Thank-you for your comments. I'll them take them on board.......
andymc06. To be fair to you you've probably had a crap day with all this going on. People have a tendency to tar all police officers with the same brush. So I imagine you might be feeling a little persecuted just for your choice of career - before you even came on this thread.
I'm not bashing the police. I can honestly say that despite not having experience of your job - I am grateful that you do it. Just as I am grateful to those in the fire service and NHS who put themselves on the line.
So for what it's worth you have my support in what you do.
Take it easy dude.
J
P.S. Management consultancy can be tougher than you think! 😉
would probably agree with your point regarding corruption
I didn't think he'd made a point regarding corruption. As I understood it he claimed that it was nonsense to suggest that the coppers had deliberately conspired to set up Mitchell. TBH I tend to agree with that.
I think it's much more likely that Mitchell set himself up by losing his rag and swearing at the coppers, for what was after all a fairly reasonable request that he should the pedestrian gate. They didn't arrest him for a public order offence.
The question is did certain coppers [i]after[/i] the event collude and conspire to deliberately misinform and lie about events when they realised that as a result of Mitchell losing his rag and swearing they had a senior government politician by the bollocks, at a time when the Police Fed. was in dispute with the government? There appears to be some evidence to suggest that this might have indeed happened.
The question is did certain coppers after the event collude and conspire to deliberately misinform and lie about events when they realised that as a result of Mitchell losing his rag and swearing they had a senior government politician by the bollocks, at a time when the Police Fed. was in dispute with the government? There appears to be some evidence to suggest that this might have indeed happened.
Is that not a conspiracy? He might have given them the initial ammo (I don't believe anybody is claiming he wasn't in the wrong), but I don't see a huge difference between that and them conspiring to set him up before he did anything.
You do make a good point though - having checked back through this thread, andy's complaints do seem to have originally been aimed at posts suggesting a more sinister conspiracy. He might have helped himself by making posts explaining his position better rather than single word ones before retreating to being defensive.
Andrew Mitchell is a waste of space.
...though in his defence he's not Michael Gove (or Eric Pickles, who would be first up against the wall for me).
robdixon, not aware of that whistle blower- links?
Google "plebgate whistleblower"
I didn't think he'd made a point regarding corruption. As I understood it he claimed that it was nonsense to suggest that the coppers had deliberately conspired to set up Mitchell. TBH I tend to agree with that.I think it's much more likely that Mitchell set himself up by losing his rag and swearing at the coppers, for what was after all a fairly reasonable request that he should the pedestrian gate.
Well, I don't believe that the officers involved were making a reasonable request. I believe they did it to wind him up. Day in, day out, Mitchell had been allowed to cycle through the main gate, then one day they decide to change the rules on him.
Whether they were winding him up as part of a planned attempt to get him to say enough to stitch him up, or just because, like the previous commenter, they thought Mitchell was a waste of space and as such it'd be a fun thing to do, I don't know.
There do now number of reports suggesting that the former may be true - but we should treat those with the same level of skepticism as should have been applied to the differing reports of the original incident.
The sad thing about this affair is amount of damage the officers involved have done to the police. The reason that it was so easy to stitch Mitchell up was because people in this country generally have, or rather, had, a high opinion of the police, trusting them to act with integrity, and trusting the institution to deal effectivity with rogue officers, making a conspiracy of the type apparently seen here more or less unthinkable.
Interesting how the police are 'automaton enforcers of a fascist state' when clearing travellers from Dale Farm, for example, but 'just ordinary working folk' when allegedly abused by a public school educated Tory.
A bit like the red-faced old fart who chuckles and applauds when the police wade in at Dale Farm, yet tell the police to 'eff off and arrest some real criminals' when they pull him over driving home from the golf club pissed.
My points are two-fold.
There is a lot of wilful hypocrisy on the part of people with political agendas when it comes to treating organisations like the police as faceless entities. It takes a wilful care on the part of reasonable people not to be sucked into these 'them and us' childish politics.
The second point is that these are not faceless entities. They consist of individuals with the same mix of prejudice, hang-ups, chips on shoulders and individual agendas as the population they serve. Individual cases need to be assessed on their merits. You cannot simply say 'well if they don't like Mitchell, then they must be in the right' just the same as you can't say 'all coppers are ****s, so they must be lying'.
