What has it got in its pockets?

Wishing to buy the Queen a yacht, having the self confidence to write a forward to the Bible and expressing a desire to have a portrait of himself hung in every Free School and Academy, it is becoming increasingly clear that Michael Gove is below contempt.

Unfortunately for him, the judiciary might think otherwise. The ever engaging Tom Watson has asked some rather awkward questions of the Secretary of State for Education which, as yet, have remained unanswered. Having abandoned a generation of children, Gove might have to waste some of his precious time once again up before a judge with more tenacity than Leveson.

Yes precious, illegality is Hobbit forming.

Sweet home Chicago

It`s not as if the fine city of Chicago Illinois hasn`t suffered enough, but a G8 summit followed by a NATO summit would test the ingenuity of even Jake and Elwood Blues.

The Chicago Police Department, who might benefit from the fitness test suggested in our own Winsor Report because they seem to be rather overweight, are clearly out of their depth. We can witness some of their public duty here.

Deciding to turn a peaceful demonstration into a shameful display of state power using a variety of tactics and weapons designed to subjugate the people they have sworn an oath to defend is a little like wearing sunglasses in the dark. Here is a fictional account of the CPD in action.

Our own public servants here in dear old Albion, might like to consider which side they are actually on. Asking for support from the public in their own dispute with the government is not going to be much use when they hit the rest of us over the head when the rest of us are in dispute with the same government.

A lesson can be learnt from history. Has there been any progress? Your choice, guys. Have a listen to Neil Young and good luck with policing the Olympics.

Maybe today, maybe tomorrow

Until now, it was beyond imagination that police officers should take to the streets to protest against government cuts. Mind you, they were protesting against government cuts to the police service. Other protesters against government cuts have been photographed as suspected terrorists, kettled and bashed over the head for good measure.

It was once inconceivable that a conference of police officers should heckle, boo and call for the resignation of a Conservative Home Secretary.

The wheels are coming off.

Quasi mondo

For those of us of a certain age, perhaps the happiest memory of far off school days is witnessing a falling out between the number one bully and the number two bully as they knocked lumps out of each other in the playground. The resultant disappointment of a spoil sport teacher separating them is now assuaged by the goings on at the Royal Courts of Justice.

As the net closes on those responsible for wrong doing at News International, only the most bone headed Flashman would be stupid enough not to realise that when fighting to maintain his position, the gloves would soon be off for Murdoch and the knives would be out for Cameron. The dirty digger takes no prisoners and we can be sure that the 163 pages of emails implicating government conspiracy in the BSkyB take over and released when the boy child was feeling the heat at Leveson, are just a tiny proportion of the dirt the digger can dish.

The Right Honourable Member for South West Surrey, former head boy of Charterhouse, Secretary of State for Culture and possibly the most accurate Spoonerism ever uttered might now be regretting his offer to hold the coats of the battling tyrants. Jeremy Hunt, in quasi-judicial mode, is deaf to the bells tolling his imminent plunge from the parapet of the Palace of Westminster. It would seem unfair to suggest that this inept, biased, incompetent, complete and utter bastard would sacrifice his “special” advisor Adam Smith to the wolves in order to save his own very thin skin. It might seem unfair, but it is, sadly, true.

Describing Hunt as that shifty looking bloke on the government front bench with flames billowing out of his trousers would not, at the moment, be terribly helpful. That portrayal could apply to the entire coalition of villains currently filling voluminous trouser pockets with cash as they systematically dismantle the state. Given that collusion between politicians and corporate vested interests is a tradition as old as even the oldest profession, Cameron`s assertion to the house that he can see no evidence of at least three breeches of the ministerial code rings hollow. Under the disgraceful passage of the Welfare Reform Bill into law, Cameron`s bogus deafness and blindness needs to be investigated by the unqualified, incompetent and profit led firm ATOS, currently removing benefits from the sick, the disabled and the terminally ill.

In a desperate attempt to buy time to burn the evidence, a Prime Minister who promised open, transparent, accountable and open government has now been caught with his pants down and it will not be long before foresters are summoned to the commons to chop off the legs of ministers to create fire breaks to prevent the wild fire of lies spreading from trouser to trouser. Leveson, it seems, will provide all the answers.

The tactic of handing the embarrassing, little inconvenience of Jeremy Hunt`s improper and possibly illegal activities to Mr Justice Leveson is really rather clever. The remit and mandate of the Leveson Inquiry is to investigate the probity, legality and ethical standards of the media. Finding any evidence of morality, particularly in the case of the Murdoch family and their minions, is understandably taking a very long time and when my noble lord finally publishes his findings, the blood bath of local elections will be long forgotten and we will all be enjoying 60 glorious years and an egg and spoon race in a locked down London sponsored by McDonalds.

Cameron is an expert on remits and mandates having failed to win an election and succeeded in destroying a nation. In is not within the duty of Leveson to rule on the impropriety of ministers, that is the role of the Cabinet Secretary and the Prime Minister himself, so Hunt seems likely to take his place at the opening ceremony celebrating junk food, corporate greed, cheats and liars. The delicious irony of the Leveson inquiry, commissioned by David Cameron, is the fact that the noble Lord will present his findings to none other than the Secretary of State for Culture, Olympics, Media and Sport who, at the time of writing, remains employed and is currently yet to help the Metropolitan Police with their inquiries.

