Back off before you get hurt

There may be criminals in the police, but the police is never criminal

Image: the branch of Lloyds Bank in Baker Street, London, which was robbed in 1971, an act assisted by the Metropolitan Police.¹

The 1970s was the decade in which the Lloyds Bank heist was carried out, in which the walkie-talkie communications between the gang tunnelling into the bank vault and the look-out on a nearby roof were overheard by a night-owl ham radio enthusiast and reported in real time to the local police station. The police failed properly to respond until the gang had cleared off with the loot. One police commissioner, in an obvious reference to the assistance the gang had received from the boys in blue, remarked, “There are some police services that employ more criminals than they catch.”

A fellow Substacker, Jonathan Cook, had a strange tale to relate earlier this week: he was stopped in his car by a police patrol for no apparent reason at all. The police made their intention clear, with a blue flashing light I presume, they verified his identity, and then cheerily wished him a good day. There was no fault with his vehicle, and no other explanation was given for the stop. In fact, there was one: unless it’s a road block where they are stopping everyone, it’s obvious the police don’t stop you just like that. Jonathan himself ponders the possible causes of his being stopped, but he stops short of what I believe is the true reason. And that is deployment of the means by which his identity was ascertained, and the reason for which it was ascertained, for they are one and the same.

Jonathan’s report can be found here:

The police pulled over my car. The lack of a reason should worry us all

The officer who spoke to him asked him if he is Jonathan Cook. Of course he’s Jonathan Cook, what could be unusual about that? Well, quite a lot: on this seemingly random stop, the police knew exactly who was driving the car. Normally, the police stop a car and ask who the driver is, by means of his documents. In this case, they told him who he is and thereby told him that they knew who he is, and that, I believe, was the sole purpose of the stop: to tell a member of the public that they know who he is. That they know he lives in Bristol and that they know he was in High Wycombe that day. How is not clear. Did they look out for him coming to High Wycombe, track him from Bristol, or did they dial up ANPR and ask it to tell them where Cook’s car is?Nothing about being a resident of Bristol or owning the car he owns or being on a road near High Wycombe constitutes a chargeable offence, and there is nothing, so far as I know, in Mr Cook’s blog writings that constitutes a chargeable offence either. So, what?

Here’s what I wrote on his blog concerning the episode. First, you should know that Jonathan takes a position that opposes the outrages in Gaza and an aggressive position regarding the British government’s involvement in those outrages, including supplies of matériel. My first, somewhat wry, remark was to tell him at least he now knows how Palestinians get treated. It’s wry, but it’s far from funny.

Jonathan must have been left trembling after such an encounter. Such an innocent encounter.

I once met a medium who, within a minute of entering my home, had identified three spirits that guard me throughout my life. “Oh, yes?” I said, “And who are these three spirits?” He replied that one is unknown, one is my uncle and one is my mother. “My mother?” I asked. “How do you know she is my mother?” It is not dissimilar to a police officer, not asking you who you are, but telling you, that you’re Mr Cook.

The medium wheeled 90 degrees to a wall festooned with photos of family and friends, and directed his finger unerringly at one particular image. “That is your mother, is it not?” It was indeed.

How the medium knew these things is beyond my, and perhaps your, comprehension. It’s more or less how the policeman in Mr Cook’s case knew these things: because he had the means to know them. The medium was under no more of a duty to tell me how his knowledge came about than the cop did to tell Mr Cook. But, in both cases, I imagine, the interlocutor from there on in had our attention.

After Orgreave (https://endlesschain.substack.com/p/theres-no-such-thing-as-a-free-lunch), The Guardian wrote this: ‘In this country we now have a standing army available to be deployed against gatherings of civilians whose congregation is disliked by senior police officers. It is answerable to no one.’

It is answerable to no one. Police officers are answerable, that much is clear. Wayne Couzens made it so. If a police officer abducts, rapes, murders and attempts to burn the remains of another person, he will be answerable. There is therefore one crime for which the police are answerable, so let it not be said that they lack answerability. But that is answerability for acts they commit. Not for accusations they make of acts that others commit.

For the crimes of which the ordinary member of the public may come to be accused, the misdemeanours and recalcitrances to which the police may state they have been witness, by way of falsehood and fabrication, the manifestations of a corporate mentality that tends more to that of a board room or mafia than to the high calling of self-sacrifice that is the foundation of police service, the very best outcome that the accused may hope for is acquittal. Acquittal, that is, by a judge who is far-seeing enough, and prescient enough, and themselves upstanding and high-minded enough, to recognise a danger to society when they see it, and thus to dismiss its lies.

