Car de-icing

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>Thanks, Susan. Much appreciated to be appreciated.  

Dominic, sorry to have hijacked what was intended to be a fun and light-hearted post.

Doug Parker it's your fault! You picked the wrong day to do a bit of bobby-bashing - I'd just about had enough from the BBC!

I'm overdue my usual therapy; a dive - roll on the Red Sea!

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>Like good coppers the journalist in this instance did his job.

He revealed a story that no-one can be proud of, in terms of racists within the initial training procedures of GMP.

You might not like the message but it hit home and it even made very clear that the coppers that he worked with on the beat were OK - apart from one individual IIRC.

However, the media will get the blame from the senior cops and the politicians for making them aware of their own shortcomings in tackling racism.

Frankly, I'm sick of the Police Federation supporting fascists who shouldn't be anywhere near a warrant card and Home Secetaries who beat the drum of racism whenever the Daily Mail or political opinion comes their way.

Mark - you might not be aware of racism in your ranks and having met you I know that you wouldn't tolerate it. However, having lived in London it was widespread and in the Midlands too. I had many contacts within the Met and West Mids Police and many had racist views - some very extreme. The only reason that I didn't challenge them in print is they knew where my parents lived !!

Branding a Police Force as &quot;institutionally racist&quot; is pointless. Individuals promote racist behaviour, organisations merely allow it.

Describing the journalist as displaying a &quot;betrayal of trust&quot; is nonsense. He was doing his job and despite some bad editing and awful scripting he got some interesting material.

Reading earlier posts I was expecting to see the &quot;only a few rotten apples spoil the almost spotless image&quot; quote.

His idea was to do a full year and report on what he saw but was discovered before the end of his investigation.

My message - don't slag the Beeb for telling the truth and stamp out racism wherever you experience it.

If you break the law you should expect to get punished - copper or not.

[Mark Davies]

<font color='#000080'>

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Gavin Yates @ Oct. 22 2003,23:21)]Like good coppers the journalist in this instance did his job.

Obviously I would expect you to support your colleague and defend your profession, and I respect that.

I take on board what you say about racism in other forces, and not being in them I have no grounds for argument. But Mark Daley didn't choose to investigate other forces, he chose to come to GMP (at the inadvertant but open invitation of our rather self-serving former Chief).

But what exactly was the job he was doing? He was clearly expecting to find endemic racism at the very roots of the force. What he did find was a force displaying no racism amongst its working officers whatsoever and working extremely hard to ensure that those joining the force didn't do it either. It's impossible to root out everyone during the selection process; some will get through. He found two genuine racists (one, and the worst of them, not ours) and a couple of dubious ones out of 120 officers. Not a bad first effort - and I assure you that if anyone of them had expressed any racist ideas within the hearing of their colleagues on the street they'd have been out on their arse before they knew what hit them.

So did Mark Daley put out a documentary on what a success story on racism GMP is? No, he decided to publish the story he'd come for or be damned!

And don't start going on about the useless disclaimers about &quot;the vast majority of officers being blameless&quot;. You know that's bollocks. The programme was presented from a negative viewpoint and it is a negative impression that the viewer will walk away with.

Mark Daley made a mistake, based on the outdated misconceptions perpetuated by his own industry. He expected to find a massive problem. Instead he found a problem with only one or two insignificant individuals who in the end would either have had to change their ideas or wouldn't have made it through the system. Having put a huge personal investment into it he didn't have the balls to hold his hands up and say he was wrong.

So what will be the result of this fine example of investigative journalism? Will GMP be forced to take action to eradicate the virtually non-existant racism problem that our intrepid reporter so ably discovered that we didn't have?

Well, the lamentable answer to that question is yes. The knee jerk reactions have already started. Even though we know that we are already doing everything reasonably possible to ensure that there is no racism within our ranks, we can't be seen to be complacent for fear of being accused of being in denial.

We will now undergo yet more highly expensive re-education programs, preaching to the converted and telling us all the things that we already believe in. Millions of pounds will be spent and tens of thousands of hours of officers time will be wasted.

We will face a renewed surge of malicious allegations of racism from every person of an ethnic minority that we arrest; they feeling encouraged to do so because if the BBC says we're racist then it must be right. Yet more millions of pounds will be spent investigating these allegations to no end, and again many thousands of hours of police officers time will be wasted.

