Boots on the ground

It's thirty years too late, but at last their is an acknowledgement from the police that their retreat from the streets has been disastrous for Britain. Or rather, there has been an acknowledgement from the man who inspects the police that this is the case - from what I've heard so far from the police themselves is the usual denial that there is a problem or, if there is, that it is their problem.

For me, this is one of the most frustrating things about the modern police force - not so much their inability to tackle the problems of crime and disorder or even the inability to recognise that the problems exist and are theirs to deal with. It is the constant denial that the problems of crime and disorder that we face as a society come as a result of deliberate decisions and policies made by the police themselves and their refusal to accept that those decisions and policies have failed - completely.

If the police were ready to admit their failings and the disastrous consequences of past policy decisions I could accept their current inability to deal with the problem of crime and, particularly, disorder. At least we would know they are, at last, getting serious about dealing with them. But they are not. They are still tied to the idea of the police being a primarily reactive force rather than a visible deterrent.

Part of the problem lies in the fact of creeping "newspeak" which infects modern Britain. Rather than calling disorder what it is - disorder - we label it now as "anti-social behaviour" and the police believe that anti-social behaviour is a problem for local councils, not the police. But they are wrong. Anti-social behaviour is just the pseudo-intellectual way of saying disorder but using more words - the common mark of modern jargon infested language - and the mission of the police is to PREVENT crime AND disorder.

Please note those words - "prevent" and "and". When Sir Robert Peel laid down his nine principles of policing these were the words he used to sum up the mission of the police force. They are not there to simply to detect or react to crime - although these are also important requirements - their main purpose is to prevent crime taking place and to bring order where disorder reigns.

This can not be done from the confines of a CCTV room or a tin box on wheels whizzing past at 30 miles per hour. CCTV can be fooled by a simple device known as a "hood" or a "hat" and everyone who has ever been either a passenger or a driver of car knows how hard it is to assess what is going on around them from a moving vehicle. No matter how hard you try to keep your eyes on the houses or the pavements your eyes are inevitably drawn back to looking straight out in front through the windscreen.

What is more, being inside a moving vehicle or a CCTV control room prevents police officers from having contact with the people they are supposed to be protecting and policing preventing them from making the connections which will reassure people and provide the intelligence that the police need. Attending monthly or even weekly meetings with the same bunch of community activists - many of whom have personal agendas and motivations - is not going to provide that connection.

The inspector of constabulary said that resolving this problem will require "boots on the ground" and that is the only way it can be solved - by proper police officers patrolling neighbourhoods on their feet by pounding a beat. It works. It is proven to work and it is the only way we will ever tackle the problems of crime and disorder that blight Britain today.

Where are they now?

Just been watching BBC Breakfast talking to one of the stars of the new British film "Made In Dagenham" which is about the strike by women workers at Ford's Dagenham plant in the nineteen seventies. The strike was about the women wanting to be classed as semi-skilled workers rather than unskilled and the higher pay that would bring and led, eventually, to the introduction of the Equal Pay Act, allegedly.

Now, it's all very well "celebrating" this landmark strike, but the question is - where are all those jobs now? Ford don't make cars in Britain - let alone Dagenham anymore. Those female strikers may have struck a blow for women's rights, but they also struck a blow to the future of British manufacturing.

And yet, this fairly significant point seems to have been missed by the liberal media who are so busy telling us what a great thing this was that they've forgotten that the eventual result was that those women - and future generations of women no longer have the opportunity to work at Ford's Dagenham plant.

I can take the despair, it's the hope I can't stand

So the Pope has come and gone and the ranting secular atheists who went to such lengths to disrupt his state visit have been left looking rather foolish, petty and bigoted - as, indeed, so many of them are.

The BBC spent most of their time trying to promote criticism of the Pope and the Catholic Church and only switched tactics when it became apparent that instead of being a damp squib as they predicted, the visit went rather well. Of course, it helps that the Pope, rather than swinging like a leaf in the breeze, is firm and certain in his convictions his faith - unlike the leaders of the branch of Christianity I follow; Anglicanism.

I've said this many times before, but it doesn't do any harm to keep repeating it even if nobody listens. People want certainty and strength in their faith. What use are beliefs if you don't believe in them? Our leaders tell us that our church has to change with the times, but why? There is no evidence to support this contentious claim - just the opposite in fact, as church attendance has shrunk considerably since the Anglican church became so ambiguous in its defence of certain moral standards.

