Policing the fuel tax protest 'terrorists' ...

[LongQ]

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1781073,00.html

Plenty of people in hi-viz jackets to control some non-existent terrorists, so why do we hear so many reports about lack of resources to attend crime scenes or complete enquiries?

And, if the report is true and accurate, it seems it is now OK to drag people from their vehicles even if it means causing them severe physical distress. Has our cabinet been taking lessons from Mugabe in how to 'instruct' the security forces?

Or are people playing games here?

There's a great cartoon as well.

I have posted the text in case the link disappears in a few days.

================================================


Day of fuel protests that turned out to be a flop
By Valerie Elliott, Countryside Editor




A NATIONAL day of protest outside refineries over the high price of fuel proved a flop yesterday.
The call to action by Andrew Spence, of Consett, Co Durham, who is the spokesman for the Fuel Lobby, was ignored by most hauliers, motorists and other members of the public. He barely managed to muster a dozen protesters at his own demonstration in Jarrow, and tankers were able to move freely in and out of most plants.



After two days of panic at the pumps, motorists woke up to find that there was no need to keep topping up their tanks, and sales returned to normal.

Prices may even fall by up to 4p a litre next week as extra oil stocks enter the system, according to the UK Petroleum Industry Association, which represents Shell, BP, Esso and Total.

The main incident yesterday happened outside the Vopak terminal at Purfleet, Essex, when police arrested Mick Presnell, the director of a haulage firm in Kent, for allegedly obstructing police. He was ordered out of his car as he turned the vehicle around near the plant.

Mr Presnell, who was a prominent activist during the 2000 protest that brought the country to a standstill, said that he had a slipped disc and could not jump out of the vehicle. A witness said that police dragged him, screaming in pain, from the car. An ambulance was called and Mr Presnell was taken to Basildon Hospital. He was then taken to a police station for questioning.




A large demonstration had been expected at Stanlow, Cheshire, where the 2000 protest started, but only two protesters turned up. They were frightened off by a large group of journalists.

It was quiet, too, at Fawley, near Southampton, the Avonmouth fuel depot, and the Kingsbury oil terminal in Warwickshire.

Senior figures in the road haulage industry had always refused to accept Mr Spence’s leadership and were not surprised by the poor support.

Welsh hauliers said last night that they intended to press ahead with plans for a slow convoy along the M4 from Cross Hands to Magor, near the River Severn crossing. Alan Greene, the organiser, said that it would be the biggest road protest seen in Wales.

Other campaigners accused the police of intimidating potential protesters. Intelligence officers in unmarked cars had been posted near refineries and plants with video equipment and there were allegations that mail had been intercepted in the past week.

[IaHa]

LongQ said:

www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1781073,00.html Plenty of people in hi-viz jackets to control some non-existent terrorists, so why do we hear so many reports about lack of resources to attend crime scenes or complete enquiries?

O.T. mate

LongQ said:

And, if the report is true and accurate, it seems it is now OK to drag people from their vehicles even if it means causing them severe physical distress. Has our cabinet been taking lessons from Mugabe in how to 'instruct' the security forces? Or are people playing games here?

You answered your own question when you said "if the report is true and accurate."

[LongQ]

IaHa said:

You answered your own question when you said "if the report is true and accurate."

So your take in the report is the The Times is either telling porkies, stretching the facts to make up a more interesting story or has been conned by a stringer and a photographer somewhere along the line?

Given that The Times has recently become almost a mouthpiece for Nu Labour this seems a little odd. In fact that part of the article seems incongruous with the rest.

Perhaps the deployment is really there to keep the journalists under control?

Does anyone local to the scene have a view on what happened?

[julianc]

I heard that the organiser of the protestors was interviewed on Radio 4 - he said that most protestors had been herded by police into an area half a mile from the refinery, which is why there were only a dozen or so protestors at the refinery itself. Interesting how the media failed to report these facts, but the government spin machine appears to have 'persuaded' the media to report only what the government wants to be reported, ie that the protests were a failure. Interesting also how the right of peaceful protest now appears to have been thrown out of the window and the police have, and are using, powers more reminiscent of the KGB......

Sometimes I wish that we were French........

