Money matters..

So it seems that the brilliant plan to save our economy is actually not very brilliant at all. In fact, it’s not even really a plan. The current state of affairs is a convenient excuse for the Tories to bring in long-desired ideological changes, the ultimate goal being to destroy the public sector and replace it with private companies all bidding for contracts to provide public services. They couldn’t get away with it in the past, but now, with everyone worried about their jobs and future, this is the best chance they’ll ever have. Of course, they need to turn public opinion against the public sector workers, which they’ve managed to do with well-timed and economical-with-the-truth press releases.

So now there is a convenient scapegoat on which to place the blame for our financial woes. And it’s the scapegoat they always wanted.

So, the master plan then. Get rid of the public sector workers. They will all get jobs in the private sector, or start up their own businesses, get rich and vote Tory. All these new entrepreneurs, and new private sector workers will start beavering away making lots of things for us to buy and the economy will recover. Seriously. That’s the plan. But it won’t happen, and it’s down to one thing. Fear.

Sales are down ie no-one is buying anything. Businesses can’t get credit, no doubt partly because the banks are reluctant to lend, but I’d imagine it was always difficult to get a business loan when sales are falling because there is no demand. So companies are cutting costs and letting people go. The knock on effect is that the people working in the private sector are scared to spend money because they don’t know what the future holds. So they’re hunkering down and preparing for the worst. They’re not buying anything.

Around 20% of the workforce works in the public sector. They are being sacked left right and centre with the promise of more to come, so the result is that the ones still in a job are also too scared to go out and spend money. They’re not buying anything either.

What about exports ? Well, most of Europe is skint as well, and the recent strength of the Pound vs the Euro isn’t going to help. So that’s someone else who’s not buying from us.

It begs the question then, where are all these sacked public sector workers going to find work ? Are private companies going to hire them to make nothing ? Are they all going to start their own businesses making things nobody wants to buy ? Maybe, but they won’t be able to get any startup finance because, remember, the banks aren’t lending, and even if they were it wouldn’t be to a risky new startup business in uncertain economic times. The truth is that a lot of them will end up on benefits – housing benefit, job seekers allowance etc etc.

On Newsnight a Nobel Prize-winning economist came out and said that austerity is not going to work, in fact it’s only going to make things worse, and for longer. Our current economic conditions are wrong for an austerity based solution. Also on the show were a venture capitalist (Tory) and a Tory MP. They both told him he was wrong and referred him to the master plan which I’ve laid out above. If that’s all they’ve got then we are all well and truly screwed.

The future.

Last weekend in a certain large town we were given a glimpse of how the future will be when there are so many less police on the front line. And mark my words, despite the promises from May and Herbert that front line numbers will be protected, the reality for those of us who don't work in ivory towers is that there will be less of us to respond when the shit hits the fan.
Anyway, the evening got off to a flying start when 9 were locked up for a violent disorder. They had to be spread across two custody suites in different towns which took a whole shift off the streets while they waited in a queue to book their prisoners in. Half an hour to book each one in, one at a time, the maths is easy (even for a thick copper like me Tom). Then there's the paperwork that cannot wait because this will be a handover for the early shift so we can all go home at 7 a.m and not incur any overtime. That's half a response shift wiped out for the night.
Later on we had to deal with the usual Saturday night crap - fights, public order, domestics etc.  Some scraps on the town led to more being locked up and the two local(ish) custody suites being closed because they were full. So we started taking prisoners 25 miles away to a large city station that, surprise surprise, was also busy. I'd managed to end up with a prisoner too. D&D followed by Assault Police x 2 and then Possession of Controlled drugs. It's a special kind of halfwit that walks up and down the street shouting that "The police are all fucking cunts" over and over again when he's got drugs in his pocket. Special.
So I waited in the back yard for nearly 3 hours in a queue of other vehicles to book in my prisoner. At about 6 o' clock I hear over the radio that two have been locked up at a domestic and the nearest custody suite is on another force area.
With muppet boy finally put to bed I crack on with the paperwork at about half eight. This will obviously also be a handover because he's still too pissed to be interviewed/charged, so the file needs to be as complete as possible. Statements etc etc.
Now, this is the bit that most people outside the job don't appreciate. There is an early shift starting at 7 o'clock. Nights have gone home leaving their prisoners snoozing in the cells, in fact some of the officers that went home at 9 o'clock that morning had actually been on lates the night before, not nights. The early shift consists of 9 officers and there are 17 prisoners from the night before. That wipes out the response shift for that day because they are tied up in custody dealing with them.
The knock-on effect is that there was nobody to respond to jobs that day because the response team are all in custody.  And then there was the appointments they'd made to get their victim/witness statements for their ongoing crime enquiries. They would have had to be cancelled, which means trying to reschedule them.
Of course, this was not a normal Saturday night. But it's not the busiest I've ever worked either. The simple fact is that we couldn't cope with the demand because there weren't enough of us. And when (not if) there's less of us there will be many more nights like that.

Lies, damn lies and statistics..

