We may be too late - by Richard... Saturday, August 13, 2011

We may be too late - by Richard... Saturday, August 13, 2011

As the politicians squabble with the police, following these riots and the aftermath has been something of an education. The riots themselves brought out the very best and the worst in some people, and, as far as the commentariat goes, the issues arising sort the sheep from the goats.

As regards the people though, if the Guardian is to be believed, we have echoes of the servility and wimpishness of which Miniter and Coulter complained. A poll conducted for the newspaper has 30 percent saying that Cameron has done a good job, against 44 percent who say the opposite, a net negative score of fourteen. For Boris Johnson, the figures are 28 percent good job and 38 percent bad, a negative of ten points.

By contrast – and here the wimps come out to play – 45 percent think that the acting commissioner of the Met-Plod, Tim Godwin, has done well against 27 percent who say the opposite – a positive score of 18.

In and amongst the commentariat, Charles Moore has his own nostrum. And, while Moore can be a perceptive and intelligent analyst, this time he disappoints.

In another woolly piece, he supports as "vital" the idea of having elected police commissioners to oversee the police, with what Cameron calls the "thoroughly good" result that they will become accountable to the public. He then also wants an investigation "into how our laws and practices have come to prevent the police doing the job almost all of us want them to do".

These changes, says Moore, could start to reverse the trend of 30 years and recover our streets for civilisation. But there is no recognition of the broader issues, and no understanding at all of how far we, the people, have ceded our power and responsibilities. In his heart of hearts, Moore is just another statist.

Hannan is another of the commentariat in full flow. I've never liked the man, but have always thought he was fairly bright. But too many years living high off the hog has dulled his edge, and he is now distinctly second-rate. His person nostrum is elected sheriffs, another of those lightweight ideas that is superficially attractive, but actually meaningless.

A lot of people make the mistake of thinking that electing officials somehow – and necessarily – improves governance. One would have thought the experience of having a London mayor would have disabused people of that, but learning difficulties here seem to be the order of the day.

The idea, of course, is that elections confer a degree of accountability, allowing voters to dispense with an official who does not deliver the goods. In London, though, the choice is between Ken Livingstone and not Ken Livingstone, which means that the idiot Boris gets the job.

In other instances, an electoral system delivers people who are good at getting elected, rather than the right people for the job. And the idea that anyone has ever lost office merely on the basis of their performance, should long have been abandoned. Surely the experience with Blair should tell people that.

When it comes to the police, I have long held that one of the greater problems is that the complaints system does not work. For minor complaints, the police investigate themselves – badly. When you complain about that system, the police again investigate themselves to see whether the complaint was properly investigated.

Anyone with half a brain-cell could tell you that the system is wrong – which is why most politicians haven't detected it. Anyone who has experienced the system knows that it's wrong. It is a closed loop. And the plods know it as well – they know that they can get away with being rude, arrogant, and stupid. The complaints system won't touch them.

An effective complaints system would actually confer a high degree of accountability – which is why, presumably, there is no attempt to mend the system. Instead, we get faux accountability through elections, which add another layer of expensive professional politicians, and confuse still further the chain of responsibility.

The trouble is that people like Hannan – and, of course Cameron – have a following. That does not mean they are right. It actually means many people tend to be sheep. These are the ones that fawn over men in uniforms, who actually respect politicians – whatever they may say – and believe what they read in the newspapers and watch on television.

These infantile people are the real problem. Giving them freedom and the responsibility to make decisions is like giving a baby a loaded gun. However, they, unlike the politicians, are capable of growing up. But the grown-up debate is happening largely outside the cloying myopia of the failing MSM, and not enough people are joining in as yet.

I am confident that this will eventually happen, as generally I do believe in the "wisdom of the crowd" – it can happen both ways. But it must happen faster if these riots are to be a beneficial turning point. It can go one of two ways, towards a more authoritarian, statist society, or along the path to freedom. At the moment, the media and the politicians are driving it in the wrong direction. We may be too late to change it.

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He's got a point - by Richard... Friday, August 12, 2011

Which is why self defence must be organised and properly supervised ... but not bureaucratised out of existence.

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It's our job - by Richard...

"Making the area look ugly and striking fear into the hearts of local shopkeepers is something that we pride ourselves on", revealed a Tesco spokesperson. "We've spent a great deal of time and money expanding our business and forcing the closure of smaller retailers, and we will not tolerate any attempt to undermine our superiority in this area".

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It could never happen in Texas - by Richard...

We are all amazed at how ineffectual and just plain bad policing is in the UK, writes our special correspondent from Texas. It may seem cocky to say that your riots could never happen here, but they couldn't. And I mean Texas, not Wisconsin or Philadelphia, where similar things did happen recently. But those northern states have some social attitudes much more similar to yours.