The difference between the Catholic Church and the Church Of England has never been more apparent than in the way the Pope refuses to bow to "fashion" while our own Church prevaricates and procrastinates. The result of that is that the Pope comes across as a strong leader who answers his critics and shows them up to be the intolerant fools they are, while the leaders of the C of E look weak and abject in comparison.

As a committed Anglican I still see the Catholic Church as the natural enemy of England, but even I am starting to believe that the only future Christianity may have in this country is a Roman Catholic one. I hope I'm wrong - but I'm sure that this recent visit will have many Anglicans switching to the RC version of the faith. I still can't as long as there remains hope that the beautiful and solemn faith which Anglicanism once was may return.

I realise that it is probably a forlorn hope - but as long as it remains I'll remain an Anglican.

Service versus services

Seeing how Britain has decided to put such great faith in the service industry and abandon any pretence or hope of ever being a nation that makes things itself again, you'd think that at the very least we would be good at providing a service.

We aren't. Shop assistants - if you can ever find one in some of bigger chain stores - are often unhelpful and frequently rude. I've lost count of the number of times I've bought something from a shop and they haven't even bothered to say please or thank you as I hand over my cash - let alone call me "sir".

But worse even than that are the banks. I've been banking with the same bank since I got my first monthly salaried job in 1978. I don't want much from my bank - I just want to be able to pay my salary in, pay the odd bill here and there and take money out when I need it. However, I get bombarded with circulars from my bank telling me about the multitude of services they offer - loans, overdrafts, credit cards, travel insurance, mortgages, home insurance - none of which I require. I keep telling them that I don't require these services, but every month they send me more circulars offering me these services that I do not want.

And yet, earlier this week I dared to use the internet to pay a bill - a fairly large bill. There's more than enough money in the account to pay the bill so I knew there wouldn't be a problem - but I've since had numerous calls and discussions with their "fraud" investigation people regarding it. I confirmed straight away that the transaction was genuine - but it's been cancelled by this fraud investigation unit twice now.

I've had to make half a dozen phone calls to half a dozen different people in half a dozen different departments - none of whom have the slightest idea about what I've talked to the others about or even what those departments are doing - to resolve the issue, but finally the bill has been paid - a day late, which didn't please the recipient!

This is the problem with our so called "service" industry - they mistake offering lots of services with offering a service. All I want is for my bank to do what I ask of them when I ask them - and if I want anything else, I want someone who know me and knows my account history to talk to about it. I don't want them to offer lots of services - I just want them to do the basic requirements of what I need properly and efficiently. If they can't do that then they are failing in the basic rudiments of being a service - regardless of how many "services" they offer.

The sneering voice of leftism

I can't remember what it was that propelled Robert Peston onto our TV screens - I think it was something to do with the banking crisis or maybe the expenses scandal - but whatever it was he has been a virtual ever present on the BBC news since.

On the face of it, Peston is the ideal sort of person for the BBC to employ as they attempt to address the criticism of their often overt left wing leanings. The son of a peer and with past experience working at a stockbroker's as well as various journalistic stints at leading "right wing", pro-capitalism newspapers such as the FT and Telegraph, Peston must be as right wing capitalist as they come, right?

Wrong.

Peston's membership of Common Purpose reveals his true political leanings, but you'd never know that just by looking at him. What does give him away, though, is his voice - because Peston has that trademark of the rabid left winger; a whining nasal drone shaped by his barely concealed contempt for politics of the right.

It's the same vocal style I first became familiar with through my scouse English teacher in the mid-seventies. It doesn't matter what the upbringing, accent or dialect - left wingism is characterised by this whining nasal drone with underlying tones of contempt and sneering. It's nasty. This English teacher saw me as something of a protege - I was, at the time, leaning to the left myself - and took me under her wing to some degree introducing me to punk rock and the works of the "poet" John Cooper Clarke.

To be fair, it's probably true to say that this introduction to John Cooper Clarke was what sparked my love of classical - proper - poetry. I found his stuff to be such drivel that I had no choice but to go and find out about real poetry and what a joy I discovered.

Anyway, I digress. My point is that the BBC are reacting to the fact that their institutionalised left wingism has been outed by trying to give an impression of impartiality. Peston is one of those who is supposed to address that. Unfortunately, for the BBC, his sneering nasal drone gives away the reality of Peston's rampant left wing ideology. It always does. Whenever you listen to anything on the BBC, it pays dividends to listen as much to the tone and style of the delivery as much as the words they say - because however they try to dress up their left wing bias the sneering voice of leftism cuts through.