Hunt and Cameron have stated that all records of communication between government and News International that might or might not exist and might or might not have been accidentally lost or erased, will be made available to Leveson. If that is the case and if the inquiry at the Royal Courts of Justice is now the only instrument of government scrutiny, will Michael Gove submit his private email traffic between his department and the corporate sharks making a bundle out of his disastrous academy programme? Will the repulsive Andrew Lansley publish his contacts and beneficial remuneration with private health care companies and the odious Richard Branson and the equally evil Serco regarding profiteering from the NHS sell off? Once it starts to flow, that is a tide that even Hameron and Cnut cannot stop.

All this is very unlikely, but, as Quasimodo might have observed: “The bells, the bells. Will these dreadful alarm bells ever stop ringing?”

Paying the bill

If television police dramas are to be believed, a radio call saying “officer down” results in the massed ranks of the constabulary`s finest rushing to respond to their stricken comrade. The reality, of course, is very different.

Given the substantial reduction of front-line, warranted officers and the accelerated privatisation of the police force, the rozzer in difficulties might have to wait for a bit, possibly 24 hours if we can believe anything the Home Secretary invents. If only she was called April rather than Theresa. What hope then, when the airwaves crackle with the message “member of the public down”? The answer is…very little hope at all.

Here in peaceful, crime-free Walsall, consider the fate of one local man undertaking the daily commute to and from the leafy paradise that is forever Aldridge to a distant southern suburb known as Birmingham. On his way home, he is creamed by a car and left with horrific and life-changing injuries. On a main route, at a main junction and at rush hour, West Midlands Police did not bother to attend. You can read what happened here.

Astonishingly, rather than the usual wrong place wrong time scenario to explain away incidents the police cannot be bothered to investigate, it seems that the victim was the cause of the RTA. He was at fault because he was riding a bicycle on the Queen`s Highway.

The great strength of the British police service is that men and women who serve it remain ordinary citizens subject to the same legislation and statutes that govern all of us. Without going over old ground, it is fair to say that the relationship between the police and the public in Britain is unique and really rather special. All of that, though, is obviously changing.

It is commendable that WM Police continue to engage with social media and we should remain grateful to police dogs, helicopters, Chief and Assistant Chief Constables as well as front-line bobbies on the beat who use twitter to remind us to avoid burglary by locking our doors and windows, to inhale and exhale to ward off unconsciousness and to emphasise the wonderful service they provide in fighting crime. No mention of avoiding response, ignoring potentially dangerous incidents or of the still ingrained incompetence and disturbing prejudice of a minority of active, serving officers.

It is, of course, easy to dismiss the shocking treatment of a single downed cyclists as a one off, wrong place wrong time, slipped through the safety net aberration that will never be repeated. But other evidence, all be it, apocryphal, is beginning to emerge that suggests that there are serious problems with the police service.

A couple of months ago, a neighbour came to ask for some advice. Walking home one Sunday evening, her teenage son had been approached by a middle aged man who produce a long bladed knife. There was no actual threat of violence but the older man was described as exhibiting slightly odd behaviour and was known as a local “character” who suffered from drink, drug and mental health problems. As the encounter took place next to a children`s playground, the concerned mother rang the newly introduce 101 police number for non emergency incidents.

The call was not answered and eventually cut out. She tried again and then again and after about 30 minutes managed to speak to somebody. She gave details of the incident, including the time, the exact location, a description and even a possible name and address of the man with the knife. At the end of this, the voice said: “Hang on, I`ll put you through to Walsall Police”.

After a long time on hold, she spoke to Walsall Police and told the tale again. A voice said: “Hang on, I`ll put you through to someone”. After another long time on hold, she told the tale for a third time. Another voice said: “Why have you come through to us? We are CID, we investigate scenes of crime. I`ll get someone to call you back”. The call was returned about 90 minutes later and she reported the incident again. She was disappointed with the outcome. It seemed that there were no officers available to respond but that the incident would be logged and someone would “get back to her”. They never did. It would seem that her son was in the wrong place at the wrong time and as he was a teenager, he was probably wearing a hoodie. He was actually returning from church.

More recently, nipping out to the local shop for some milk and a newspaper, an encounter with another friend and neighbour gave further cause for concern. He had obviously been in the wars and when asked about his black eye, cuts and abrasions, he merely shrugged. Outside the shop, in glorious spring morning sunshine, his story was slowly teased out.

There had been some commotion in his street during the previous night with parked cars being damaged by some bad people. Woken in the wee small hours and fearing for the safety of his car, he ventured out and, in the dark, stumbled into a uniformed police officer. The encounter led to his injuries and what a certain, senior local tweeting copper might describe as a “pavement rash”, a condition unusually common in certain types of suspect. The suggestion that he was the victim of assault was met with a resigned shrug from the respected, long standing good neighbour. “After 40 years,” he said, “you get used to it. There`s no point in fighting back and making a fuss makes it worse”. In attempting to protect his property, he was clearly in the wrong place at the wrong time. More seriously, he was in possession of the wrong ethnicity.

Before the boys in blue howl libel and defamation and demand details to launch yet another wide-ranging internal inquiry, it is worth pointing out that the people involved in these incidents do not wish to pursue complaints. One because they have no confidence that anything will change and the other because they believe that any challenge will result in unwanted and unjustified intimidation and harassment. The good work being done by the police is being undermined by an erosion of trust and no amount of cute police dogs and tweets about doughnuts is going to change that. The Met do not have a monopoly on corruption, incompetence and institutional racism.

Our stricken cyclist, as he battles through the painful journey to what we hope will be recovery, did make a fuss and got precisely nowhere. The admirable Brownhills Bob came riding tall in the saddle to give his take on this shameful episode.

When the good guys start complaining, the constabulary have more to worry about than cuts, elected commissioners and where the next chocolate bar is coming from. Evening all.