^^ wise words dannyh.
Dannyh + 1
You can pretty much predict the line that certain people will take about a subject on here, so coloured is their political hue..
Stay reasonable out there 😀
The very worst thing about this is I have just found myself agreeing with Theresa(cat flap) May, oh well stopped clocks and all that.
especially for grumwatch this and see what you think
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-23128129
But that's from the last few months - where was he when the innocent victims at Hillsborough were being fitted up and striking miners being assaulted (then fitted up too) I wonder? If he was part of the Tory government in the 80s he was probably cheering the police on/helping them cover things up.
Certainly Thatcher wasn't up for criticising the police:
“What do we mean by ‘welcoming the broad thrust of the report’? The broad thrust is devastating criticism of the police. Is that for us to welcome?” (See sections 2.6.122 through to 2.6.135 of the Report of the Hillsborough Independent Panel.)
And a Tory MP at the time colluded with the police and The Sun to smear dead Liverpool fans:
The sources of the notorious and discredited front page splash were the Sheffield-based news agency “Whites” and a local Tory MP Sir Irvine Patnick- The Police Federation met on 19 April 1989, the day the Sun article was published
- The Federation representative apparently confirmed then that “putting our side of the story over to the press and media” had been his priority
- Chief Constable Peter Wright had said “the truth could not come from him” but that he had given the Police Federation a“free hand” in briefing the press
- Peter Wright said “drunken ticketless individuals” should be blamed
Surprisingly David Davis doesn't mention the role of a Tory MP in the disgraceful smear he appears to be so outraged about.
Perhaps due to all the criticism from police chiefs over cuts, and then Plebgate, the Tories have decided to break with long-standing tradition and not automatically side with the police over any issue.
There are times in a police officers service when he will be asked to lie by his peers, now some of these lies may be of a minor nature, however some are life changing for both the polce officer and the people involved.
Ive been in these situations on many occasions, and I hope always made the right decisions
Unfortunately police officers are all human beings, some weigh up the pros and cons of their decisions, some just go with the flow, and really don't think things through.
Ive seen some unbelievable errors of judgement over the last 25 years, but what I can say is that 99% of the officers I have worked with have been honest men and women who do the job to help out the public.The others do get away with it for a while, but almost always get caught out.
Im sure no-one believes that a police officer tells the truth 100% of the time, im sure no-one on this planet tells the truth all the time
If looked at dispassionately, all that originally happened was that someone got arsey with some coppers who he felt were being ****ers (but who decided he hadn't committed any offence worthy of arrest). The real crime, and far, far more serious than someone getting arsey with some coppers, is that several members of Her Majesty's Police Force then colluded to force a democratically elected Member of Her Majesty's Parliament into a position which was untenable, which led to his resignation. Serving police officers lied to achieve a political end. Other, more senior police officers then lied in an attempt to cover up the original lies, and compounded matters by seeking to further denigrate said MP.
As much as I despise pompous arrogant ****s like Mitchell, the only question that should be asked is why none of those lying scumbags (who have abused and soiled the reputation of the police and created widespread distrust of a public office which operates by Public Consent) have yet been sacked.
The actions of Andrew Mitchell are largely irrelevant. The actions of a number of Public Servants have undermined Democracy. Whatever your political leanings, this must be seen as a very worring issue and great cause for concern, and it's our duty as a society to ensure such a thing must not and cannot happen again.
As for the accusations of 'cowardice'; the only cowardice here is that shown by the police officers who betrayed the trust placed in them by the society which they are meant to serve.
Was it the coppers who changed the rules? Preventing big ego riding through the big gate was a safety issue, right? Lest some naughty person with a van full of fertiliser drive through the other way as it's opened for him. In which case Mitchel would be the first victim, flattened by the vehicle. The police would then be second. It's in their interest too. Let them change the rules if they want to, risks alter, repetition is a weakness.
What happened to the video, you remember, only a heavily edited portion was released.
I think the delay works in Mitchel's favour, and no-one's asking the right questions. It stinks.
Well, they seemed to have opened the gate on every other occasion!
