Stuff

So, today has been another interesting day in the world of policing and general politics. It's taken long enough, but finally the evil wicked bitch - sorry, witch - of the east has decided to quit. Not because she has admitted that she has been the worst, most hostile , most anti-Police and generally incompetent Home Secretary in recent memory, but because she got caught milking the taxpayer (me and you) for money by calling a spare room in her sisters house "her main home" and the house where her family lives as a second house. That, and she claimed for some porn so her husband could knock one out a couple of times. I can't really blame him because his wife is pig ugly, but there is enough free porn on the internet if that's your thing, and there's considerably less chance of getting humiliated by a curious and diligent reporter.


I wonder if he was thinking the same as me? "don't let the door hit you in the ass on the way out..."

On that last point about reporters, I have said many times that I'm no fan of the main stream press but I must admit that I think they have done rather well of late, what with exposing parliament for the hive of vulturous swine that they are, and the Met hierarchy for the S.44 stop searching debacle. If ever there was proof that we are no where near a Police state, the fact that we have a free and independent press proves that, no matter what the Daily Wail and their numerous misguided armchair experts suggest. I've never been an advocate of stopping and searching people who are soooo not a terrorist (as I discussed in this post) just because someone in SO15 thinks it's a valid tactic, and if I used any S.44 ops I've been on to target criminals instead then so be it. You can accuse me of being complicit by carrying out lawful orders and searching people at choke points, but as I've always tried to specifically target people who fit my own personal profile of "scroaty bastard" I make no apologies for making crime arrests during counter-terrorism stop searches, of which I have had many.

Now on to separate matters. A combination of work and FANTASTIC sunshine has made me inadvertently miss a rather large milestone on this blog - 100k site hits.

THANK YOU!!

The old stat counter at the top gives me a bit more than just the number of hits the page gets, I get lots of other info such as what countries my visitors come from, what sites direct them here and who links to me etc. Aside from every country on the European continent I've had visits from all over North America and most of Australasia too which is rather nice. I've had links from left and right wing sites, news sites, Police sites, random blogs and even a World of WarCraft forum, which is odd, but again, Thanks!

I know I haven't had many posts on recently but as most followers know the world of response policing, public order and other stuff I can't talk about has been the cause of many a cancelled rest day as well as the occasional splat of overtime, and when I haven't been at work I've been trying to make as much Vitamin D as I can!!

We've been absolutely hammered for aid recently which has lead to teams being left unjustifiably and dangerously short. Thanks in no small part to the Tamil protests (or Op Mirandy as my various overtime sheets have known it) we've had loads of people abstracted from teams just because they proved at the very beginning that they could actually get a few thousand people on site in next to no time (unlike swampy) which has caused a massive headache - and bill - for policing it.

Contrary to popular belief we don't have huge reserves of public order teams on duty "just in case" and aside from the TSG units on Commisioners reserve (a few PSU's to provide emergency cover for public order, backing up response or life threatening/large scale incidents) if something kicks off our resilience is tested to the full as we have to scratch around for anyone currently on duty to don kit and make their way there. If you have all your units on all the time you'll have no one left within 24 hours as we're not robots and need breaks and sleep, so trying to plan for appropriate resources has been an absolute nightmare for the public order branch and relevant duties offices. It's also cost a fortune to the tune of over £8 million, and that was a couple of weeks ago.

I've no doubt that a huge part of the hesitation to kick them out of the square has been fall out from G20 (and yes, officers HAVE refused to use force to move people because of the threat of media witch hunts and suspensions even though it's EXACTLY what we are trained for) and the threat of their community rallying to swamp Westminster with tens of thousands of people in a very short period of time. If anything it shows that a determined group of people can bring central London to a standstill in protest with very little actual violence. Surely another sign that we aren't as much of a Police state as some think?

I will try and get some more posts up soon but to be honest if the sun stays as it is (thanks to El Nino no doubt) then I'll be out there in the garden, on the beach or on the water like everyone else when I'm not wearing a polyester shirt with body armour or a couple of stone's worth of riot kit. In the mean time, thanks again for visiting, thanks for the comments and thanks for the support when some jobs have made me question why I actually do it, and others why I should carry on doing it.

Now, get off the bloody computer and go and get some sun while you can!!

Metcountymounty.