Open letter from the Camp for Climate Action to Ian Thomas, the Chief Superintendent of the Metropolitan Police Service. Worth reading in it’s entirety.
Could be interesting. Jon Henley for The Guardian:
The Metropolitan police have announced a new strategy for next week’s Climate Camp – putting women officers in charge of the operation. Will this avoid the violence seen at the G20 protests?
Perhaps the most noted American researcher into gender differences in policing, Joseph Balkin, observed that “policemen tend to see police work as involving control through authority, while policewomen see it as public service”. In some respects at least, he concluded, “women are better suited for police work than men.”
Maybe this strategy should be transposed to international politics?
Family of Ian Tomlinson — who died after being hit by policeman at G20 protests—speak out.
Bindmans, a London law firm, is preparing to launch a legal challenge against the UK police’s use of kettling:
Bindmans is … preparing to launch a legal challenge against the use of “kettling”, the police tactic used to pen in 5,000 people during the G20 protests and a strategy which led to protesters suffering asthma and panic attacks. John Halford, a partner in Bindmans, said that the firm had held talks with Climate Camp legal advisers on Friday to prepare to launch a judicial review against the containment of protesters.
Halford said that “kettling” is legally justifiable only when there is no alternative to address actual or imminent violence. He said: “There is much to suggest that ‘kettling’ was the first thing resorted to as a response to a peaceful demonstration that was considered a nuisance by the police. Worse, many protesters have reported unprovoked baton charges and other forms of intimidation while they were penned in. We plan to ensure all of this is examined by the courts.”
I’ve experienced kettling before as part of a peaceful demonstration in 2003 against the world’s largest arms trade fair, DSEi, held every other year at East London’s ExCeL Centre. I spent most of my time in the kettle trying to explain participatory economics to the police. An engaging lot to be sure.
Doesn’t look like the UK police are going to get a clean up afterall. Instead what appears to be a propaganda campaign begins, first up: how “astonishingly” good the G20 police actually were. And all those videos of police runing amok, well they were just a few bad eggs, we’ll sort that out don’t worry.
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.”
Growing catalogue of G20 protest videos showing the UK police running amok.
If you read nothing else about politics today read this:
George Monbiot: Just what exactly do you stand for, Hazel Blears — except election?
For some context in the lead up to this piece check out No Right Turn’s links on the matter.
Kiwi Tom Chapman writes for Public Address about the authoritarian bureaucracy that has been taking root under New Labour’s watch in Britain.
The UK police, who have my DNA, have already sold DNA data to private companies and, according to Jenny Willott MP, this includes “sinister explorations into ethnic profiling.”
I’ve pencilled in the advent of a National ID card and/or biometric passports as points at which I might leave Britain. I just don’t want to be a part of a society that has a centralised infrastructure whereby the government or some numbskull at the Post Office/Police can have access to all this information and use it against people they don’t like.
I don’t how many times I’ve heard the cliché “if you don’t have something to hide you’ve got nothing to worry about” so in some ways a lot of people here deserve such a government.