Texas is always caricatured as being some "cowboy" society, because we don't believe in all the politically acceptable BS that passes for "wisdom" – but there are two policy reasons why they couldn't happen.

First, every city, every town has its own police force that answers to the local citizens. These forces have no relation to any central authority, such as our FBI. Most of them may go their entire careers having no contact with any federal authority at all. This means that they focus on their area, and on what their local citizens, who pay their salaries, think they should focus on.

The second, and perhaps biggest reason we would never see riots like you are having in my part of the world is "concealed carry ". I have a license, as do many adult men I know here. If such a riot were ever to start, there would be an armed and proactive citizenry lined up to stop them literally within minutes.

Of course, the knowledge that this would be the response, plus the knowledge that a criminal never knows whether the man he's thinking of attacking is going to be armed or not, serves to stop any large organized attacks before they ever start. Of course there's always the crazies and the criminals who just don't care, but they get taken care of.

Thought of a third, a change in the law you could make, one we have which works quite well, In fact the UK used to have this law back in what are not probably considered "barbarous times". Well too bad, it works. Here in Texas, shooting a man in defense of your property, even when your life isn't threatened, is counted as self defense. If he dies, too bad, it's justifiable - no charges.

Simple changes - local police forces, armed citizens, no reprisals by the judicial system. It works a hell of a lot better than the system your countrymen have been trying.

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Someone is listening - by Richard...

Émeutiers britanniques : enfants d’une classe dirigeante en faillite, from Contrepoints. Look at the author ... and I bet they are not translating the Tory Boy Blog.

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No limits? - by Richard...

In theory, a least, there must be a limit to the incompetence of public institutions. This theory, however, has been tested to destruction. So far, no limit has been found. The latest, here, may have been particularly damaging, as it may have been instrumental in sparking off last week's riots ... estimated cost £200 million and rising.

The chief executive and High Thief of the police complaints commission is Jane Furniss, currently ona salary of £134,999. Her private office costs us £751,677 in salaries. But, if one were to assume that any part of Jane's ill-gotten gains might be diverted to pay for some of the damage, one would be mistaken. As we now all know, being in public service means never having to pay for your mistakes.

The particular irony here, though, is that the purpose of the IPCC is to "hold the police to account". Already in the streets of Tottenham, we can hear the murmuring: "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?" And who indeed?

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On the other hand - by Richard...

... this is a newspaper which does know what it's talking about. I do find it more than a little unedifying to see a plump old Etonian talking tough from the safety of his protected environment, while the people at the cutting edge are considerably less bellicose.

But, as the paper here writes, the rioting tends to exhaust itself when the young have enjoyed the pleasures of destruction and theft, as much as because of the restoration of order by the police. It then observes, "What matters more are the consequences".

In dealing with the consequences, the government has the opportunity to make things better, or sow the seeds of further discord. So far, all we are seeing is top-down, centrist stuff, which has the potential to do more harm than good. And Big Brave Cameron, with his "tough talk" is proving to be an empty vessel, all rhetoric and no understanding.

One hopes there will be a political price to pay.

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A failing industry - by Richard...

The Guardian reports that the Trinity Mirror Group has seen a 65 percent plunge in pre-tax profits to £28.9m in the first half of the year – helpfully reminding us that the print media is part of a failing industry, with declining circulation and authority.

Even though, as predicted, the loss of the NOTW has helped stems losses (although, probably only temporarily), the papers in the group continue to haemorrhage, with readers deserting in their droves. Amusingly though, Dellers also has a go at the media, telling us:

Our world is on the edge of a precipice. The last thing we need right now is to let the very media institutions which helped bring us to this pass – that means YOU, Guardian, BBC, New York Times, etc – drag us over the cliff with their irrelevant values, falling audiences and failed, suicidal ideologies.

He does not include the Failygraph on its list, but then how could he – a central limitation of the clog, where punches must always be pulled on certain subjects. The worst of it is, though, that BBC News audiences have soared, as people turn to the television for information, acquiring thus a dose of BBC values.

It is the print media, therefore, which is most losing out – the place where reasoned comment and intelligent discussion might be seen but rarely is, in an industry where the best they can offer is Osborne – late, derivative and less informative than the blogs.

Blog circulation, meanwhile, is increasing – still a tiny fraction of the print media's reach – but at least we have not been damaged (as some feared) by the emergence of the so-called "superblogs". It is troubling that so many people still turn to the media for their comment, as Dellers is right. The last thing we need are the very media institutions which have so egregiously failed us.

