Children in Biggleswade, Bedfordshire have been banned from marching in a town’s Remembrance Day parade next month for “safety reasons”.
Instead brownies, scouts, girl guides, and cubs will only be allowed to meet in the town’s market square to lay a wreath on the town’s war memorial.
We’re gathering to commemorate those who fought bloody battles, gave their lives for this country and our people.
And now we’ve got cunts saying that children can’t walk down the street to do so?
Where is the hell is that multi-person gallows we were promised?
There may be concerns about the possible activities of all those refugees of military age flooding the country. Several hundred children strung out in a long line would be impossible to protect. Even so, it’s taking the precautionary principle to extremes.
Why are the leaders of these movements meekly acquiescing to these petty rules? Is it because they too are no better that the city hall goblins?
A sad day when we have no leaders any more…
Just do it. See what happens. I love the idea of a expecting the police to arrest cub scouts for walking down a street.
It’s the Legion which is “ordering” the kids not to join in. As far as I know they have no authority over the streets. So like the man said, Just Do It!
RBL should have the guts to specify exactly what the ‘safety reasons’ are…
…or fuck right off…
To be honest, I’ve had parents complaining to me about what children were wearing on parade (nothing to do with the marching, although the BBs grotted that up last year). To which my response has been “nothing to do with me …”
I suspect the RBL’s reasons have something to do with insurance, personally.
Oh, and I’d say (and I’ve never organised a street parade in England) that, yes, if you are the organiser of officially sanctioned parade, taking place on a public road, and hence blocking it to normal traffic (in my case under the Civic Government (Scotland) Act 1982) then you are expected to control (and therefore have the ability to stop) people joining the parade.
Can’t stop them marching on the pavement, however.
I was unsure whether this was a story about (a) The threat that Islamists will kill our children or (b) the threat that Islamists will rape / seriously sexually assault our children.
In either case, surely the answer is not to remove our children from the proximity of Islamists but to remove Islamists from being near kids?
So insurance is an issue when a bunch of kids march down the street, but apparently not when a few thousand unwashed SJWs decide to go and smash up a district when protesting “austerity”?
Makes sense.
Or, possibly, not enough stewards? (I expect and demand that the various childrens’ organisations, all of whom are allowed to march, to provide their own adult stewards.)
Tim,
Insurance is an issue if the organisation organising the parade isn’t prepared to take the risk.
In the case of SJW / anarchist nut-jobs, what organisation? As we saw, red-haired-harridan got off with it. Despite clearly being the event organiser.
Don’t blame me (not even an RBLS member!) …
SE, fair point that it could be something mundane like insurance. Too easily overlooked.
Though there would have to be a layer of sensationalism and /or arse covering for the story to mutate to ‘banned over safety concerns’. I hope that doesn’t discourage anyone from making their own arrangements.
Insurance? It’s a remembrance parade, not a fun run. It’s supposed to be a national thing, involving everyone. It’s precisely the sort of thing which the state should pick up the cost for.
In the case of SJW / anarchist nut-jobs, what organisation? As we saw, red-haired-harridan got off with it. Despite clearly being the event organiser.
Well that’s the problem, there is no consistency between one lot having to be insured but not the other lot, presumably on the grounds that the latter is more of a rabble. I’d apply common law here: the SJW organisations are clearly identifiable, as their websites state they are organising the marches. Anyone suffering loss as a result should be able to pursue them for damages, thus forcing them to take out insurance – same as what everyone else has to do.
Insurance? It’s a remembrance parade, not a fun run. It’s supposed to be a national thing, involving everyone. It’s precisely the sort of thing which the state should pick up the cost for.
I’d agree with that. If the state is going to hose taxpayer cash around willy-nilly, then this is the sort of thing I’d prefer to see it spent on.
If it has been stopped for insurance reasons, name the insurance company.
People seem to have no idea how to fight back any more.
And yes, if the problem is cost, the state should pick it up. And stop paying for half the other shite they do.
Lucky we were able to get insurance for D-Day, otherwise this event wouldn’t be happening at all.
Tim:
“If the state is going to hose taxpayer cash around willy-nilly, then this is the sort of thing I’d prefer to see it spent on.”
Unfortunately Cameron spunked it all on the “Kid’s Company” salary and pension scheme and he doesn’t seem inclined to make a similarly dynamic and informal decision over something as minor as Remembrance Day.
I can help with this, and it’s probably not insurance. Or at least not the root cause.
