Six of one half a dozen of the other.

 Subject: Six of one half a dozen of the other.

A verbal statement has just been released in which a solicitor acting for the Pakistani brothers involved in a fracas in Manchester Airport in which a policeman is seen kicking one of the brothers in the head whilst he is prostrate on the floor having been stunned by a laser gun.

Our immediate reaction was of horror that an officer of the law should breakout one of the principles of law and order policing given the schoolboy ethic, “never kick a man when he is down”.  More video footage showed events leading up to fracas showing the brothers actively raining blows on the police, both men and women officers. The guy who was eventually kicked should have been in the Olympic boxing team so effective were his punches the police seemed for a while on the back foot and loosing control until they used the laser.

I have mentioned before in the past the police used to be respected with one Bobby a lone able to control a crowed by the authority his uniform.  Not so today, he has become fair game, with the court offering no deterrent to the thug who’s “Brief” has the a plethora of legislation to back him up.

The Mother of the Pakistani family had had a torrid time on her flight back to the UK from Pakistan having been, according to her statement racially  abused by a fellow passenger, she had received no assistance from the flight crew and one can understand the exasperation and frustration within the family as she landed in Manchester.

The scene is set for a tinderbox event with racial epithets from the police (un - collaborated) kicked in and the melee occurred.

The facts are, you don’t take your frustration out on the police.

You don’t violently attack the police

The rules of engagement are the Courts but unfortunately the Courts are proving ineffectual, (clogged up in celebrity libel cases) the trust in authority is at an all time low. The violence we see in our streets, not only the current rioting but the knife crime which has infected our young is phenomenal. I have never seen the number of deaths through knife fights and it come’s, in part, from the castration of police numbers under the Tories and their failure to retain good men and women. ‘Bobbies’ are as rare as hens teeth particularly in the town centres and the multitudinous constraints put on the police makes their job almost impossible.

A comma out of place, a statement given out side the sterile jacket of procedural propriety and an otherwise watertight case is thrown out. It’s as if we intend to lend all leverage to that evil, dangerous contingent in our society in the pious hope that the world is watching and applauding us for our ethical stance. There was a time when we could afford to be magnanimous, when the jails were half empty and rudimentary jobs available. Now everything stands on a knife edge, politicians are haunted by quotes made under very different conditions, the funds to rebuild our depleted infrastructure are non existent and a new government held to ransom by financial exactitude.

The contamination of the racial mix, not by doctors and nurses but by centuries old customs and religious propriety is now played out as sides are formed and prejudice spews out from both sides only relieved by the thin line of bobbies place themselves at tremendous risk in between.

Who on earth would want a policeman’s job.