Money and time which, but for Mark Daley, would otherwise have been spent fighting crime and serving the people of Greater Manchester. I can confidently say that we will be living with his legacy for years.

So, when the people of Manchester are desperately waiting for the arrival of a police officer who, as a direct result of this piece of work, simply isn't there, I'm sure they will be very grateful to Mark for a job well done.

I don't object to investigative journalism and I don't object to the police being scrutinised, and of course we should be accountable.

I do object to his methods (which have wasted huge sums of taxpayers' money and have deprived Manchester of the police officer that would have been in Mark Daley's place) and I will stand by my comments about &quot;betrayal&quot;, (you would probably need to be a police officer, or in a similar situation, to understand).

Above all, I object to journalism for the sake of sensation or to make a name for the reporter trying to develop his career. I object to the publication of stories with very little consideration to the actual facts and with no consideration whatsoever for the wider consequences.

Unfortunately, the latter is far too common in respect of the media's representation of the police, and this latest offering (in my biased but informed opinion) is a prime example.

We will, I am sure, disagree on this, as we approach it from opposing viewpoints. We won't, I hope, fall out over it.

[Mr T.]

Some damned fine and well reasoned accounts here.

I agree with Gav: stamp out racism where ever you see it - for the simple and inescapable truth is that we are, after all, one people under the same Sun; some of us, historically, may have found our countries closer to that Sun and gaining (through necessity) a darker hue to our skin, due to living nearer the Equator, but one people nonetheless. Sadly, racism doesn't restrict itself to skin colour; the Irish and the Jews (amongst others) have both seen just how intolerance and prejudice can blight the good name and nature of the welcoming majority in these islands. Another simple fact: we are no longer, and never will be again, a purely WASP society - get used to it, embrace it and rejoice in it. Vive la Difference!

I also agree with Mark Davies: one can't help feeling that, after watching last night's worthy (yet borderline tabloid) 'expose' of the training cadets in Warrington, the reporter was going to come out with something, anything, no matter how diluted or tepid (when what he sought, he got: a 'spectacular') in his attempt to make a name for himself and (a cardinal sin for a reporter) 'being the news' instead of reporting it. Watch it again and ask yourself, can I see this 'opus' as being completely uncontrived?

Watching, as I have tonight, a few of the other fresh cadets from the same 'class of....', one guy was quite distressed that he now had to go forth in his police career knowing that he has a partially thankless task as he'll now be 'tarred with the same brush' as these ill-educated clowns. He now knows that half his time will be spent reading folks' faces to see if they feel uncomfortable, nervey or just downright untrusting when he runs his beat or attends a scene. As Mark said, as a result of this proramme, and it was right too to highlight these clowns, more 'retraining' and money (depleting an already stretched police budget) will now need to be spent on telling cadets what the majority already know: be civil to all; treat all on merit; never use prejudice to second guess a person's motives.

The last word went to a black WPC in the class: &quot;I'm glad that these people have been caught when they were; they do not represent the officers and cadets I have met whilst undergoing induction training here [ you'll notice that none of these guileless f*ckwits had the balls to giver her any grief to her face??]; they also won't now be allowed to practise their 'trade' on the streets of the county...&quot;

Can't say fairer than that, can we?

Actually, maybe these deluded mutha-f*ckas might be put to work de-icing car wind-screens??.......in Moss Side  

[Doug Parker]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] (Mark Davies @ Oct. 22 2003,21:31)]
Doug Parker it's your fault!

&nbsp;That's not the first time i,ve heard that from a copper.

&nbsp;It's all out of proportion anyway. &nbsp;Everyone i know gets slagged for what they are, whether Irish, scottish, black, short, bespectacled, ginger, matlow, fat, big footed, tall, bald, bearded, indian, disabled, grey haired, german, female, plumber, farmer, posh, poor, marine, male, skinny, council tenant. &nbsp;I don't get sued by all of them. &nbsp;Too many serious sods about. &nbsp;If i cried myself to sleep every night that somebody had called me ginger, good looking, shit kicker, scaffolder, glasses wearing gobshite, i would never be able to get out of bed in the mornings. &nbsp;BTW. i do know 1 copper who does get the hump with being called flatfoot, &nbsp;he's calmed down a bit about being called bent copper because he's been in the pot a couple of times and can't argue with it.