[Peter Ward]

The BBC has an article about the M4 go-slow:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4250832.stm

If you take a look, scroll down to the bottom and open the "Pumped Up" box on the right ( "facts and figures behind UK petrol price rises" ). The most interesting page of this is page 3, where it shows the balance of road tax vs. spending in 4 countries:

UK: £38bn in, £7bn out, 5:1 ratio
Germany: £28.5bn in, £20.8bn out, 1.3:1 ratio
France: £20.8bn in, £10.4bn out, 2:1 ratio
US: £54.6bn in, £54.6bn out, 1:1 ratio

This is perhaps the biggest iniquity, and not the price itself. If we saw 38bn spent on roads (or even public transport!) yearly we might be a bit happier. Imagine the quality and length of roads you could build with that much! As it is, we're being promised we'll have to pay road tolls on top. Motorist = cash cow.

>> Edited by Peter Ward on Friday 16th September 12:58

[IaHa]

LongQ said:

IaHa said: You answered your own question when you said "if the report is true and accurate." So your take in the report is the The Times is either telling porkies, stretching the facts to make up a more interesting story or has been conned by a stringer and a photographer somewhere along the line? Given that The Times has recently become almost a mouthpiece for Nu Labour this seems a little odd. In fact that part of the article seems incongruous with the rest. Perhaps the deployment is really there to keep the journalists under control? Does anyone local to the scene have a view on what happened?

I think that the Times is probably reporting what it has been told, but as usual we get one side of a story.

One major criticism I have of my bosses is that in the vast majority of cases they do not defend our actions robustly enough in the press allowing this kind of one sided report to promote negative PR. In circumstances such as this, and I've been at a few, you are damned no matter what happens.

I'd imagine that Mr Presnell had every opportunity to alight voluntarily from his vehicle, or move his vehicle to a suitable location. He would have been warned about the consequences of failure to do that. I'd imagine that in the event of complaint against police or prosecution of Mr Presnell, the (police?) the video recording seen in the photo in the link, will provide most of the answers.

[Big Fat F'er]

julianc said:

Interesting also how the right of peaceful protest now appears to have been thrown out of the window and the police have, and are using, powers more reminiscent of the KGB

Just remember, secondary picketing was also peaceful protest (sometimes), but it was stopped...no one protested. GCHQ workers were prevented from joining a Union...no one protested. Timex workers were sacked and re-instated with less rights....no one protested.

These rights have been missing for a long time, which is why it's always funny when people too young to know better (not you julianc) go on about Blair, the Police and the KGB. It ain't new.

[LongQ]

Big Fat F'er said:

These rights have been missing for a long time, which is why it's always funny when people too young to know better (not you julianc) go on about Blair, the Police and the KGB. It ain't new.

Indeed not and the whole situation was summed up years ago by the German Pastor (can't remember his name right now) in relation to the acceptance of the actions of Hitler's mob. The inference is that the changes are made so insidiously that nobody really spots what has changed until things have become unmanagable from a ppolitical standpoint.

The difference as I see it is that the examples you offer tended to be localised issues and the disagreement was between employee and employer. That the employer in one case was, in effect, HMG is perhaps significant but not causal.

If you move the now accepted diminution of an individual's rights as part of a group of protestors into the public political arena is must become a very different cause for concern.

As an employee you can, in both theiry and practice, vote with you feet and seek alternative employment. To be forced to to so may be unpalatable in the circumstances but then such pressures are far more commonplace these days through purely commercial decisions and have been for about 20 years.

But when you seek to apply pressure to prevent a politically targeted expression of public dissatisfaction to be suppressed and eliminated before it has even begun I think the whole subject takes on a different complexion. This is not an employer versus employee situation, at least not in the way that applies to your examples.

Here we have the employed - the people we have voted in to govern us and whose salaries and final salary pensions and expenses we fund - removing a significant part of our options for protest if they fail to listen to the people's concerns.

Whilst the employers seemed to gain or perhaps regain much ground when the rights to conduct secondary picketing were terminated the individual, outside any grouping, may ultimately have have more power over an employer's actions than they had previously. Look how hard all companies work to avoid any charges of unfair dismissal for example, the costs being what they are.

As far as I can see there is no obvious equivalent in the political arena - in fact quite the opposite. The more power a ruling party has the more it can protect its power base (for whatever underlying reasons it feels the need to) by removing the rights of the ciizens - or at least adding to the rights of the State to punish its citizens heavily for transgressions.