Perhaps the more likely scenario is that they couldn't be arsed to open the big gate, and when asked to open it came out with the tried and tested public service answer for everything from not stepping in a puddle to rescue a drowning child through to banning conkers:
"its Elf and safety, innit!"
As much as I despise pompous arrogant **** like Mitchell, the only question that should be asked is why none of those lying scumbags (who have abused and soiled the reputation of the police and created widespread distrust of a public office which operates by Public Consent) have yet been sacked.
I'm happy with police who blatantly lie being sacked. And there is quite clearly a problem with the police pulling together on this and probably lots of frankly far more important issues.
The only reason this particular issue is getting such press though is because it happened to a Tory MP who has some clout when it comes to whinging about it. If it had happened to an ordinary member of the public we'd never have heard about it and the Tories who now claim to be outraged about police corruption would have never said a word.
ninfan - you're like a crap parody account for Zulu-Eleven. If you're going to troll at least try a bit harder.
If it had happened to an ordinary member of the public we'd never have heard about it
Well, there [b]was[/b] the Macpherson report!
Let them change the rules if they want to, risks alter, repetition is a weakness.
Sure, but given what we know now, I don't think their opening line was, "I'm sorry sir, but the rules have changed." Whether part of a pre-planned conspiracy or not, I believe that they were deliberately antagonising him.
One of the comments above suggests that the police effectively helped the Tories / Thatcher do a cover up on Hillsborough. This comes up quite a bit but the information released into the public domain last year shows that quite before anyone updated the relevant secretary of state at the time, Douglas Hurd, or the Prime Minister, records were falsified - by over 150 police men and women.
After the records were falsified (this it turns out even included video evidence) the then government were given further false information.
It's quite interesting that for the 20 or so years since it happened the suspicion has been that Government ministers tried to mislead the public when what increasingly seems to have happened is that the police conspired to cover up what had happened and their role in causing it.
The parallels with the Plebgate are obvious - at the time of Hillsborough Thatcher's press chief is reported to have described the behaviour of the police , in notes obtained by the panel, that the police's "defensive - and at times close to deceitful - behaviour" sounded "depressingly familiar".
For me the issue in hand isn't about individual officers who by and large are trying to do the right thing, often in very challenging situations, but more to do with leadership, a "closed shop" culture, a lack of transparency and the need for forces to do a lot more to hold themselves to account against the standards the public require of them.
One of the comments above suggests that the police effectively helped the Tories / Thatcher do a cover up on Hillsborough.
No, it was the other way round.
at the time of Hillsborough Thatcher's press chief is reported to have described the behaviour of the police , in notes obtained by the panel, that the police's "defensive - and at times close to deceitful - behaviour" sounded "depressingly familiar".
But seeing as the police were useful attack dogs in the fight against the miners they didn't want to do anything about it did they.
but Grum - Thatcher's response reflected what she was directly told by amongst others, the Chief Superintendents of the day. Should she not trusted such senior officers, and if not, which individuals who had relevant accountability should she have listened to and given weight to?
The only reason this particular issue is getting such press though is because it happened to a Tory MP who has some clout when it comes to whinging about it. If it had happened to an ordinary member of the public we'd never have heard about it and the Tories who now claim to be outraged about police corruption would have never said a word.
I'm sure you're right, and it's good that they've been found out because of that on this occasion. The worrying thing is that it does make you wonder how often the minority of bad ones do get away with it. That and the closing of ranks around those officers who've clearly done wrong which does appear to be an institutional cover up reaction.
pdw - MemberWell, I don't believe that the officers involved were making a reasonable request.
What are you, some sort of expert on anti-terrorist security ?
I'm not, and I don't know what the logistics are involving the opening of the vehicular gates in Downing Street. But I am a cyclist and know how easy it is to push a bicycle on a pavement and through pedestrian access.
And I also know that the gates are there to stop a terrorist attack. An attack in which for example, a car loaded with explosives detonates taking the front of Number 10, the Prime Minister, the cabinet, one or two foreign dignitaries, and perhaps half a dozen of coppers.
I assume that every time the gates are opened they are no longer providing the same level of security as when they are shut. I have no idea what the security threat level was was on that particular day, nor do I know if the armed officers had been told to keep gate opening to the absolute minimum.
