Payrise - what payrise?

I moved one point up the payscale this month.

It made a whole £60 a month difference to the bottom line.

I won’t be moving abroad on the strength of it.

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Sidebar

I’ve had a bit of a tidy-up on the sidebar.

If anyone wants to link, please let me know. I do try to return any favours, but it is quite easy to miss the occasional one.

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Reclaim the streets

For those of you that don’t surf the sidebar sites, take a look at Bill Sticker’s latest offering.

Perhaps he should ask for a transfer to a senior post in the Civil Service? On the other hand, the total lack of reality that the Civil Service exhibit would drive him mad!

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

More words of wisdom from the Express and Star

No apologies for posting another article from the local paper. Sometimes the simplest things work, but it needs courage to do the simple things.

Any chief constables who may venture across this blog (or their staff officers surfing the net waiting for the next policy document to cross their desk) should consider whether they are really serving their communities properly with their “innovative” ideas.

Tony Blair goes into an inner-city neighbourhood on a “consultation exercise” on crime and comes away with a flea in his ear.

For the people of Bristol, like people all over Britain, are fed up with consultations, strategies, mission statements, focus groups and all the rest of the meaningless blather of Blairism.

While politicians, spin-doctors and so-called experts pontificate on crime and dream up ever-snappier soundbites (today’s Blair buzzword is “defeatism”), ordinary folk are in a state of siege.

The people of Bristol told Mr Blair exactly what he would hear if he bothered to speak to the people of Wolverhampton, Dudley, Walsall, West Bromwich, Stafford or anywhere else.

They are living in terror of feral gangs who, quite simply, have nothing to fear from the law.

One distraught resident told the Prime Minister how a local family had caused £10,000 damage to his property, forcing him to dial 999 more than 180 times.

The Government which promised to be “tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime” has failed to deliver. Its gut instinct is to pass new laws instead of enforcing the old ones.

Meanwhile in Stafford, police are proving what everyone outside Whitehall already knows. Crime is not some terribly complex academic subject. It is bad people doing bad things.

And the best way to stop it is to put enough good people on the streets to deter the bad people. How simple is that?

In Stafford’s Highfield Estate police have introduced foot patrols from 8am until midnight. Anti-social behaviour has fallen by a quarter in a year.

The superintendent in charge calls it “Dixon of Dock Green with attitude.”

Here, in six little words, is the sort of policing Britain needs. Yet in ten long years New Labour has failed to grasp the point.

Forget grand strategies and new laws, Mr Blair. Just give us more bobbies on the beat.

Couldn’t have put it better myself, so I won’t bother!

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Cells and sidebar

Interesting to note that the German police managed to find space for hundreds of drunken hooligans over the weekend. I wonder if they have to bother about such things as fifteen minute checks and human rights issues, or is that just us?

It got me thinking about how we would cope if the World Cup came to England. Currently, my force has probably got something in the region of 500 cell spaces across the force area (a very rough estimate - someone may correct me in due course) and it is unusual for any cell block to be empty for any long period of time. To accommodate the number of prisoners that the German police took would incapacitate our system and leave nowhere for the other run of the mill prisoners to go.

Is it worth me buying up some old Group 4 vans and keeping them in storage just in case? I could rent them back to the job and make a fortune!

On a different note - a new entrant to the world of police blogs. Another one from the middle of the country. It’s the use of the word “yampy” that gives it away. Welcome to Midlands PC and “Life in the law abiding Midlands” Yeah right!

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Rubberneckers

To those people involved in the accident on the M1 southbound between junctions 15 and 16 on Saturday evening - I hope that none of you were injured and that you can sort out the damage to your cars very quickly.

To the motorists travelling north on the same section of the M1 - what the hell were you all doing? How dangerous and stupid do you think it is to slow down just to gawp at someone else’s misfortune? If you want to look at the aftermath of car crashes, there are plenty of DVDs and videos available. Don’t go doing it where you are likely to cause another accident.

I hope no-one missed the Take That concert in MK? - before you ask, I wasn’t on my way there

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Benefit Britain

Once again, the Wolverhampton Express & Star says it how it is.

The writer of these articles really needs to get national coverage, so this is my contribution!

