Last Straw

G20 protests: how the image of UK police took a beat­ing:

It has been a bad month for the thin blue line … it’s no won­der that senior officers this week­end are call­ing a series of crisis meetings.

But they may already be too late. Pub­lic opin­ion appears to be turn­ing against Britain’s police. Just as con­cerns over cli­mate change and the global eco­nomy have been turn­ing the most con­ser­vat­ive of people into polit­ical act­iv­ists, law-abiding people who have never had any exper­i­ence in deal­ing with the police are now ques­tion­ing their beha­viour and the reach of their powers.

Nick Hard­wick, chair of the IPCC, said the typ­ical com­plain­ants were middle-class. “If you think the police are all bas­tards, you don’t bother to com­plain because you think it will get you vic­tim­ised,” said Hard­wick. “If you are Mr and Mrs Sub­urban who have a good view of the police and think they do a good job, and they stop you and swear at you, then you are shocked and you complain.”