Death of the Quango…
… and some are mortally wounded.
List of quangos and their planned fate.
Of most interest to readers (perhaps) are those under the Home Office and Ministry of Justice remit.
National Police Improvement Agency is to go. Who will miss it?
Police Advisory Board, Police Negotiating Board and Police Arbitration Tribunal to possibly be merged and re-structured. Presumably into something that won’t give us a pay rise and reject any appeals all in one breath?
The CPS is staying 
Millions of pounds to be saved, but what does it say about the benefit of these departments if the government can do without them?
Judge claims police are not an emergency resource!
Once again a member of our esteemed judiciary makes a statement that makes the public think that judges are not really in touch with real life.
Judge hits out after assault case is dropped.
Apparently, some people are using the police “like an emergency resource”! Worse than this, once they’ve made a complaint to the police, they don’t want to go ahead with a prosecution.
Could that be because, like the rest of us, the people who phone the police to sort out their lives know that whatever happens, there is very little likelihood of the courts actually doing anything?
If the Crown Prosecution Service, the court system, magistrates and judges changed their processes to make it simpler to get justice and PUNISH the people who commit crime, then perhaps more people would have enough faith in the system to actually use it properly?
40 killed in pursuits and it’s all our fault!
Thanks for your support Supt Greene – NOT!
Apparently, the fact that 40 people chose to ignore a police request to stop and went on to crash and die is all our fault.
It’s a lack of training that makes these people decide to race off and lose control.
What a great message of support – and you wonder why we don’t get any thanks from the public when our bosses are kicking us in the nuts.
Have a look at the Police Oracle forum to see what others are thinking.
Insp Gadget agrees with Home Sec shock!
I hope some of you take the time to read Inspector Gadget’s blog?
I do tend to agree with most of what he says.
Tonight he’s posted about the speech made by Theresa May at the Stupourintendent’s conference. A whole week of dinners, buffets, workshops and focus groups that will probably make no difference at all to front line policing. At what cost?
Anyway, go and read his blog entry.
Everything he says is true – frightening, isn’t it?
Taxpayers Alliance criticise Twittering dog
You may have your own views on the benefits of Twitter and such sites, but let’s face it – they are here to stay and it’s a very cheap and convenient way of reaching out to people who don’t read newspapers.
We’ve been discussing in other places how this job doesn’t sell itself properly. People don’t really know what we do. They have their own ideas and make ill-informed judgements based on last week’s episode of The Bill and something that was in Juliet Bravo a few years ago.
West Midlands Police have been using social media for some time, trying to get people to take an interest in the day to day running of the force. Good or bad, there are loads of people following a number of officers of all ranks. Some of the “tweets” could do with a bit of a spell-checker running over them and not many are that exciting, but still – people are spreading the word about what we do.
One of the most popular Twitter contributors is Smithy – who is a police dog. Smithy probably has more followers than all the other police tweeters put together. You can see what Smithy has to say for himself by clicking this link.
The Taxpayers Alliance (are we all members by default?) have criticised this as being a “publicity stunt” and a “waste of money”
Smithy publishes two or three tweets a day. That probably accounts for two or three MINUTES of his time. Some of them are done off duty. So really, how is Smithy wasting resources? If the TPA really want to get sweaty about wasted money, why don’t they start at the Home Office? Policing Pledge ads and leaflets? Millions of pounds down the drain. ACPO plc? More money thrown away. I could go on.
Smithy is showing the human (?) side of the police – we have a sense of humour and it’s not all dry news releases on the latest theft of milk. Is it really unacceptable for us to take a few seconds out of a busy working day just to put a few words out there for interested parties to read?
I think the TPA might be a bit envious of the fact that Smithy has over 1400 people following him to date – growing exponentially, while the TPA have FOUR followers. Either that or they are part of the “Bash the Cops” agenda in the conventional media.
Motorway Cops 1 Daily Mail 0
Is anyone watching Motorway Cops, where the two CMPG officers have just stopped a woman using a phone while driving?
The offending driver turns out to be a cop, who (embarrassingly) tried to get out of the ticket by playing the “I’m one of you” card.
Whether or not it was for the benefit of the cameras or not I don’t know, but the two guys knocked her off.
Just goes to show that a) the law applies to us as well and b) we don’t get away with it just because we’re in the job.
Asleep on the job?
The Sunday Horror have published a story of a police officer allegedly asleep during the hunt for Raoul Moat.
What the story doesn’t mention, or even consider, is
How long had this particular officer been on duty?
Is he actually asleep?
Did anyone notice that there is another officer in the passenger seat?
Yet another pointless pasting!
Defoe isn’t happy
Jermain Defoe isn’t happy with some of the latest publicity pictures of him.
An image of him driving while using a mobile phone is being used by ACPO plc to publicise one of their campaigns.
Defoe and his legal rep claim that ACPO haven’t asked for permission to use this picture and they aren’t best pleased that Defoe is being “exploited” in this way.
Firstly – As I understand it, copyright in pictures rests with the person who takes the picture, not the subject. If that’s right, then Defoe’s permission isn’t required.
Secondly – Here’s a bloke who earns more in a week than I do in a year. I’ve got a hands-free kit for my car, so if I can afford one, so can he.
Thirdly – What’s the betting ACPO roll over and pay compensation to Defoe to make up for the hurt to his feelings?
Finally – Wouldn’t it have been a sign of contrition for Defoe to say something along the lines of “I’m guilty, I should set a better example. Please use my picture to warn others not to BREAK THE LAW!”
And how will the Daily Mail spin this one?
Off duty police officer locks up car thief
I don’t know if Sgt Walker is a member of this forum, but if he is, then well done to him for getting stuck in.
How easy would it have been to walk past and ignore this? How many other people had already ignored this person doing his deeds?
This is what being a police officer is all about. Regardless of the discussions about money, overtime, pensions etc. police officers put themselves back on duty time and time again, because that’s the sort of people we are.
We can’t switch off from the job. We can’t ignore things like this. We are warranted 24/7 – there’s no real time off. Just the occasional break.
Sgt Walker is clearly one of those of us who cares about the job, cares about fighting crime and won’t turn his back on something that needs dealing with. He’s not the only one – there are thousands of us.
This won’t get national coverage. It’s a bobby doing what bobbies do every day. However, if society and government want this calibre of police officer, then I’m sorry, but they are going to have to pay good money for it.
Just one thing – Matt, mate, if you’re going to shop at TK Maxx, at least make sure you’ve got another bag to hide their carriers. It’s just not cool!
That’ll teach him then!!
Driver banned for the 14th time
Words fail me!
You're Nicked! 