the objective of British justice is to avoid criminalising young people.

COMMENT

Not so many years ago low-lives looking for trouble would have been hauled before courts or had the living daylights scared out of them by coppers determined to keep their beat problem-free. Now yobs tear up Asbos and mock authority. They consider the law a joke and who can blame them? While vile thugs circled Fiona’s family like wolves baying for blood her local force stand accused of doing nothing.

If the police were negligent in their duty, then those responsble should be identified and the appropriate action taken to prevent further similar occurrences involving vulnerable members of society.

The root cause of the problem though is symptomatic of policing in the UK in 2009. In exploring why the police might have failed in their duty it is essential to look beyond the front line officers who attended or dealt with calls.

The current state of the police is not the fault of good officers who want to do a proper job but are hamstrung by the burdens of paperwork and successive Government legislation, the latest being the excessive number of new offences brought in during the last twelve years by this Government.

Due to politically motivated control, bureaucracy and cost, the entire criminal justice system is corrupted from the top downwards starting with the treasury who hold the purse strings, and the Home Office who are allegedly in charge of policing.

Literally thousands of articles and posts echoing these sentiments have proliferated online forums during recent years. They can't all be wrong. There is something radically amiss with police priorities and modus operandi but, much more pertinently, they and the politicians are fully aware of it. There are plenty policemen and women imbued with moral integrity and sound motives. There are many police blogs where officers attempt to convey this very message to the public they serve.

Whichever Government is in charge, there needs to be an urgent and comprehensive review of policing in the UK and fast.

The sad case of Fiona Pilkington and her family are symptoms of a society whose moral compass is badly broken. It can be fixed but the repair work required needs to be more than the cosmetic surface level damage. A previous post from this site talked of the spoiled society, where some sectors of the younger generation are badly in need of a firm hand with a return to back to basics discipline and control. click here to read the article

If the Government are to start the task of fixing our society, then surely there is no better place to start than here. By instilling some firm handed forgotten disciplines within the "spoiled sector" of our youth, there will at least be a glimmer of hope that the UK may once again be a pleasant, less threatening place to live.


The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

IN SUPPORT OF INSPECTOR GADGET

http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/

Inspector Gadget is a real life senior police officer, fed up with the fiasco of manipulated crime figures & detections, mountains of paperwork that keep his team off the streets doing the job they love (locking up the bad guys), and all the crazy, politically correct nonsense and bureaucracy that is thwarting the delivery of justice in this country. For the first time ever, a senior policeman – writing under an assumed name for fear of exposure – breaks ranks to tell the truth about the collapse of law and order in the UK.

Anyone who has taken the trouble to read his book, "Perverting the course of justice" will have detected that the man behind it and his long running, extremely popular blog, cares a great deal about the standard of policing the tax payer receives.

With access to statistics about frontline police strength (much lower than you think), exclusive inside information on the political targets and interference which are bedevilling officers and detailed analysis of the lies politicians and senior police officers tell, his explosive book and blog reveals how bad things really are.

THE TRUTH THE HOME OFFICE DON'T WANT YOU TO HEAR

Make no mistake, the truth of policing and the Criminal Justice System in the UK in 2009, make for a truly sad indictment of how low this country has sunk in its self destructive pursuit of all things politically correct.

There is a delicate balancing act involved in a country that promotes civil liberties and yet seeks to deliver an effective justice system. Whilst both sides contribute valued and informed views to the debate, extremism on either side results in a lack of confidence from one section of the community or another.

The front line police officer is an excellent barometer of public opinion on the matter. Inspector Gadget tells some home truths about the decline of the justice system in an articulate, persuasive and informed manner.

Witnessing and dealing with society at its worst, more often than not without complaint or descension, the front line officer is well placed to form an accurate opinion of the state of our nation. There are well informed and articulate officers trying their level best in the face of considerable adversity to protect our society from moral decay. It is immensly frustrating to commit your life to an honourable cause, only to find the way blocked by extremist views that often serve to obstruct the delivery of the quality of justice and policing that is required.

