You Know It Makes Sense

James R

I read that hopelessly romantic last paragraph and think: 'No, it's really more like Fiji.'

Leah Owens

As they can only police with our consent how do we withdraw consent? Surely a naional withdrawal of consent would shake them up.

David Lindsay

James Delingpole thinks that no elected sheriff would so "waste" public money as to stage a drugs bust against Kate Moss and her kind.

Oh, yes, he would. And that is a very good case for having him.

Unlike the American prohibition laws, which attacked an integral part of Western culture and even then criminalised only its sale or purchase, our drugs laws attack wholly alien phenomena and rightly criminalise possession.

If the law against possession were properly enforced, then the war against drugs could certainly be won, and might already have been so.

Whereas without that enforcement, that war is not even being fought.

Lydia P Troyer

The Police power is the application of government's delegated power to coerce the citizen to some action in line with public policies legitimated by the ballot boxes. So while a sheriff 's election system would improve the accountability, it would also open the henhouse to the foxie lawyers, who would raise the greater funds for electioneering and thus "fund" their preferred candidate. As to the brutality of some policemen, as pointed out, they're plods not diplomats - not so long ago, one could barely tell the villains from the coppers at the Old Bailey, same gene pool, different fathers. There are harry hunts in every occupation, it grates when a turbanned immigration bloke enquires how long I intend to stay in the country of my, and not his, birth but he's doing the job he's paid for and so are the snarkies at JFK or Atlanta. Prosecutorial discretion is a more fragile aspect of British policing, but still much preferrable to the Continental civil code system.

Scott Mebeat

It is true that the police have forgotten what they are for. They have lost the capacity for discretion. This was made clear to me not long ago during a social conversation that I had with a young graduate police officer who has since been fast-tracked to the rank of Inspector. Things were seen as black and white, with no shades of grey. The idea of policing by consent was so alien that it didn't even register. It was an 'us and them' mindset, and we are the enemy. It was the old 'power corrupts' thing again. PC Dixon would be spinning in his grave.

On the other hand, the police are hamstrung by bad laws. It is no use yowling about their enforcing daft anti-British politically correct legislation. Enforcement of the law is what they are for. Bad laws are at the heart of the problem. Clean up the laws and the police will follow. Accountability to local democracy sounds like a good start, but the sheriff would still be hamstrung by all the egomaniacal left-wing legislation.

It has been clear for some time that Ted Heath's treachery was a mistake, but no-one seems to have found a way out. I don't believe that this is confined just to the British people. Margaret Thatcher may well have been groping towards a solution, but was quickly bumped before it gelled into a policy. Powerful underground forces are at work, which do not have our well-being at heart, and I greatly fear that it will all end in tears, especially if the 'economic downturn' causes the Euro to implode.

Our political system has been hijacked by those with evil and hatred in their hearts, and a me-me agenda. We need to find a way to nullify their influence and return them back to potty-land where they belong. The urban tyranny needs to be tamed.

Perhaps, while Westminster still has a shred of relevance, there should be a change of emphasis in our selection of MPs to weed out career politicians and replace them with more solid subjects with experience of life outside politics. There should be a bias towards British subjects who have a personal stake in the well-being of Britain. We should eliminate all those whose patriotism wasn't up to holding a top national security clearance (like the one Mr Quick used to have).

Restrict the local government franchise just to those households that own the land their house sits on, and which actually pay the local government tax. Scrap postal voting. Start a major clear-out of bad legislation - for example, anything that the Guardian approves of should be scrutinised with a view to repealing it. Restore personal accountability to local councillors. Trust British subjects to bear arms. An armed society is a polite society. There is a long list, including sorting out the hospitalsandschools.

It is a shame that the Queen is in her dotage, because she would be the obvious focus for action to recover Britain from the wreckers, and because the armed forces owe allegiance to her and not to politicians.

Meanwhile we stumble on.

A.C.N.

I see that James Delingpole's column will be fortnightly. At the risk of premature burn-out can we not have him weekly? Together with lefty Liddle it would give the Spectator an even balance.

ian skidmore

unusually perceptive

Rory Sutherland

I can't speak for everywhere (what are the Manchester Police like, anyone?) but this police problem seems mostly confined to London and The Met. Elsewhere - and even on the outskirts of London - almost all my contact with the police has shown them to be courteous, reasonable, sensible and helpful. However almost all my (wholly innocent) contact with the London police has been characterised by a mixture of rudeness, arrogance, charmlessness and stupidity. And I'm a middle class white man in a Jag - God knows what it's like if you're a bit of a hippy.

This is now a significant bar to my ever moving back to London.

Frank P

James D:

"They ([the police] are there to represent us, to do our bidding and to uphold the values that we, the majority of British people, would most like to see upheld."

Utter cobblers! As a police officer, I was variously bidden by members of the public to:

"F*** Off!
"Go fuck your mother - again."
"Suck my cock."
"Kiss my arse."
"Look the other way and I'll give you a fiver!"
"Pretend I wasn't in when you arrived with the warrant and it's worth 20 grand."
"Nick Jimmy Blogs [a criminal competitor real name witheld] instead and it's worth a coupla grand";

… just to mention a few of the more commonplace demands or requests. I won't embarrass your readers with some of the more exotic or bizarre bids from 'the public'.

