Police problems for Labour as the Home Secretary gets banged to rights

Ray

Of course, police officers are not usually stalwart Labour supporters - so this might explain why the Government regarded them as expendable.

David Lindsay

The Police tend to forget this, but they are civilians, paid to do full-time what, should the circumstances arise, we would all do, and be entitled to do, for free.

So they have a moral right to strike, which they voluntarily forgo in return for certain other arrangements, including the traditional pay deal that the Government is denying them this year. If they all call in sick on the same day, or whatever, then they should enjoy the full support of the labour movement, however magnanimous that would require some sections of it to be.

No one has been more loyal to New Labour than the Police, yet look how they are being repaid. I hope that they will hit back as hard as they can, and that their doing so will finally spur those in the unions who have remained loyal to Labour in return for nothing but scorn and abuse to start hitting back too, without fear of the Police response.

Nicholas

"No one has been more loyal to New Labour than the Police". Not something they should be proud of. The police should be impartial and non-political as should teachers. Impossible with New Labour's infiltration of political coercion and propaganda into every aspect of the public service.

They used to be civilians. They are turning into something else. They seem to forget their duty is to police our streets with the consent of the community not to control the community on behalf of the state.

This has been a problem with British policing for many a long year; that they are influenced by and seek to influence client groups. Since 1997 it has been New Labour and the Left. The independence of the constabulary and their absolute subordination to the rule of law is long gone as a concept, as is the police constables discretion. Pity.

Frank Pulley

This government, by eroding the powers of the constable and largely replacing that office by para-police and other cardboard cut-outs; by using them to raise taxes through iniquitous quota parking fines and use of speed cameras for collecting revenue; by tying them up in red tape; by handing over their prosecutorial powers to politicised lawyers and imposing upon them Bramshill brainwashed, often puerile, and politically correct 'senior' officers, have destroyed the trust between the public and police and the morale of police in general. They have systematically lowered the physical prerequistes for the Job and eroded the conditions of service and and rent allowance that attracted the best recruits; the standard of recruitment has dropped. The police have become more unpopular as a result, mainly because they are no longer providing speedy and mature help and assistance they once did. Crime and public disorder is rife, much of it deliberately buried by fiddled statistics. They are embattled, stymied and undervalued. That's why the government thinks it can use them as an example to intimidate other public sector groups looking for fair pay rises. Jacqui Smith is the worst Home Secretary ever. She might make a passable bus conductress if there were still such things. Gordon Brown appointed her. That's all you need to know about this PM. This 'government' must go! Get it rolling tonight C & N!

Ian C

I bet MS Berry really enjoyed that - stuck the knife in and twisted hard, very hard. Well done her. Bound to be on the news...

Oscar

Jan Berry has certainly been doing her bit for C&N. The headline news on C4 was devastating for Labour. Betraying the police like this was another unfathomable bit of bad faith and bad politics that clearly came straight from Gordon. Gordon Brown's Labour - the nasty party and the stupid party.

Perry

Probably seems rude and disrespectful, - which it is, - but there seems to be an uncomprehending witless facial expression about the members of the front bench, both male and female, especially when ‘listening’ to contrary points of view. Mz. Prudence of Noo-Lie-Bore, the clanking cog of confusion, demonstrates this well. So does Mz. Harperson. Now Mz. Smith, - to perfection.

John

Neither rude nor disrespectful, I'd say. We are entitled to speak the truth about them. These are, without exception, real knuckle-draggers, straight from central casting: nasty little halfwits, jumped-up nobodies and low-forehead bullies who don't have the brain-power to grasp that they are our servants, that they are answerable to us, not we to them. When people stand up to gormless bullies, which is finally beginning to happen, what other expression would you expect to see on the bullies' faces, for goodness' sake?

Ted Tedford

Miss Smith and Miss Harman look very alike. In manner and outlook both would be suited to being house mistresses - perhaps rival ones - at a second-XI girls' school.

But I'm not sure whether I would prefer them to be contained safely in the education system, away from television cameras and the newspapers, and where their pursuit of control would be limited to purely local legislation; or restrained in Mr Brown's cabinet where they have very little freedom of thought or action, and cannot corrupt children directly with their wrong-headed views on family, The State, security etc.

It's a tough one.

Perry of England

John, - thank you. Your comment is a helpful corrective. Yes, they are OUR servants. This is lost on so many of the apparatchicks spawning into our life. And I for one too often tend to overlook that fact.