In thinking that Andrew Mitchell needs to resign ASAP for his behaviour?

[ColouringIn]

It's in AIBU.....

Go in then....tell me how an MP who represents a Govt falling over themselves to show their appreciation of police in the wake of this weeks events can justify staying in post.

Tell me why "Call me Dave" has not kicked his arse to kingdom come and told/advised him to resign.

Or is all the talk of "appreciation" for the police after this weeks horrific murders just lip service?

"plebs" and "know your place"..... spoken like a real old right wing "stuff the proles" Tory. Arsehole of the highest order.

He needs to resign.

And why do the government ministers and MPs get armed police to portect them while the rest of us have to make do with some poor PCSO with a radio or a beat bobby with is small stick and a can of watered down pepper spray? If they refuse to arm all the street police then they should down weapons, I would not want to do their job without greater fire power than the other side these days, vis a vis Cregan and his ilk.

Government ministers and MPs get armed protects because they are high-risk targets for potential attacks.

I for one do not want to see the standard "bobby on the beat" armed. If you arm the police, the criminals just arm themselves more. I don't see armed police as a deterrent in the USA, a country that has more deaths from shootings than the whole of Europe combined.

the police don;t want to be armed - survey after survey supports this

I think his constituency association should have him in for a performance review.

If I did this to the security staff at the hospital I work at, what would happen to me?

More to the point, i just can't imagine myself doing this. Does self-control have no meaning any more? That policeman will have to bite his lip 1,000 times a day in his job. I have to bite my lip many times, for many reasons. How come 'Thrasher' gets a free pass to do whatever the heck he likes?

I suppose we all like to see Malcolm Tucker on telly 'bollocking' other people and see it as a sign of authenticity and macho effectiveness. Perhaps we should think again about that and wonder what happened to Sir Humphrey as the symbol of British government.

Who remembers the argument after Gideon was booed at the Paralympics that only the left are rude, whilst the privately educated right behave with impeccable manners?

The police who actually go out on the beat do want to be armed, the office dwellers don't. We need a survey of those police who actually leav the office to get an accurate picture. This blog is attended by service front line police officers and is a good read.
inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2012/09/20/you-cannot-take-a-taser-to-a-gunfight-and-win/

Ratters It would be nice if you had read the post before assuming I was police-bashing.

I said this about some onlookers at the police march against the cuts in Central London: [they] told me they were glad the police were getting a taste of their own medicine. Their thoughts, not mine.

There were lots of jibes about kettling. Again theirs not mine, but I wasn't surprised given the way that some demonstrations have been policed in recent years.

The Police Federation is a union in all but name. They defend their members' interests vigorously and that is okay by me.

If you don't think there is a concerted campaign how would you explain the Federation's well-publicised opposition to the Coalition's 20 per cent budget cuts and plans for pay, pensions and career restructure?

How do you explain the Police Superintendents' Association new head Irene Curtis weighing in very robustly over the Mitchell matter saying that there were new witnesses and taht their evidence needed to be examined.

That sounds very much like she's asking for consideration of charges against Mitchell. I can't recall such a senior officer ever calling into question the integrity of a minister.

BTW not everyone who is law-abiding is an uncritical friend of the police - I'm certainly not - but on balance I think most officers do a difficult job well.

It would be nice though if they spoke out against the few bad apples such as Simon Harwood, the balls ups over Jean Charles de Menezes, links to Clifford Norris, father of Stephen Lawrence's murderer David Norris and the whole institutional racism saga which many Met officers have never accepted, and Catford officers' role in the unsolved murder of Daniel Rees and other dreadful misdeeds that make people mistrust the police.

I'm also puzzled that so many journalists have been charged with corrupting police officers but so far no police officers. Who was getting NI's money then? Or is the Met going to say everyone turned it down? If they did, surely they should explain that in court?

And on the same point, how did The Sun get such accurate information about the boorish Mitchell when officers of the rank of the gate keepers are not allowed to speak to the press?

I understand John Tully, chairman of the Met police federation says he has been briefed on the contents of the notebooks but he's not saying how the information got into The Sun either.

It is fair to say the police are late to the party. They are perhaps tjhe only public sector workers who have been very well looked after by successive governments for 30 years so I'm not surprised they didn't feel solidarity with other workers before.