Just watched the most recent broadcast of BBC Question Time. I love how politicians are so economical with the truth in their sound bites. Maria Miller, Conservative Minister, says that only 1 in 10 officers are ever out on the “front line” at any given time. Conveniently forgetting to mention that there are probably 5 shifts so that would equate to half the bobbies that are actually at work. Of course, saying it her way gives the impression of 9 bobbies twiddling their thumbs while 1 is actually out and about.

Independent ?. Not as we know it Tom..

Well, well, well. It seems that government hatchet man, Tom Winsor might actually have a vested interest in the demolition of our fine police service.

http://www.whitecase.com/press-02292012/

http://www.whitecase.com/twinsor/

Winsor joined law firm Case and White in 2004 and is a partner. They recently “ advised leading security solutions group G4S in relation to its £200 million transformation project with Lincolnshire Police Authority. The contract is the first of its kind to be awarded in the UK police sector.”

Thinking of the future, or the one that Winsor hopes for, imagine if G4S were to provide policing services to all UK forces. Imagine how much money we’re talking about, and then imagine how much the firm might spend on legal fees. And how much richer that might make Tom Winsor.

Independent ? My arse…

The one that got away...nearly

Just sitting down to briefing at 7 o’ clock this morning when the gaffer bursts in. “Nights lost a prisoner last night. That does not happen. Put your coffee down, grab some keys and get round the address”. It transpires that the night shift had been round to lock up a scrotey little oik (sorry…”suspect”) for nicking mopeds, and he’d escaped by jumping out the first floor back window and fence hopping his way to freedom. Plan A, which involves having two bobbies at the front and back of the house, had most definitely failed on this occasion. Shaken to our very core by this, we decide to initiate Plan B. This involves bobbies at the front and rear again, but with the master stroke of having more of them.

On the way there I realise I know the name from somewhere, and vaguely remember the address. I used to be a local policing bobby on that estate a few years ago. As I walk along the front path with the “big red key” I clock the house and realise I’d been there several times before in the past. Back then it was to lock up No 1 son for thieving and/or damaging other people’s property, mostly their motor scooters which he’d nick and then smash up in an underpass so he could sell the parts (allegedly). Fast forward several years and I’m back there again, this time it’s for No 2 son, who, it seems, has turned down the option of a university education to take over the family business while No 1 son is “away”.

Mum spots me coming up the path with the “bosher”. “You better not smash my fucking door in” she shouts through the kitchen window. A fairly obvious reply springs to mind but I go with “Open the front door then please”.

In we go. “Where is he then ?” asks the gaffer. “Dunno” says mum, “Search the house if you want, but don’t go in the front room”. Now, I’m no graduate but even I recognise that this could be a cunning attempt at misdirection by mum. So I start with the front room, which I was going to do anyway. He’s not in there and mum spots me coming out. “I told you not to go in the fucking front room. I’ll bill you for that carpet, you and your dirty fucking boots”. “Have a look then” I say and she grudgingly concedes that my boots are, in fact, immaculate. It rained yesterday so the soles were nice and clean.

Anyway, it turns out that he’s genuinely not at home, so we try some other addresses and manage to get the number of the mobile phone that his mum swears he doesn’t have. We ring this non-existent phone and by some feat of magic he answers. A deal is struck.

A) You hand yourself in at the nick today

B) We don’t harass your family and all your scrotey friends looking for you, and make them hate you.

Later that day, mum marches him down the nick. Job done.

I’m pretty sure that this exact scenario is played out every day, across the length and breadth of Britain. It is this kind of approach that gets results and is the only thing that a certain type of person respects. It is also the kind of robust, no-nonsense, practical policing that you cannot teach in college or university. You learn this from the people who have walked in your shoes before you. From those officers who have served their time on the front line, and now stand ready to pass on that knowledge.

To Tom Winsor : You can’t learn this stuff from a book…

Police march

I couldn’t be at the march in London today, in common with a lot of my fellow AFO’s who had to do a reclass shoot. It was predicted that 20,000 officers would attend but in the end it was more like 35,000. Apparently the line of marchers took 90 minutes to file past the Home Office. Imagine how many officers would have attended but, like me, couldn’t.

This is precisely the message we needed to send to Cameron, Clegg and May. That we are united and committed to taking this as far as we are forced to go. The Government have called the action “needless and futile”. Well they would say that wouldn’t they ? The fact is that their minds are already made up. Most probably the corrupt, shady deals with their cronies who run the likes of G4S et al have already been drawn up and certain politicians are already dreaming of the cushy directorships that await them after the Police service of this country has been sold off to the private sector. But it’s not going to happen. Not on our watch…

May 10th.

We are marching on 10th May to show our dismay at the changes being forced upon our pay and conditions of service. The whole point of this is to show that WE WILL NOT STAND FOR IT !.  There will obviously be  those who cannot attend but I hear some officers saying they "can't be bothered" because it "won't make a difference".
To those officers I say this : There is a lot of support out there for us. We need to mobilise that support and you won't do that by showing you've already given up, or even worse, don't care. We don't have the right to take any industrial action and  this will make it a long, hard fight, but it's one we can win.  The march on May 10th is just the first step. Make it count. Do for yourselves now what you do every day for the communities you serve. Get out there, stand tall, and stand up for what is right.

zulu1