Police officers. They do a difficult job. They are the last person you want around when you’ve edged up to 35 in a 30mph zone; the first when your house is being burgled. They have to walk a line. There is, however, a certain insanity to their actions when ‘policing’ demonstrations against ‘Cuts’. They stand in their black uniforms – dressed in their riot gear, carrying shields and batons and sometimes riding horses. Before they take a step they are already walking symbols of intimidation and oppression. Black is the colour of uncompromising authority at its most extreme: think of the ninja, the SAS, the SS. They wear armour and they carry weapons – the instruments of violence and warfare - yet prohibit others from doing the same. They cover their faces with helmets, but now have fresh legal powers to force others to remove scarves and hats that might hide their features. They employ dogs. They use cavalry and ride down on gatherings and demonstrators who are all on foot. The threat is clear: this large animal will trample and injure you, possibly even kill you if you do not do as instructed. The tactic has been used in warfare since ancient times. To complete the Orwellian depiction, they are guided using cameras: one on every street in London - watching, observing and cataloguing.
This might seem a darkly poetic description but even members of the government characterise the police as such. Conservative MP David Jones describes their appearance as “sinister”. Commenting on their uniforms he said, "I think that the connotations of black shirts are obvious to anybody. They've got a kind of fascist, militaristic appearance."
The problem with the police is their inconsistency. They have a difficult job to do but their approach to different aspects of it seems contradictory. Hundreds of thousands of people may gather to demonstrate against government ‘Cuts’ of one kind or another and the police arrive dressed for battle. In terms of crowd psychology, the police imprint the idea that a demonstration is in fact a clash or struggle. When arriving equipped as they do, now a formalised pattern of behaviour, they signal that the street is a battleground. It is unsurprising then that small pockets of demonstrators within larger demonstrations resort to vandalism or violence. It is even less surprising that some individuals arrive at demonstrations kitted out for some kind of battle, even though their scarves and hoods are little match for helmets, body armour, shields and horses. Their spray cans look pretty puny compared to riot batons and the automatic weapons carried by the armed response vehicles waiting down the street.
Violence cannot be excused and these individuals should be prosecuted for crimes they carry out. We should review how the police are part of that problem. We should look at the way in which situations are handled and how the police conduct themselves – even down to how they dress, the equipment they employ and the psychological impact of these decisions on large crowds. Instead we have this impact manifesting itself in isolated pockets of law-breaking and demonstrators casually dismissed as ‘thugs’ by some senior police spokesperson. When groups of people go down a street indiscriminately smashing the place up, causing as much damage as possible, they are thugs. When damage is done to a shop or a business that uses loopholes to escape paying the tax due to the British public - who are partly responsible for the current shortfall and subsequent cuts to fill that financial shortfall – that damage is targeted and politically motivated. These people have broken the law and should be prosecuted, just like the companies who have broken the law by not paying the appropriate amount of tax. They are not the barbaric ‘thugs’ the police and media often make them out to be. Are they out on the street right now smashing shops up around the corner from you? No.
There are, however, people on your streets that do this: people who do commit violent acts and vandalism indiscriminately. Some of them are teenage criminals, shouting verbal abuse, stealing and terrorising people in their homes. Some are fully-grown adults who are out of their mind drunk: swearing, fighting and driving dangerously on our streets. Look at the way the police handle the true ‘thugs’ of society. Therein lies the contradiction. We have all seen the shows on television, following the police during their normal duties on a Saturday night. No body armour, helmets, shields, batons and horses then. If you are attacked in a city centre on a Saturday night or have your windows put in by a group of wayward teens you are lucky if you get one police officer to assist. Then it is the notebook and pencil that is used. Details are taken but little achieved. When people are prosecuted then the fines are miniscule and the mere warnings abundant. There is no ‘kettling’ of the drunken hordes or teenage gangs on our streets. And in fact there shouldn’t be – but it demonstrates the contradiction at the heart of British policing. Where a demonstration of true force and authority is seen to be required, the police in sufficient numbers are nowhere to be seen. When people are legitimately angry about issues that affect the entire country and demonstrate in the capital then the tactics of terror are employed.
The real insanity behind the entire situation is the fact that the demonstrators are out there in support of the police. They are protesting against cuts that would see police officers’ jobs, wages and entitlements taken from them. They are trying to secure the budgets that buy the helmets, batons and horses upon which the police rely in these circumstances. It could be argued that the lawbreakers are in fact risking the most – fines, physical injury, criminal records and imprisonment – to argue the case for police officers as public servants. What do they get for their sacrifice? A faceless wall of black uniforms and a truncheon in the face for not obeying instructions. It’s not right. The police are not allowed to strike and their off-duty involvement in demonstrations is unlikely to be trusted. Their unions could at least put out messages of support in relation to demonstrators’ intentions, rather than branding them as ‘thugs’ and reinforcing the government line. In Egypt, the Egyptian army would not act against the citizens of Egypt, despite government instruction. Why does our own police force, whose wages we pay and whose armour and weapons we purchase, act against the population without question or seeming conscience?