For decades the police have handled all road closures and stewarding wrt Remembrance Sunday. This year, they have suddenly announced they’re not doing it any more. Not only that, they haven’t given the local councils enough time to step in – the councils have a lengthy consultation/risk assessment process by law in order to close roads and the notice was given too late to get it done.
So the choice is – cancel all parades OR allow them to continue with the roads open and increased safety precautions. Sounds like Biggleswade have gone down the latter.
We’ve gone back to the police and told them it’s not good enough and we’ll cancel all the parades and blame it on them unless they pick it up.
AHA- if CU is right this sounds like a variant of what our American cousins call the “Washington monument” strategy. When cuts are proposed for a public organisation, that organisation makes sure that said cuts fall where the public will notice them most, rather than abandon unproductive practices.
Aren’t the police complaining about a cut in budget and numbers at the moment?
For decades the police have handled all road closures and stewarding wrt Remembrance Sunday.
I have a friend in the police. Every “share” I see on FB is a diatribe against the Tories about how they are so unfairly treated and how the moral is so incredibly low and how the public doesn’t appreciate them and how when it all goes wrong they’ll all be sorry. In this respect, they’re indistinguishable from the NHS. Now I can quite believe that the government is fucking both groups over, but their reaction to it is childish in the extreme.
Pat – yep, precisely.
The police have effectively downed tools in our area. Not one police station with a manned desk in the district. Down to 2 PCSOs to cover the whole area. Which wouldn’t have been so bad, as we were a low-crime area, but they announced it in the newspapers. Hence the mini-crime wave that started last weekend…
Pat: “Aren’t the police complaining about a cut in budget and numbers at the moment?”
Spot on! And piously demanding a change to licensing laws because they can’t chase the burglars they told us they wouldn’t be chasing because of ‘eeeeevil Tory cuts’ because they are too busy with drunks.
Meanwhile, the London Farce demands shopkeepers stop selling eggs & flour to under 16 in the run up to Hallowe’en.
Screw ’em! We aren’t here to limit our choices so they can have an easier ride…
> Which wouldn’t have been so bad, as we were a low-crime area, but they announced it in the newspapers.
Morons or cunts? Tough call.
Pat:
“AHA- if CU is right this sounds like a variant of what our American cousins call the “Washington monument” strategy”
I call it the “Baby seal Gambit”, as in “if we don’t get more funding we’ll be forced to kill this baby seal”.
> Screw ’em! We aren’t here to limit our choices so they can have an easier ride…
Exactly. Every time some awful authoritarian measure is proposed, the police talk about how it will reduce crime and make their jobs easier, as if that’s a good thing. I always respond by pointing out that a strict curfew under which people may only leave the house to go to work would reduce crime and make the police’s jobs easier and SO FUCKING WHAT.
Police + NHS? – OK the similarities are there and there is some militancy brewing. They both have middle and senior management that is so risk averse, proceduraly constipated and abysmally organised that it’s no surprise the minions are hacked off and seeking to mess things up.
If I was a betting man the synergy of Police + Local Council.would odds-on favorite as the perps in this.
ICYMI – there is a plan – and it *is* real to merge local councils with the police – at least in the provinces (towns <100K population)
> the “Washington monument” strategy
To be fair, the Washington Monument strategy involves spending more money on deploying more forces to stop the public accessing a public area. And I don’t think we’re there yet.
TN:
“…how the moral is so incredibly low and how the public doesn’t appreciate them and how when it all goes wrong they’ll all be sorry.”
Yes, of course. The best way to improve morale and public appreciation is to do an even worse job and then gloat when people suffer as a result…
Not y’know, actually doing a decent job and getting appreciation by bringing crime rates down/catching criminals (and not just speeding motorists).
I agree – very childish.
Like like criminals in Bedfordshire have noticed the change in policing priorities and have switched from saying nasty things on Twitter to old-fashioned villainy like thieving.
SQ2: “I always respond by pointing out that a strict curfew under which people may only leave the house to go to work would reduce crime and make the police’s jobs easier…”
Christ, man! Don’t give them ideas!
“Rob
Lucky we were able to get insurance for D-Day..”
Jeez, that must have been a hefty premium, what with the certainty that the Germans would be shooting at our troops.
@ JuliaM
S2 has proposed an idea that would soon get every police officer in the land a tongue-lashing from his/her mum/grandma who, as a pensioner, is forbidden to go shopping. he’s actually quite bright, you know.