The report on benefits fiddling by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation is a classic case of excusing the inexcusable.

After six years studying the cash-in-hand culture, the foundation concludes that “need not greed” drives people to take informal jobs while claiming benefits.

The fact that this is against the law is barely mentioned.

Nor is there any word about the honest majority who declare their earnings and claim only what they are entitled to.

Today’s report says that those working for cash-in-hand while claiming benefits are “hard-working ordinary people trying to survive day by day.”

In elevating the benefits fiddlers to the status of local heroes in this way, the foundation is doing no-one any favours.

We all know there is one major reason why people work for cash. It is to conceal that money from the authorities.

Britain already has a tax and benefits system designed to encourage hard work. The minimum wage, tax credits, childcare and family benefits have lifted hundreds of thousands of families out of the poverty trap, turning a low income into a decent living wage.

For a dishonest minority, this is not enough. They want to claim as many benefits as possible and then earn extra money without paying a penny in tax.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation may see this as enterprise or initiative but the rest of us see it for what it is – criminal behaviour.

We are all part of society. We give and receive according to our means and our needs and the system only works if we are all prepared to be honest.

Today’s limp-wristed report will only encourage criminality and make the problem worse.

It is yet another little nail in the coffin of an honest nation.

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Sharing Intelligence

Before you read the rest. I think that the idea is stupid and shows absolutely no intelligence at all!

Police may let Muslims see terrorism intelligence

· Move to repair relations after Forest Gate raid
· Review of operation ready by end of month

Vikram Dodd
Saturday June 17, 2006
The Guardian

The police are considering a proposal to let selected British Muslims examine the intelligence used to mount anti-terrorism raids before they take place, the Guardian has learned.

While I’m sure that the “selected British Muslims” will be adequately vetted, where will this stop? Do the Met intend to show selected British drug addicts the intelligence on potential raids on dealers? Will they be discussing the Real IRA with selected British Irish people?

(Before any of you criticise, I am not suggesting that all British Muslims are likely to be subject of a raid. I know what some of you are thinking, but I’m just trying to make a point?

You can see where I’m going with this, but I really can’t see where the Met are going, other than to hell in a handcart!

Complete and utter madness, especially when you consider that this intelligence is not even available to the officers undertaking the raids. All they know is that there is a door to kick in and people to take out. If ordinary members of the public are allowed to know the intelligence, why can’t those tasked with following up on it make an assessment of it before deciding whether they want to take part?

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Police don’t have to knock, justices say - Jun 15, 2006

CNN.com - Police don’t have to knock, justices say - Jun 15, 2006

Those of you reading this blog who are involved in drug dealing (you never know, there might be one or two. I don’t expect that a certain so called “supermodel” will be a fan though) might be interested in this story from the US.

Apparently, a drug dealer tried to get off a charge by saying that the police who raided his house didn’t knock on his door and give him chance to answer. Fortunately, the powers that be decided that common sense should prevail and kicked it out of court.

In the UK, police don’t have to knock on the door. If we believe that the purpose of the search is likely to be frustrated, we can force entry unannounced. Luckily, for once, our law actually makes sense.

I can’t believe that our American cousins have to knock and wait - it must be incredibly frustrating to be standing on the door step, listening to the repeated flushing of the toilet!

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!

Opinions not allowed

PC Copperfield over at The Policeman’s Blog has published the story of a Humberside officer whose cars were stolen as a result of a burglary.

The thieves crashed both of them and as a result, one of them died.

The officer is quoted as saying that he is not bothered that the thief died and for this, it is reported that he will be disciplined by his force.

So that now means we aren’t allowed to have an opinion. The right to free speech is denied to police officers, but anyone else can say what they like about us and get away with it. So much for police officers representing the society they police. We are now considered to be unable to express our own private views, lest they waver from the party line.

Firstly, I hope that the newspaper got it wrong or that they are just sensationalising the story (as if they would!).If however, there are plans to investigate this matter, I trust that the officer concerned receives the full support of the Police Federation and that this ridiculous effort at censorship is kicked into touch.

If anyone from PSD is reading this, I wholeheartedly concur with the views expressed by the officer concerned, so come and get me!

© Stan Still 2006 - if you want to copy my stuff, it would be polite to ask first!