To politicize the police force as the tool that enables such actions to be undertaken and gives the activity an apparently acceptable face seems to be moving law and order issues some distance from the where most of the public might expect criminal and civil law to be active and seems to stand fairly direct comparison with the methods used by many regimes in past decades, and a few in current decades, whom our leaders would still claim to roundly condemn.

If we end up with a voting population which perceives there are no alternatives to vote for but that distrusts its current leaders, the laws that they create AND the methods by which those laws are enforced, we could be in for a very bad state of affairs in the near future.

Perhaps we would all be better off if the public had their own force (absent the police role that people perceived used to in place for such things) and legal right to prosecute individual politicians for complete dereliction of duty much more easily than is possible currently. They may then begin to feel the reality of personal accountability which seems to be acceptable to them only when they can ride on the back of someone else's efforts.

"Mine is the success, theirs is the failure."

[HarryW]

In the same vein when I heard that the petrol price wars between the supermarkets had overshadowed todays protests on the news, effectively nullifying its impact.
The cynic in me thought 'more people promised places on the Nu Labour xmas gongs list', which appears to be the choice smoozing route for them, crooked feckers, or is it just me (mark my words and keep your eye out though ).

H

[Flat in Fifth]

Anyone else having difficulties rationalising the request that the M4 go-slow protestors must not drop below 40 mph and then instructions being amended to maintain minimum 50 mph.

Also consider comments made in various lorry threads that dependant upon load and power available to the tractor/trailer combination ability to maintain such speeds up inclines can be severely compromised.

[autismuk]

There are plenty of coppers.

They're just used, managed and organised ineptly, incompetently, wastefully.

This particular incident is typical of Central Govt control ; when the govt wants something it becomes money no object.

[Big Fat F'er]

LongQ said:

...the whole situation was summed up years ago by the German Pastor (can't remember his name right now) in relation to the acceptance of the actions of Hitler's mob. The inference is that the changes are made so insidiously that nobody really spots what has changed until things have become unmanagable from a ppolitical standpoint.

They came for my neighbour, etc.,etc.,etc., then they came for me!

The original post mentioned the right to peaceful protest. I remember when Mr Big from China came, our State (helped by the Police) made sure that the protestors were far, far away, and hidden by Police vans. I also remember the almost total lack of outrage. That was not an individual's employment, it affected us all, yet no-body appeared bothered.

Each time people keep quiet, it feeds the next. Don't wait until it affects you directly (i.e. the so called petrol crisis) stand up and do something about the principle.

Well, it's all a tad off thread, but at least it will give those who don't know any better the chance to accuse Blair of being Left Wing. It's a damn sight more interesting than the usual whinges about "I was doing 140mph in a built up area and the dirty rotten swines did me...".

[streaky]

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. (James Madison)

Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past ... while we silence the rebels of the present. (Henry Steele Commager)

Streaky

[LongQ]

streaky said:

I believe there are more instances of the abridgement of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent and sudden usurpations. (James Madison) Our tradition is one of protest and revolt, and it is stultifying to celebrate the rebels of the past ... while we silence the rebels of the present. (Henry Steele Commager) Streaky

Great quotes.

[IaHa]

I don't think that when one joins whatever branch of the enforcement agencies, the grey matter capable of understanding and desiring drive for social progressional change by whatever means is removed.

It is a part of the overall police role, fortunately very minor in my personal job description, that we are called upon to enforce the law in these circumstances for the protection of the interests and well being of others. It doesn't prevent us from having sympathy for the protest(ers), after all I can't think of many individuals (oil product benefactors aside) who wouldn't be sympathetic towards protest against high oil prices. Even Gordon Brown was doing his own campaigning against it last week!

I don't agree though that the actions of the police against an individual or group will be designed to weaken that person/group's active or passive thrust towards greatness or historical significance. The percieved rough handling of many individuals by the 'state machine' for their ideals was often the catalyst to their immortality.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not defending police heavy handedness, but it is a tool used by protesters to raise profile both for personal or group issues - off the top of my head, Fathers for justice, Peter Tatchell, Suffragettes, CND, etc etc.