Whereas the police in my area, the much (and usually justifiably) derided Police Scotland, have been entirely fine about covering not just the parade but the cadets marching from their hit down to the parade assembly area.
The Telegraph’s Matt did a brilliant cartoon when the so-called ‘right to roam’ was introduced. It showed a couple of ramblers in bobble hats and knapsacks cluelessly looking at a map while standing at a street corner. The street sign, above their heads, said ‘Garvaghy Road’. Something similar on this occasion would suitably skewer the iniquity of the situation.
Rob
The “Baby Seal Gambit”
I’m going to borrow that.
“Just fuck off, go on, out!”
Is how Cromwell should have dissolved Parliament.
Gareth,
Wouldn’t have gone down too well with the Puritan focus groups.
Said it before. British police;
Uniformly useless or uselessly in uniform.
You takes yer pick.
“I have a friend in the police. Every “share” I see on FB is a diatribe against the Tories about how they are so unfairly treated and how the moral is so incredibly low and how the public doesn’t appreciate them and how when it all goes wrong they’ll all be sorry.”
I wouldn’t mind except that I never sensed even a whiff of resistance when the police were turned into something that the public stopped having respect for. I have rarely seen a policeman making much noise about the pointlessness of the War on Drugs. Or shutting down rub-a-tug shops. Or the Gatso, something that lost their trust with the middle classes. Or going after harmless old racists on Twitter.
And they should get cut. Reported crime has been falling year on year since 2002 (mostly thanks to things like cheap DVD players and ANPR cameras).
My brother was a police special for 10 years, did way more than minimum hours but as he worked full tiime the hours were when he was free. The police whinged about him not being available Saturday afternoons – sorry, he worked in hospital Friday and Saturday nights so not an option.
They whinged, yet did not pay. They wanted things their way, not when people were free. And the specials were less likely to find out about recruitment. So no respect these days for the police as a body. If they can’t handle specials can they handle anything?
I wonder what the insurance rates will be for the Islamist demo at the war memorial that day?
@ Rob
Maybe some children/grandchildren/great-grandchildren of the million or so Indians who fought in the Imperial Army in the two world wars might be attending the Remembrance Day services? Preferably including some Muslims who can quote the Qu’ran at the “demonstrators”.
“For decades the police have handled all road closures and stewarding wrt Remembrance Sunday. This year, they have suddenly announced they’re not doing it any more. Not only that, they haven’t given the local councils enough time to step in – the councils have a lengthy consultation/risk assessment process by law in order to close roads and the notice was given too late to get it done.”
I though part of the point of having Police Commissioners was to stop this sort of stunt being pulled.
The Home Secretary needs to call in the all the Police Commissioners and Chief Constables where this has happened for a discussion without coffee where she explains in words of short syllables that they are there to serve us, the people, and there needs to be blood on the carpet when they leave.
And good on CU’s organisation for pushing back.
@ BiND
And especially without beer and sandwiches
‘I have rarely seen a policeman making much noise about the pointlessness of the War on Drugs.’
Maybe they don’t think it’s pointless? Could be they’re wrong, but this would explain why you don’t hear them say it. But actually, if you get to know them, lots of them will say this in private. They tend not to say it in public much, that’s true, but it’s a disciplined service – it’s not the same thing at all as working in most businesses – and they kind of have to do what they’re told. I appreciate that this is an ‘out’ for them but it’s also true.
With all of this it’s important to distinguish between street level bobbies, and the bosses. The Home Secretary tells the chief constable to crack down on coke, the chief tells the super, the super tells the inspector, the inspector tells the sergeant, the sergeant tells the PC and the PC does as he’s told, or finds another job. There are probably things in all of our places of work of which we disapprove, but we don’t always just quit in protest.
Yes, a PC has discretion – but not if the law is being broken blatantly. Yes, the police don’t turn up to everything and they prioritise stuff, but they haven’t got anywhere near the numbers to turn up to everything so they have to prioritise stuff (and see above it’s often the Home Sec who sets the drugs priorities, and it’s never the street level bobby).
‘Or shutting down rub-a-tug shops.’
Brothels rarely get shut down and when they do it’s usually because the people living in the street have spent a year badgering the police to do something about it.
‘Or the Gatso, something that lost their trust with the middle classes.’
Not with me it didn’t. People get killed and maimed by speeding drivers. All you have to do is slow down a bit and not be so much of a selfish cunt.
‘Or going after harmless old racists on Twitter.’
This I agree with – but see priorities, Home Secretaries, and following orders.
