Lately this blog has often seemed to be a very down beat look at the UK.
Vandals, thieves, drivers etc. And our particular bete noir, the Government. So is it time to look at the world through a rosier pair of specs this week? Nah. Not a bit of it. Kick 'em when they're down.
Some time ago, seemingly in a world far, far away people trusted the Police. You could always find your friendly local bobby (well that's the way most people seem to remember it). And indeed this picture of the past really isn't that far off the mark.
Then, insidiously, a change crept into British society. Like growing old. One day you look in the mirror and this fat, balding, old bloke has nicked your reflection.
Unfortunately the change of which your skipper speaks has spread like the piggies cold to infect a much wider spectrum of "authority" than PC 49. Recently we were treated to yet another tawdry example of how low our coppers now stoop in their "pursuit of duty". An insignificant lack of cooperation led to the death of some poor unfortunate who just happened to be on the scene when a perfectly legal demonstration took place. As we have seen before the knee jerk reaction of Mr Plod was to come up with a fantasy to explain the event, only to be shown as a liar when the ubiquitous cell phone footage made it's inevitable appearance. Sometimes all this surveillance serves a useful purpose. Some days you git the Baar, some days he gits you.
My main reason for this diatribe however is regarding the aftermath of such incidents. There seems nowadays to be no body in the public eye whose idea of disciplining their members appears nothing less than laughable to Joe Public. The police have been seen time and time again to want to do no more than cover each others arses. I know, I have had first hand experience of officers blatantly lying, in and out of Court, to cover their, or a colleagues tracks. Fortunately not all are infected with this trait but it is a disgrace that so many are. They view themselves as social outcasts but appear incapable of figuring out why that should be.
Right, lets move on to another bunch of weak willed, lily livered misfits who consider themselves able to adjudicate on the behaviour of their fellows. The "gentlemen" of the press. The Press Complaints Commission aka the pretty crap council (and that's the family viewing version). We are asked to believe that this pathetic excuse for an "authority" can strictly govern the behaviour of the gang of yahoo, addled morons who work for our so called "newspapers". The PCC is funded by......the press. It has no legal authority. It is funded by journals voluntarily who have no obligation to take any notice of it whatsoever. Look at a low life like Piers Morgan, they found him guilty of nothing short of insider trading and - nothing happened. It took deliberately faked photos of Iraqi war atrocities to drag him like a putrified limpet from his post.
Next the captains pistol points at.... the GMC, the General Medical Council. Criticised by doctors and public alike, each saying it favoured the other. Yet when it came to a vote to abolish self regulation? The docs decided overwhelmingly they actually quite liked things as they are. Ask yourself, if you had the choice would you retain a body that left Shipman in a job, a decision the subsequent inquiry found to be "expedient rather than principled". As Liam Donaldson (sensible bloke as it happens) said of the GMC at the time "secretive, tolerant of sub-standard practice and dominated by the professional interest, rather than that of the patient".
Where do you want to go next? Lawyers? Politicians? Wheel Clampers? I can't even tell you it's time to man the barricades brothers as no doubt I'd be breaching anti terrorist laws (again, every time a copper stops me he tells me it's to do with "the war on terrorism" I kid you not).
So buy a fiddle folks, I can smell smoke.
(The editor apologises to anyone who thought this was a shipping and logistics blog. The old boy hasn't been the same since the parrot died).