Clearly the gates have to be occasionally opened to allow cars and commercial vehicles through, presumably the presence of a vehicle passing through reduces the access for possible hostile action in a way that a cyclist on a bicycle doesn't.
But perhaps the police were in fact unreasonable and should have opened the vehicular gates specially for Mitchell to cycle through majestically, instead of the humiliation of having to push his mother's shopping bike through the pedestrian gate.
Perhaps the security gates and the armed police are all just completely unnecessary nonsense which should be scrapped.
But if Mitchell had issues then I'm sure there is a procedure to make representations, he did after all say to them "you haven't heard the last of this" so he presumably believes that there is.
What he shouldn't have done was loose his rag, swear at them, and by his own admission, show a lack of respect. All of which is totally unacceptable behaviour from a government Chief Whip. I don't swear at coppers and I don't see why senior Tory politicians can't control themselves similarly when they feel aggravated.
Long time ago, ISTR reading in a book by Churchill a comment on being in Downing St in the wartime bombing. It was to the effect that the jerry-built terrace would have shown little resistance to a bomb.
I'm sure it's lined with concrete, steel and aluminium foil now.
It is incredible how ingrained "ant-terrorism" has become the battle cry for anyone trying to defend abuse of power.
Anyone cringe at the idiocracy of the whole story?
Called me a pleb. Oh grow up idiots.
Focus on the power and utility companies NOW.
There brews a future massive civil unrest when theres still plenty of fuel etc yet prices are crippling.
I thought using the word "pleb" as the supposed insult was the most intelligent thing the police did in the whole affair. It really cut straight to the heart of the class warfare they wanted to portray.
Well it was until the whole thing went tits up on them, MSP, at which point it just makes their motives clear.
What are you, some sort of expert on anti-terrorist security ?
No. My point is that I don't believe that they went about it in a reasonable way (note the word "believe" - I have no idea what was actually said, but I'm guessing based on the evidence). As I said, I don't think their opening line was "I'm sorry sir but the rules have changed" or something similar that was likely to yield a positive response. Police officers tend to be very good at diffusing situations, but given what we know now, I believe that in this instance the officers set out to do the exact opposite.
What he shouldn't have done was loose his rag, swear at them
Correct, and he has admitted as much. But I can't honestly say that I have never been frustrated into swearing in places that on reflection I shouldn't - and that's just in response to people who weren't *deliberately* trying to wind me up.
And of course, the problem wasn't the swearing it it's own right: if the police had given an accurate account of the incident, it would have blown over in a day (if it made the press at all). The problem was that it gave the police just enough to stitch him up, because it meant that he couldn't give an outright denial of wrong doing.
he did after all say to them "you haven't heard the last of this"
Has he admitted saying that? Or are you going by the police version of events?
BTW, do are you still stand by your earlier assertions that Mitchell "very publicly lied", and that he "initially denied swearing"?
Hats off to the bloke from the police federation who said on channel 4 news that his exonerated members were now being subjected to 'a completely unfair trail by media'
I presume it was a piece of satirical performance art? It was, wasn't it?
Well it was until the whole thing went tits up on them
Yeah I am almost surprised the police federation hasn't tried to spin it as "they were victims of their own success" 😆
Has he admitted saying that?
Yep.
BTW, do are you still stand by your earlier assertions that Mitchell "very publicly lied", and that he "initially denied swearing"?
Yep.
And will G4S now do security at Downing St, since some think the police can't be trusted?
I shall remember next time I want to make a public statement to mutter under my breath.
the gates are there to stop a terrorist attack. An attack in which for example, a car loaded with explosives detonates taking the front of Number 10, the Prime Minister, the cabinet, one or two foreign dignitaries, and perhaps half a dozen of coppers.I assume that every time the gates are opened they are no longer providing the same level of security as when they are shut.
Inside the gates:
[img] 
[/img]
Mitchell could have got some "well sick air" off that kicker 😆
I refer the right honourable gentleman to my earlier phat superman seatgrab.
What's your point Z-11 ? That the gates aren't needed ? Or that they could be left permanently open ?
Be more specific with your security analysis.