Having read Gadgets' book and followed his blog for some time, the authors of this site were dismayed to witness an unwarranted attack on his character by a clearly frustrated civil liberties extremist over the last 24 hours. We won't dignify this extremists views by naming him. He has the right to public expression, and gadget, as the owner of the blog has the right to veto, delete and moderate comments that appear on the pages. This particular extremist takes pleasure in colouring his views with an all too often condescending and attacking flavour. Under different identities, this person makes attacking comments on other sites. It is hardly suprising therefore that his comments receive scant respect from other contributors. In a most recent act of defiance against gadget, this person has threatened to make a complaint against the police for "improper conduct".  A truly desperate measure from an individual with extremist views who is clearly desperate to have those views aired, regardless of the mass of contrary opionion.

On the basis of all that we have seen, we would openly condemn the activities of this individual and offer our support and encouragement to "Inspector Gadget" and other good spirited police bloggers forced into anonimity by the system.  Your identity is of no interest to us, and this persons desire to have you "outed" is scurrilous and serves no useful purpose for the public interest.  

EXCESSIVE & INAPPROPRIATE EXPRESSION OF CIVIL LIBERTIES

The introduction of PACE (the Police and Criminal Evidence Act) was a sledgehammer to crack a very small minority nut of police officers. Since its introduction, the civil liberties supporters have developed an extremist element whose beliefs are not representative of the community as a whole. Certain sections of the civil liberties communities have created an anti police - anti authority stance, which threatens the admininstering of justice and the right to a peaceful, undisturbed quality of life. No one could deny the need for adequate civil liberty in a civilised society. No right minded police officer would argue with the principle. However, there comes a time, when extremist views threaten to damage the fabric of society.

Article 10: Right to freedom of expression - The Human Rights Act


1. Everyone has the right to freedom of expression. This right shall include freedom to hold opinions and to receive and impart information and ideas without interference by a public authority and regardless of frontiers.

2. The exercise of these freedoms, since it carries with it duties and responsibilities, may be subject to such formalities, conditions, restrictions or penalties as are prescribed by law and are necessary in a democratic society, in the interests of national security, territorial integrity or public safety, for the prevention of disorder or crime, for the protection of health or morals, for the protection of the reputation or rights of others, for preventing the disclosure of information received in confidence, or for the maintaining of the authority and impartiality of the judiciary.


When public safety is compromised, when disorder threatens to erupt, when the balance shifts in favour of criminal activity, when the right of the majority to live a peaceful existence diminishes, then it is time to consider whether the balance has shifted so far toward politically correct activity. We must consider whether the extremist activity of the civil liberty supporters is having a damaging effect on the nation as a whole.

Politicians need to take a few steps back in order to take the country forward. Ask the public what they want on this seriously important issue. Let true democracy speak for the nation.

If there is disatisfaction and declining confidence with the public sector departments, including the police service, politicians need to be absolutely transparent and honest about possible solutions. Face up to the fact that there have been some serious errors of judgement and direction, compounded by excessive political influence and many would say interference. When pointing the finger of blame at the police service, look at the hand doing the pointing . . . .  invariably, one finger is pointed at the "accused" with three more pointing back toward the "accuser".  For honourable politicians reading these words, please listen to what the public are pleading for, HEAR what is being said, and take swift and decisive action to deliver the quality of democracy the majority of society is silently praying for.

The authors of this site are pleased to report that its contents are being monitored by senior politicians who have the welfare of this country and society at heart. Our plea to you at this juncture, is to listen to the silent voice of the general public. If the voices are too low to hear, please don't wait until they become a scream for help. Ask for their opinion, get the consensus you need, deliver true and transparent democracy and watch the public support and confidence return.

The Crime Analysis Team

Nice 1 Limited

FREE UK CRIME MAPPING TOOL

Would you like to know what the current crime level is in your area?

The Crime Analysis Team at Nice 1 Limited are delighted to be share with you, a facility to search the current crime statistics for any of the 43 police force areas of Englnd & Wales.

Click here to connect through to the site housed at the Telegraph newspaper. The link will take you to an interactive map, where you can click the police force area where you would like information. 30 of the forces subscribe to "Crime Mapper" which is a simple crime mapping facility. You will be able to drill down to small areas and see the most recent incident and frequency rates for burglary, robbery, car crime, violence and anti social behaviour.