Innocence is no longer associated with being an accused person. You are not innocent until proven guilty. You are guilty if the police say so. They in fact have absolutely nothing in law to say about guilt; they simply offer facts to a prosecutor, who decides if you are to be charged, and your guilt is a question for the court. But we are seeing a sea change in countries like the US, where courts, law firms, state prosecutors, are being strongarmed into deciding things the way the government wants. And they’re not the only ones.

Can you tell the point at which a tide turns from ebb to flood? It’s very hard to discern that moment. It’s only really once the rising tide has established its pattern that you know for certain that the ebb is no longer there. When the water reaches your neck, you will have certainty beyond any argument. At what point certainty makes its entrance will vary from individual to individual. Some may need to verify the tide tables, others will know instinctively from the smell on the sea breeze. Personally, I now think the tide has turned.

The police are guardians of the peace. And they have a difficult job. Part of that includes smelling sea breezes to see if they can discern a turning of the tide, and they get prompts in that regard from government. The police are the inland armed forces of government. We’re supposed to feel safe because our army doesn’t police us, our police does. But, increasingly, the difference is immaterial: they’re both armed and they both take instructions from the same principal.

A retired captain of police in Lyons once explained to me the difference between French and British policing. In Britain (where he’d done experience exchange visits in Manchester), policing is a community matter. The police police from within the community, as a part of that community. That earns trust and reliance and intimacy, so they know who’s who and what’s what. In France, on the other hand, the police grew out of a tradition of revolution. Their role is to intervene to prevent the fall of the republic. Otherwise, their action is noted for its inaction. They act when law is broken. And, if law is broken, they act without mercy, to restore a state in which law is obeyed. The French police is a force of internal order, and has no role to play in building community. The tide that has changed is that the British now police the French way.

If the government’s task is to govern, it doesn’t need people complaining all the time. And that’s the same whether you’re in Grenoble, Gaza or Glastonbury: if you complain, we will make you stop complaining. Not by acquiescing in your demands but by other effective means. Sweet talking. Cogent argument. Intimidation. Whatever it takes.

There are stories from the past that exemplify the lengths to which government has been known to go. The Peterloo Massacre, the Miners’ Strikes, the Poll Tax opposition. The poll tax riots eventually worked, because poll tax inherently needs public cooperation to work: you cannot imprison your entire population. But shooting people, like at Peterloo, to warn others, to instil fear, that works.

Now, you could stop the car of anyone who you happen to know has sympathies for Palestine Action. But Mr Cook writes about his, so, who better to stop than someone who will write about his experiences and spread the fear for you? Many birds with one stone: it’s one way to view it. Or perhaps they wanted to scare Mr Cook particularly.

The police will be enjoying their fish and chips on Friday night. Because they sent him the head of the fish earlier in the week. Meanwhile we can subliminally understand the following message from Britain’s government.

We will present the electorate with a manifesto, as is tradition, in which we set out our aims, policies and ambitions. You vote. We hope you will vote for us and, if you do, and we get into office, we will do as we damn well please, and you have nothing to say about it. We govern; you obey. If you have money and can grease our palms, we may allow you to access our decision-making process. But it’s ours, to sell or use as we please. Not the electorate’s. We worked bloody hard for it, so back off before you get hurt.

The police do the same. They police according to how they see fit. We don’t like the police breaking into houses and stealing jewellery, or raping and murdering innocent female office workers. There are ‘bad apples in every barrel’. But no one is going to start telling the police how to do its work. The police are immune, insofar as concerns the manner in which they carry out their duties. They bear no responsibility. Even where a public institution bears responsibility, like the Post Office for instance, it bears no responsibility. We do not police according to strictures and demands laid down by the public. For our robberies and rapes, we are responsible like the next criminal, but for our work as police officers, our job is to create fear, whereby you will be easier to police and easier to govern. If you don’t like that, we will have an election in four years. But that will not change anything.

Police will be made answerable for acts by which they make themselves criminal; but they will not be answerable for criminal methods used in their policing. That’s the difference.

That’s modern democracy.

1. By Simon Harriyott from Uckfield, England - Juan Pablo Viscardo Y GuzmanUploaded by Oxyman, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24732111