A thankless job

The police have been in the news for good and bad reasons.
Hillsborough the scene in the late 80s of a hideous drama, played out in front of the cameras, people being crushed in front of our eyes with the authorities seemingly powerless to help.
The claim by the police was that "drunk fans", who had arrived at the ground after the kick off had broken the entrance gate and were responsible for the ensuing crush.
After 20 years of campaigning the relatives forced the authorities to reopen the investigation and the autopsies carried out at the time by the coroner. There had been a massive cover up of the truth. The police had opened the gate and to compound the tragedy, refused access to the ambulance staff to tend the injured who had been moved onto the pitch. People had been allowed to die who could have been saved.
The big question was why ? One can't help but be influenced by the extremely poor relations between the police and football fans at large. In the Thatcher era the police were used as a private army and were particularly harsh against the miners in the miners strike. 

There was a mind set that had grown up of a You and Them mentality which was fostered from the top. Mrs Thatcher held no truck for the lower echelons of our society and her attitude was allowed to seep into the the bureaucracy around her and the message was passed on. The Police viewed the football fans as low life. The cover up was a massive fraud with over a hundred and forty police reports doctored to blame the fans. The police senior officers were guilty of the most basic crime. The manipulation of evidence has to be the one thing the police can never be accused, otherwise the whole system falls down.
Not one of the police chiefs has been brought to book and the most senior holds a senior position to this day.
The shooting of the two police women, who were apparently drawn into an ambush by a maniac who was already out on bail accused of a previous murder, highlights the danger the police face now-a-days.


The UK are amongst 5/6 countries in the world who do not arm their normal police.  Apart from the countries that make up the British Isles, the others are Samoa,The Falklands, Pitcairn,and Finland. Other than Finland they have historical links to this country. 
Of course the make up of our society has changed massively over the last 30/40 years. 40 years ago the Police were held in esteem by society at large. One Bobby (Policeman) could, (through the significance of his uniform and what the uniform represented to the general public), control a noisy crowd and get it to disperse.
The glue, the unspoken acceptance of societal figures meant that there was sense of order and people responded to that sense of order, it didn't need an escalation of force to maintain order. A peaceful, respectful society can only come about if the public accept the countervailing forces that are  implicitly held by the man in the street. Break the belief in the fairness of the system and the authority of the people charged with running the country and it becomes open season for unruly elements to come to the fore.



A major difference these days is the make up of today's society. Eastern Europeans have a very different attitude to law and order and to the use of weapons. The Nigerian Mafia are feared across the world, the Somalis, leaving their ruined country are well schooled in violence. They have no internalised set of values that are the legacy of being an island race that has not been effected by turbulent overthrow.
We are in deep water today as we try to evolve an equal society with common values.These hopes lie only in the minds of the chattering class and are far from the ghettos of Bradford, Birmingham, and Balham.