The sites report whether the areas selected have recently experienced high, above average, average, below average or low levels of crime for the selected offences.

To visit the force mapping sites click a link below :-

Metropolitan
West Midlands
Greater Manchester
West Yorkshire
Merseyside
Thames Valley
Northumbria
Hampshire
Kent
Lancashire
Devon & Cornwall
Avon & Somerset
South Wales
South Yorkshire
Essex
Sussex
Nottinghamshire
West Mercia
Leicestershire
Staffordshire
Humberside
Cheshire
Hertfordshire
Derbyshire
Surrey
Durham
Cleveland
North Wales
North Yorkshire
Norfolk
Dorset
Gwent
Cambridgeshire
Suffolk
Gloucestershire
Northamptonshire
Cumbria
Lincolnshire
Bedfordshire
Wiltshire
Dyfed-Powys
Warwickshire
City of London

At the time of posting this article, some of the sites are having work completed, so a few of the links may not work until the work is complete.

COMMENT

Whilst the information contained on the force sites is a useful guide, it represents only the matters reported to the police and recorded as crime. The Home Office British Crime Survey, which is seen as a more accurate reflection of total crime, reports that crime figures are over double those reported.

So whilst the crime statistics recorded on police force site are a guide, they are not the complete picture, nor do they represent an exhaustive record of crime that occurs. Future posts from these pages will highlight the disparity between the two sets of figures.

It should be noted that the larger police force areas of London, Birmingham, Manchester and Thames Valley, have chosen to use their own crime mapping software. This in itself, obstructs the access of nationwide up-to-date information in identical format. A cynical observation might reflect that this is a means of obscuring the true picture of crime in England & Wales. These forces account for a large percentage of the population and overall crime, so the lack of current data in the same format, thwarts efforts to arrive at the current national position.

Only when all 43 forces operate the same software, will a greater degree of transparency for public consumption will be available.

The Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited

OFFICER SPEAKS OUT ABOUT LOW POLICE MORALE

LOW morale, not enough officers and a failing justice system are among the sentiments of rank and file police, a serving officer said today.The experienced officer did not want to be named, but spoke out amid a backdrop of crushing financial pressure from the government for the constabulary to slash millions of pounds from its budget. 

The modern police service faces many more challenges to its morale than ever before and many of the matters talked of here echo the sentiment of other articles from these pages. If the escalating problem of low police morale is the effect, what are the causes? 

Behind the scenes at this site, we are compiling hundreds of examples of officers voicing the same concerns about the decline of the service they love. The problem is not confined to a few disillusioned officers in small pockets of the country. This is a growing problem across all police forces in the UK, from an ever increasing number of rank and file frontline troops.

The balanced observations of one front line officer sum it up well. 

A POLICE OFFICERS VIEW FROM THE STREET

“I still love the job as much as I did when I first joined, but things have changed and not necessarily for the better. We see many times in the course of our careers all that is wrong with society and how inhuman people can be. Often a smile or joke can be a release valve. It seems more and more that we are not allowed an opinion or a sense of humour.

One thing that I have noticed more than anything is morale. I have never seen it so low. I talk to officers with five to six years service counting down the time they have left and that should not be.

My opinion for it being so low is down to a number of things; staff shortages, excessive workloads, a feeling of being let down by a seemingly uncaring senior hierarchy, the inability of the service in general to stand up for itself, and being let down by the judicial system.

I can say hand on heart that the vast majority of officers I have worked with over many years have been professional, caring, keen, and take great delight in locking up the bad guys.

On staff shortages, if you read the headlines from certain quarters they say we have no staff shortage problems. If the general public really knew that almost on a weekly basis and in some case daily, major towns have no officers to deploy to incidents as they are tied up on jobs or stuck in the custody areas.

It is not uncommon for officers to be drafted in from other areas leaving them short of cover, with specialist departments being used to backfill. Custody is regularly filled so that detained persons are taken to other stations. If this is the case then two officers are sent for escort and booking in.