Most street level bobbies are doing an almost impossible job, which is quite dangerous at times, for not much cash, and some of what they do is quite useful.
You’ll say something about them being shit at catching criminals, and yep crims get away, but the prisons are fuller than they’ve ever been. So who put all those baddies in there? JuliaM? bloke in spain?
Since becoming a councillor, I’ve had more contact with the police, and I have no problem at all with the bobbies on the beat. Or the PCSOs, who seem much brighter, competent and more motivated than I expected. They do generally try and be helpful, and we have had some good results at times, but they are painfully stretched.
However I don’t think the budget cuts go anywhere near explaining the reduction in front line manpower we’ve seen. So who is making them so stretched and why ?
@ Sir Robert Mark
You are wrong on many counts, but principally on the limits of the discretion of the PC.
Street level bobbies may, or may not, be doing an impossible job but their performance on possible jobs leaves a lot to be desired. Last month i duly filed a crime report prior to ‘phoning my insurance compant when someone or something knocked dow a large chunk of our garden wall. The next week a detective constable came round to look and reported that she had not seen the perpertator (he/she obviously neglected his/her civic duty to wait, unfed and sleepless, for several days and nights to be apprended) and that the wall was in a state of disrepair, implying that the scores of bricks knocked into our garden might be a consequence thereof when the disrepair was a consequence of the more-than-two-dozen bits of wall which she could see had fallen into the field when something had hit it. No way is it impossible to realise that the disrepair is due to the damage when it’s at your feet. [Also giving a contact number when you know you won’t be there is less than helpful]
“So who put all those baddies in there? JuliaM? bloke in spain?” How about CCTV? Crime adjacent to my house has (despite the above) dropped 90% since I installed CCTV when I wanted to be able to work from home on Friday evenings. A couple of times I’ve had PC plodess asking me for downloads from my CCTV relating to incidents further down the street in both directions.
Dear Mr Worstall
When such decisions are made they ought to be signed by the individuals making them and with a full explanation of their reasons.
If the policy is due to the police declining to do their job, they should be reminded they are the servants of the public, not their masters. Any police officer not happy with that arrangement should tender his resignation forthwith.
I suspect that this is just another game of ‘how far can we push the public’ by a bunch of overpaid, underworked and bored public servants. The answer seems now to be: as far as they wish.
Jeremys* the lot of them. But we are responsible for permitting it to get this way.
DP
* Jeremy Hunts – BBC rhyming slang
@Corvus Umbranox
A few years back in Labour days when there were a bunch of police blogs, the number one complaint was insane amounts of paperwork that had to be filled in (hours and hours for each arrest), and constant emails from officers who rarely leave their desks trying to get response to do their jobs for them. I’d be interested to know if things are still the same.
I think it was in the comments of this blog that somebody pointed out that the American policy of providing police with a shit canteen but comfortable cars at least gets them out of the station.
@ BlueKollar
Last time I talked one of them about it (as distinct from a box-ticker unwilling to explain why they hadn’t done anything), the form-filling was a/the major reason.
I’m constantly struck by the massive disconnect between how the police are portrayed on TV, etc (on the street, chasing villains, all hours etc) and the reality which seems to be Nick someone and spend the next six hours typing up paperwork, and one spelling mistake sees the serial killer walk free from court without a stain on his character.
Have the government failed to reduce this admin burden simply through incompetence or something deeper? Or are police officers merely rubbish typists?
‘I have rarely seen a policeman making much noise about the pointlessness of the War on Drugs.’
Maybe they don’t think it’s pointless?
Martin.
Here in the US, with asset forfeiture, they’re extremely fond of the War on Drugs because they can just confiscate people’s things and enrich themselves.
We even have court cases in which the defendant is an inanimate object. It’s really quite wicked.
You’re gonna get paperwork though. You can’t just nick people, you need evidence to do them. That evidence including (often crucially) the witness statement(s) of the nicking officer(s). The sooner they are taken the more trustworthy they are. So of course nicking a crim will take a plod off the beat for a while.
@ BiG
50, 75, 100 years ago the constable could give the teenage lout a clip round the ear and walk round the corner to check the next actual/potential problem. Now he/she has to go back to the station and spend half-an-hour filling in forms before going back onto the beat; meanwhile the teenage lout’s pal waitiung round the corner for him/her to go away has broken in and stolen thousands of £ worth of stuff.
Does this mean that next year, the Met will not be closing Whitehall and that the Queen and family had better not stand in the middle of the road while all the dignitaries are laying wreaths ?