But more and more issues these days divide the public almost equally, down broadly right wing/left wing lines, road building, environmental issues, right to work, globalisation, poll tax, etc, etc, and one person's desire to see change can be as strong as another persons desire for laisser faire.

So for the law enforcer, personal feelings and sympathies have to be witheld for the correct and proper application of the law, in a proper effort to be fair.

Sounds ideological, I know, but there is nothing about the 15 years policing I've completed to suggest to me that things are contrived to be done any differently.

[turbobloke]

IaHa said:

Sounds ideological, I know, but there is nothing about the 15 years policing I've completed to suggest to me that things are contrived to be done any differently.

I would have agreed with that and the rest, but not after watching the police action against Toryside Alliance protesters in London (skull cracking) and contrasting that with the treatment police gave to the great unwashed left (sod all, nothing, zilch) during the previous anti-globalisation / reclaim the streets econutter demos where business premises got trashed and vandals gave Churchill's statue a green mohican.

At the time there seemed to be little doubt that subtle - maybe tacit - guidance was given by BLiar's muppets at the Home Office to ensure plod knew which way the cookie crumbled in terms of political sympathy.

It's much harder these days to accept the political neutrality of the police when they have this social justice claptrap forced on them. Seeing BLiar parading around London during the election in a resprayed plodmobile was confirmation if any was needed. Sadly the police seem to be going the same way as the beeb, and this is imo due to BiB braid being almost an completely political animal these days, where promotion requries habitation inside the Bliar colon. Hopefully some of the poor sods just 'following orders' will have the courage to follow their wider responsibilities at some point, as they should.

[iaha]

turbobloke said:

At the time there seemed to be little doubt that subtle - maybe tacit - guidance was given by BLiar's muppets at the Home Office to ensure plod knew which way the cookie crumbled in terms of political sympathy.

I'm not hiding anything from you.

But I wouldn't tell you if I was, I suppose.

[turbobloke]

iaha said:

I'm not hiding anything from you. But I wouldn't tell you if I was, I suppose.

[Big Fat F'er]

turbobloke said:

due to BiB braid being almost an completely political animal these days, where promotion requries habitation inside the Bliar colon.

...these days?.....Bliar colon?

Where've ya been? Any employee is tainted by the discretions of the employer, either voluntarily or through fear (of one kind or another). The BiB are no exception. This politicising was prevalent (probably more so) in the days of The Wicked Witch of The South.

Most Rozzers are good...some are extremely evil, racist, sexist, classist (!!!) and corrupt. This is based on the fact that they are humans like the rest of us, most good, some bad.

But they have ALWAYS been controlled by the political force of the day. Not only that, they are more dangerous (so history shows) in a Right Wing environment. Look at any police/society clash over the last 100 years and it always appears to reflect the politics of the day.

And if one more d*ckh*ad says Blair is Left Wing!!!!1

[turbobloke]

Big Fat F'er said:

...these days?.....Bliar colon? Where've ya been?

Definitely not up BLiar's ass, so obviously out of touch

Big fat F'er said:

And if one more d*ckh*ad says Blair is Left Wing!!!!

If he's not left wing what is he, left drum stick

So BLiar mumbles about supporting the free market philosophy but then increases the size of the government and its control freak tendencies (leftist), supports the pinko-green EU in its drive to drown business in red tape (leftist), supports lame cause nutters like anti-globalisation d*ckh*ads and doleys with more and more taxpayers' money creating dependency on the state (leftist), likes state controlled 'collective' transport and hates the independent mobility and class/wealth indicator known as 'the car'(leftist), and generally pursues a socialist agenda behind a smokescreen of centrist spin.

BLiar's ministers defend the right to intrude and interfere in the lives of electors to the n'th degree, Gordon Brown has come out the closet and openly admitted that fiscal policy under his stewardship of the economy has included old labour styleee redistribution of wealth (both socially and geographically) and the last time I looked they still hang about under a red flag.

He is also happy to see 'wombles' and other pondlife destroy corporate premises and deface monuments with the police corralling them but taking no other action, while cracking heads of countoryside alliance protesters.

Also, if he's not left wing, why dosn't he vote Tory? If it waddles like a pinko duck, quacks like a pinko duck, and has a penis sticking out from its forehead, it's BLiar and he's a leftie