Then the amount of time the booking in process takes, and then if that person is deemed as at risk he/she is put under constant supervision with a police officer. That means yet another officer down. You don't have to be brilliant at maths to see what the consequences are especially when I have known up to three constants on the go at the same time.

Officers who take crime reports are then allocated them to investigate. Obviously the more serious and involved are taken up by CID. As you can imagine an officer is not just given a couple to sort out but the list can be quite extensive.

The problem is that the list will continue to grow as more and more are allocated to that officer. With all the best will and dedication in the world some are not going to be investigated perhaps as fully as they could be.

This is not because the officer does not care. With time restraints and supervisory pressure, workloads must be trimmed. And I think you can guess the consequences.

The fact that a lot of offenders do not go to court is not down to the individual investigating officer or the service. It is down to the government department charged with prosecuting of suspects at court. They too have pressure to increase their conviction rates, so if they are not satisfied that there is a more than good possibility of a conviction they drop it straight away.

This is despite all the paperwork submitted, numerous interviews, and sometimes compelling evidence in the officers' eyes - and, most important of all, the expectations of the victim.

It does seem to be that before long they will only take on the guilty pleas.

Do I feel that we at times let the victim down? Yes. But we are not entirely to blame, the system is. I believe the system is squarely on the side of the offender rather than the victim. The younger and persistent offenders I come into contact with have no fear of the system or its punishments.

They look on young offenders' institutions as a holiday camp where they get free food, free games, free gym membership and are even allowed to keep together with their friends. They do what ever they like, when they like.

As police officers we are paid a good wage, and I for one have enjoyed every minute of it. I love my job and the satisfaction of getting a good result for the people who we serve. I feel the senior hierarchy needs to back us more and listen, not just preach. Yes, like all organisations or firms money is tight and cuts and financial savings have to be made, but not at the expense of the officers on the beat who are the backbone of the service and the ones getting the flak day after day on the streets.

We are the ones that have to face the job and all it entails face on and not from the comfort of a desk.”

Source : http://www.eveningstar.co.uk/

To read the full article, comments from his Chief Constable and Crown Prosecution Service click here.

COMMENT

Critical areas of police service policy and procedure is not only affecting officers morale. Many of the problems highlighted here are having a severly detrimental effect on public confidence in the police as a whole. Regrettably, the front line bobby is the thin blue line where the public aim their dissatisfaction. The target should really be the politicians and senior officers who set the policy these officers have to work with.

The general public want to see a more visible police presence, improved response times and common sense policing. Despite protestations from the Government to the contrary, there remains an excessive "performance culture" within the job. Combined with a lack of discretionary policing this has resulted in a service that is more consumed with political correctness and meeting statistical targets than the 'back to basics policing' the public and front line officers would like to see.

A disproportionate amount of time and resource is wasted on issues that affect a minority of the public. Meanwhile, the Government and senior officers perpetuate the the 'con' about declining crime figures and rising public confidence. The general public are not stupid. They are not taken in by statistics that are manipulated for the media or surveys that are not representative of the real public view.

The time for transparency is now. Clear the decks. Accept that the service has become swamped with bureaucracy and the quality of our society needs fixing fast if the country is not to slip into irreversible moral decline.

This will not happen within the time left with this Government. It seem likely that another party will be in power before any significant change will be seen. Will they be any different? For as long as politicians keep using crime and policing as a convenient political football to grow their overstaffed and excessive empires, then the answer is no.

A radical, honest and transparent approach is needed if public and police confidence is to be restored.

Acceptance that a system is not working is a first step. Forget blame, we don't care what or who caused it, we just want it fixed. Learn the lessons that are staring us in the face. Dismiss the performance culture policing, listen, HEAR and ACT upon what the front line coppers are telling us is inherently wrong with the service. Make every effort to eliminate committees and projects that detract from basics. Reverse the trend of spending 90% of the time and resource planning how you will improve things and 10% of  the time actually doing it. Stop giving us statistics and headlines we stopped trusting long ago. Give the police their dicretional common sense freedom that will enable them to do the job they joined for.

Are there any politicians and senior officers courageous enough to take the action needed? 


Crime Analysis Team
Nice 1 Limited