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Dominic, sorry to have hijacked what was intended to be a fun and light-hearted post.

Some saying about pebbles and avalanches comes to mind...

[Lou]

Mark,

It isn't the coppers doing the flashing that I blame for &quot;revenue raising&quot; at all. &nbsp;Don't get me wrong. &nbsp;It is the whole concept, the employment of it and the use of the money genereated that I object to.

Do we see a reduction in average speeds on roads with cameras? &nbsp;Do we see a reduction in average speeds where there was once a speed trap? &nbsp;Are the new cameras flagged up to say your average speed over the next 5 miles is being assessed and recorded?

The latter would be the perfect use of the new cameras, but no, they hide them. &nbsp;Therefore doing nothing for road safety but everything for revenue. &nbsp;Now that isn't a copper doing that, it is whatever committee that makes these decisions.

We had 6 policemen and women stood in our village a couple of weeks ago. &nbsp;it was a Sunday afternoon I think. &nbsp;They pulled over every single motorbike coming through, and every driver without a seatbelt. &nbsp;Now, as we have a problem with motorbikes seriously speeding and racing along the road that goes through the village I can see some sense in this. &nbsp;Equally anyone without a seatbelt. &nbsp;However I don't think they were ticketing everyone, just warning and talking about the dangers and giving notice of things that needed fixing in some cases and ticketing more serious cases. &nbsp;That kind of interactive policing I can see to have far more effect than if they had sat on a blind corner with a radar gun and people got a ticket a few weeks later.

Now if only there was a camera for people who leave their fog lights on for two weeks after a day when it was a little misty........


lou

[Gavin Yates]

<font color='#000F22'>Mark,

I understand your views and don't worry we're not gonna fall out over it as we have the same end goal which is to bring an end to racism and make the UK a nicer place to live.

If the programme has achieved anything good it should be that a number of racist officers - those that you could never rely on not to be tainted by their own intolerances - are now off the streets. Huzzah.

Two - I think it's very clear now to new recruits that racism will not be tolerated so don't apply. Something that wasn't the case 20 years ago.

Investigative journalism is not an exact science and sometimes what you get shapes what you end up reporting. I did an investigation into prostitution ten years ago and that turned into the arrest, charge and conviction of &nbsp;eleven paedophiles. Oh yeah and I was was working for that dangerous organisation the Beeb when I did it. We used a lot of tax payers money for that too. I don't have any regrets apart from seven of them are out.

looking forward to seeing you soon mate.

gav

[MATTBIN]

Did a U turn this morning, knew I shouldnt have as there was a damn great sign saying so, what did the Mets finest do?
A very nice young lady police person informed me of the error of my ways, indicated it was driving without due care etc and said dont do it again, bless.

Most of em are alright, it sjust that Mark Davies I hate &nbsp;
hijacking a thread that Chasey got on the right lines with.

Mark, have a great time in the Red Sea and make sure you nick a few Italians for criminal damage and diving whilst under the influence of a loud wet suit. Talking of which anyone remeber THAT sketch with MelSmith and the Black Adder bloke, brilliant. Trying to nick someone, a black guy, for having a very ugly wife, it was a send-up obviously.

Matt

[Dominic]

Originally Posted by [b

Quote[/b] ]Now if only there was a camera for people who leave their fog lights on for two weeks after a day when it was a little misty........

Now there's some people that the police SHOULD start pulling over

I still like my idea - since cameras, by any definition, can catch people who were driving in a perfectly safe way, throw away the &quot;It's a crime and must be punished&quot; crap and replace it with a mandatory course that teaches better, safer driving practices - something that doesn't just focus on slowing down, but on good driving - which is what cameras are supposed to be about in the first place. (Tho road deaths have risen since their introduction)

After all, hands up anybody who hasn't seen someone doing a dangerous or dumb driving move that happened well within the speed limit? (The most recent one I had was a roundabout on a dual carriageway where the moron in front of me decided that they were at liberty to use the whole two lanes to reduce the curve they had to go around. If I hadn't been thinking &quot;This person looks like an idiot, I'll be ready to hit the brakes&quot; I'd have been sideswiped off the road.)

AIUI, there IS such an initiative underway already - but it only gets offered in a small location to drivers who were flashed doing exactly 35mph. FFS!