Silly Boys

I really do not want my blogs to be limited mainly to the subject of policemen and their various (nefarious?) activities. However, here is another example of what can be described as cases of waywardness of thought among chiefs. An instance where the thought processes have gone completely awry - even awol. Intellectual idiots are to be found in abundance everywhere but when they get to work on our FREEDOMS, then all the alarm bells ring at the same time. Some clanging is that. Hard on the eardrums. It can make them bleed a little even.
There is a little Association of Chief Police Officers It has an acronym to suit: ACPO. You might think that that might be some sort of force (!) for good. Benefits might spring eternal from its symposiae. After all, these are the big white chiefs. Top dogs. They who have climbed to the top of their profession and are on top of their game. After the basics of policing in early years, I suppose that a copper can occasionally find that he gets quite comfortable with the bureaucratic processes. He begins to imagine that he could progress quite well. He might even look up that ladder and fancy himself much higher up. Might even try to see the top rungs. Almost, he can but it is shrouded in mist. But eventually, some do indeed reach the top of the ladder. But it is still shrouded in mist, and it is very insecure. He thinks that he can reach the stars, but it is only the light glinting on all those shiny buttons. There is a lot of swaying up there and very little support. Winds blow to and fro: from colleagues, from politicians and even from the public. Something to lean on would be good, but what? Their Assistants would be no use at all; they would have them down without proper use of the rungs. Ah! Other Chiefs. Yessss! There must be plenty of ideas to ponder, and then to develop to improve policing in this country.
After all their experience of plodding/case supervision/ inspecting etc. you might be tempted to believe that they might become a well of understanding,. In short, you would be wrong. Completely and utterly dead wrong. In truth, you will ‘not believe it’ if you were of a certain age. You definitely would not believe this one if you were one of those who were the subject of their latest effusion. I use ‘effusion’ loosely because this was a presentation by this august little body to members of parliament. Not to their own colleagues. Not to ordinary people. Indeed, not to any old ordinary members of parliament either. Instead this was a presentation to the Parliamentary Select Transport Committee. Now we would all like access to that one. We would have lots of useful suggestions to put to them, though you would not expect many of yours to get through. Still you would have a go. But ACPO could expect.
You would naturally foresee what they decided to present to the Transport Committee to be a well thought out range of measures. But neither you nor I would come up with this one, whatever you thought of the subject: The Chief Police Officers appeared before the Committee and suggested that there should be a complete ban on ........motorcycles: ‘Now....let’s see’, they pondered ‘Yes, no motorbikes! So no more motorcyclists. Yes. A complete ban. That would be good. No more of their accident statistics to worry about, thank you very much. A reduction in the total number of accidents, and accidents to motorcyclists down to zero, in fact. What an achievement!’
Yes really, no more motorcycles at all. Gone for good. They even came up with data which was a pack of lies about motorcycles. And this was presented ....... Yes, it was! Now, you may not be a fan of motorcycles. But others are not fans of baby prams or bicycles. Still others are not fans of staircases. All of these carry risks and all of them are involved in accidents - deaths, even. Could there be a ban on such things? And then, where would the line to be drawn? What else?.....’What next?’, they might ponder. But in the general scheme of things you would expect something less mind numbingly dictatorial - even in this day and age.

Spokespersons for this illustrious band (banned?) of Chiefs has not been a bit remorseful about the lies they presented to MPs. They just explained that they scraped together some information from Google. It was wrong and who cares? Well not themselves, it seems. Not a toss given.
But you might expect that the motorcycling fraternity in the form of those in a representative role would be blasting away at this. But they seem not to be. Why not? Are they too easy on their settees? ‘Not my job, mister. Now, where’s my coffee?’ Only Motorcycle News is having a real go. But this issue goes way beyond motorcycles and we should all be very afraid. Someone might take them seriously one day. Now that would be dangerous. Motorcycle News deserves all of our support in dealing with a serious point of principle. Our very freedoms are at risk.
We had better all watch for other silliness from this little band of brothers. They cannot be trusted. Who would have thought it: police not to be trusted. They were never like that when I was young.
There, I said you would not believe it........’Police state?........... Nah’, you would have said.
On top of this: the case of the arrested Opposition Shadow Minister - Damien Green. Don’t get me started on that one...... All I would say is: beware knocking on your neighbour’s door to ask to borrow a cup of sugar because you might find yourself arrested under anti-terrorist legislation (or alternatively be given an ASBO. Oh, yes.). In some ways we live on a slippery slope. Watch out.