Before the inception of the CPS Police Officers were keepers of the Queen's Peace and enforcers of the law of the land. They had powers of arrest (and discretion) and were obliged to perform their duty without fear or favour according to the law and police regulations. The public's power was through elected representatives in parliament with oversight from the Upper House,enacting or amending, as necessary, the law of the land after due debate.

The police were apolitical in conception and no faction - ethnic, political, sexual, commercial or social class was entitled to immunity from statutory or common law. If a police officer had prima facie evidence of an offence, the officer (of any rank) could bring an offender, either by arrest or summons before a magistrate and the magistrate (or JPs) would adjudicate or refer the more serious cases to an appropriate higher court. A duty police sergeant at a police station committed a criminal offence if refusing to charge or summons an offender when presented with credible evidence by a police constable. This way most public nuisances were dealt with speedily (usually next day)in Urban areas by experienced 'Stipes' who brooked no nonsense from either the detritus that littered the streets or the seedy shysters that represented the cheekier of the upstarts. Police only sought legal aid in the more complex and serious cases, or for the cases that got sent 'up the steps' for Judge and Jury trials. The system wasn't perfect, neither were the police. But overall it worked and with less political interference it would have gone on working with a bit of heavy-duty management and cleansing that was required at times.

After the inception of the CPS the police became apparatchiks of the ruling political party with most of their discretionary powers removed and handed over to a highly politicised group of second-rate lawyers (good lawyers would have already been earmarked for commerce or private partnerships before leaving college). Senior police officers were then routinely subjected to intensive brainwashing by Gramsci-inspired tutors at the National Police College at Bramshill. If pliable and leftist in outlook the candidates were fast-tracked into even higher office. Thus the power and usefulness of front line officers was neutralised and within a couple of decades almost two centuries of police evolution and development have been destroyed.

The public have been complicit by voting for the wrong politicians. I see no prospect of them voting for the right ones in either sense of that adjective, as they do not seem to exist any more, except in fringe parties. The media have been complicit in the downfall of policing by ludicrous praise or denunciation according to the sensationalist requirements of the moment.

As for the public electing Police Chiefs: just how more politicised do you want them to become?

To return to 'bids' from the public during my active police service, I refused, of course, all of what I was bidden to do by those quoted above. Although none of them apologised, some were later very sorry.

Frank P

Oh - and by the way James, I was bidden by every mother (that was alive) of almost every villain I ever nicked, to let her son go as ... "he is a wonderful boy and would never do anything like what you have accused him of!" Sometimes they were so sweet, I was almost tempted to believe them. But then there was the evidence ... and the law ... and my duty.

These days all the coppers I meet have a handy excuse for not acting or failing in their cases (I was about to say prosecutions - but of course, they don't do that anymore.

"You dunno what it's like Frank! All darn to the CPS, ennit? The game isn't worth the candle! Just waiting for me pension, mate." And that was a Deputy Assistant Commissioner! And don't bother to ask, I never reveal my sources.

James Delingpole

Thanks Frank P for those fascinating posts. I was hoping we might hear from a proper old school copper. And I do agree with your point about our having invited this ghastly situation by electing such dismal politicians. I should be very interested to hear what your proposal might be for improving things.... (Or indeed from any other coppers - serving or ex- out there). If I can I shall try to get my friend Val Czerny to chip in. The only British policeman, so far as I know whose father served in U Boats in the war....

john miller

I agree with most of the article. But I emphatically do not agree with your conclusions regarding the barrister shot by the police.

It is not the role of the police to play psychiatrist, especially when a loaded firearm is pointed in their direction.

Being under fire yourself, I feel it is one of those very few subjects which you cannot sensibly comment on without having experienced it.

Ken Bishop

Why do you snigger about "the dreaded cime of speeding"? You would dread it very seriously indeed if you lived near a fast road. But then, people who can afford to choose where they live infallibly choose to live away from traffic, which they then go on to generate outside the homes of the less fortunate.

Al Sparks

As an American, I'm intrigued by your comments about having a sheriff system, and how it would make the police more accountable.

It probably would. Police in the U.S. are more locally controlled even when they work for a city mayor.

Yet they still write traffic tickets for stupid stuff, like speeding a few miles over the limit (after all, the city or county get the revenue from those tickets). They also enforce the drug laws. And you may have heard of speed traps set up by local sheriffs so as to snag out of towners (who can't vote for or against them) and pick up revenue for their local government.

Many of the examples given were demonstrations which may have turned violent (you weren't specific enough in describing them). About a year ago in Los Angeles, there was a riot where some of the demonstrators were hurt by the police. While that didn't make the news, or get past the outrage, I heard that there were actually more POLICE officer hurt during that riot.

How many police were hurt during the demonstrations you were complaining about?

I'm all for peaceful demonstrations, but if things start to turn ugly, then it's time to leave. I've little sympathy for people who get injured confronting the police.

Calvin Charles

It's a terrible shame they way the police force has changed. I remember the good old avuncular coppers pre-1980 who really were public servants and behaved like it: courteous, polite and helpful. Those days are long gone. Don't blame it all on New Labour; the rot set in long before 1997.