They, alongside the police and the politicians, are also responsible for our current problems – and you will not see a failing industry offer any sensible solutions. Their day has come and gone. But, in truth, the day of the blogs has yet to arrive.

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The nature of our problem - by Richard...

There is just no end to the EVM, but today's prize for fatuosity, if not downright stupidity, has to go to David Ruffley, MP for Bury St Edmunds and a former shadow police minister, writing in theFailygraph. In common with the man pretending to be our prime minister, this man is a fool – his sin in this case being to prattle about bringing in ex-armed forces officers to lead our police forces.

In fact, that has been tried before and failed dismally – right up to having retired senior officers taking on the posts of police commissioners. Few remember that Lord Trenchard was one such, he of hunger march fame – a man who did much to sour relations between the working classes and their rulers.

That aside, Ruffley, tells us that as a result of the defence cuts, many officers are leaving the Armed Forces. "They have commanded men in life-and-death situations, often with limited resources. Why shouldn’t they enter the upper echelons of the police service?", the fool asks.

Back in the 1980s, he reminds us, Margaret Thatcher flirted with this idea, but was eventually persuaded that "Army types" would alienate existing policemen, and had no experience of policing by consent. "Try saying the same of today's officers, who have secured the streets of Ulster and the bazaars of Afghanistan and Iraq", Ruffley then says.

Well, indeed one can. In both Iraq and Afghanistan, we see egregious failures, not least in intelligence, where the Army misread the situation, failed to understand the politics, and acted inappropriately, all in a culture of secrecy, where the dogma of "op sec" prevented even ministers finding out what was going on. Why should we allow them to repeat their failures here?

And, of course, from their "successes" in Ulster, we could readily see how ex-Para officers would go down a real treat on the streets of Tottenham.

However, even fools sometimes have the glimmer of a good idea, and Ruffley talks about creating a new "Police Reserve". But he then spoils it all by bureaucratising the idea, calling for it to be "similar to the retained firefighters or Territorial Army".

To give him his due, the man does have the brains to recognise that using a reserve "would make the police more representative of the public, giving new meaning to Peel's dictum that 'the police are the public and the public are the police'". But he then destroys the idea by making it a bureaucratic adjunct to the existing police. The issue here, of course, is precisely that that "the public are the police". The uniformed branch are merely there (or should be) to assist the public in maintaining law and order.

And that it what it is about (see video above). If you or I go for a walk and see a child attempting to break a window, we intervene ... or we used to. If we see someone committing an offence, we try to stop it - and report it. We are the police, and we already have the power of arrest.

What has happened though, is that the "professionals" have eroded the powers and responsibilities of the people. "Leave it to us", they say – and worse - and then make a pig's ear of it. The only way to restore the situation is for people to reclaim the powers which have been usurped by the professionals.

Ruffley does not understand that – which is what makes the man a fool. Peel understood it. None of the stupid, craven bastards in police uniforms do. And that is our problem, Mr Ruffley - or one of them. First of all, we need to change the attitude: we the people are in charge. You are there to help us.

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They really don't get it - by Richard...

The looters are whining ... but Raedwald has their measure.

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Another looter "outed" - by Richard...

Suffolk Council Tax payers have been shocked to discover that, after ridding themselves of the High Thief and chief executive Andrea Hill (pictured), they are to be lumbered withanother looter, who will walk away with at least £160,000 of their money.

Styled as taking "significantly less" than the peculatory Hill – who was annually pocketing £218,000 - the new chief executive will still take a bonus on top of its guaranteed loot "if annual targets are met". Further, the top of the salary band is £225,390, so the new entrant could soon be ripping off as much as Hill, if not more.

Yet this largesse at taxpayers' expense is based on a report by "head of strategic HR" Sally Marlow. This thing says that changes to the salary scale are needed "because of financial pressures on the council, value for money considerations and regular comparisons between the pay levels for chief executives of local authorities and that of the Prime Minister".

Meanwhile, an interim post holder, acting as chief executive, will be expected to make "significant progress" in achieving £50 million in "savings" in the next two years, overhauling services and cutting overhead costs – presumably so that he and his gang of looters can continue ripping off the public purse to line their own pockets.

North Jr thus writes in his own inimitable fashion that, "If I were stupid enough to fall for the democratic decoy of e-petitions I would start one along the lines of stopping 'benefits' for council executives". He adds: "Since I no longer have any faith in this 'democracy' of ours, I will simply record their names for the day when order really does collapse. Then I might just treat myself to a wetsuit and an assault rifle".

There have to be reasons why we do not rise up and murder these scum. One has to be that the veneer of civilisation still restrains us. But they are stretching the boundaries of our tolerance. They should be aware, though, that - like our money - tolerance is not inexhaustible.