But if they feel it now, better late than never.

I mean detailed information on Mitchell instead of accurate.

I don't know if it's accurate, but I'm willing to give the allegations the benefit of the doubt.

Obviously everyone, let alone the police, knows this is obviously not the way things go in court which is why talk of a prosecution is idle without independent witnesses.

That's why even though I think Mitchell is undoubtedly an arrogant shit and I'm enjoying his discomfort, this police federation and PSA campaign is wrong and is clearly in pursuit of their members' wider interests over pay and conditions.

Well, Limited you may say you weren't police bashing in your previous post but you've certainly made your unfavourable feelings clear in this one!

As clever as you think you are you are still wrong to say that the Police Federation is any kind of union. It is not. It is illegal for the police to have a union.

Irene Curtis obviously wasn't speaking on behalf of the Federation.

Do you have a problem with the rank and file or senior officers? Much of what you complain about is out of the hands of R&F.

I don't think the police pay and conditions are thirty years behind the rest of the public sector. It's a bizarre thing to say.

You refer to workers' solidarity are you in the SWP by any chance?

ratters Are you reading my posts before commenting?

I agree with you that it would have been bizarre for me to say police pay and conditions are 30 years behind that rest of the public sector.

That's why I didn't say it.

I said the police had been very well looked after by successive governments since 1979. That's probably why they feel so hurt now and I don't blame them for that feeling.

I know Irene Curtis wasn't speaking on behalf of the Federation. That's why I took care to say she was speaking on behalf of the Police Superintendents' Association. But I know a concerted campaign on combined fronts when I see one.

I also know the Police Federation does not call itself a union. But it is aggressively pursuing the Coalition over changes to the pay and conditions of its members and is calling in favours in the Press as unions do. Unions don't have so many friends in the Press as the Police Federation or various police groups with the exception of things such as the Met's association for black officers.

So if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

I support all honest officers whether rank and file or senior and I think the overwhelming majority are honest, fair, hardworking and very brave when required. I am grateful for them.

But it doesn't do the image of an organisation any good for anyone in it to keep quiet about wrong doing, especially after the danger of being a whistleblower has passed. That goes for people of all ranks.

No, I'm not in the SWP, I'm a Labour voter on the right of the party, but I'm not sure why you asked that question and I'm certainly not going to ask for your political affiliations because I think they are irrelevant.

BTW did you know that solidarity is not only a well-known term for the action of any group of people of any background in pursuit of a common cause, but is the English translation of the name of the Polish shipworkers' union that broke the Communist Party in their country in 1980? They were not a bunch of Trots by any description.

He should resign.

And the other "ministers" who believe his word above the officer he patronizingly put in his place, should go with him.

And as for Mr Pickles? Has he not done enough?

Throw the lot.

Put the Lords in power.

I bet the government knows Mr Mitchels is a nasty arse, this is way he was "demoted" to whip. They are just waiting till it all quietens down, to allow him some space to consider his options, as he is now in the middle of a very public humiliation.

I mean, who would employ somebody like that? He would have to go start his own security company, or something.

Mine is the token YABU. . Sincere, though.

The Police Federation is not a union. The police can not have a union, it is illegal. They didn't form a union but called it a federation in the hope no one would notice. There really is no argument, it's a statement of fact.

Which comparable public sector workers have had worse pay and conditions than the police since 1979? Previous governments have negotiated police pay and conditions in such a way as to recognise that they have no industrial rights.

I think that reduced police and conditions is no cause for celebration. Well educated, capable people will stop viewing the police as a viable career option. Surely nobody wants poorly educated, less able people to fill the police service.

I'm really not interested in the etymology of solidarity. It's disingenuous to suggest it is not recognised as a left wing term in this country.

It is also awful what happened to their pension and their "end of service bonus". Many police officers counted on that in order to pay off their mortgage at retirement. I think many will decide to leave the force and find work privately in order to fund their retirement better. It is just horrid.

I would like to shove his bicycle somewhere unpleasant, sideways. My daily commute takes me through Sutton Coldfield, and if this carries on much longer I will be arrested myself, probably for dashing myself to pieces on the platform shouting "You should know your place! KNOW YOUR PLACE you stupid fucking Tory-voting plebs!"

Cameron should sack him, and I expect this will happen tomorrow. It damn well should.

ratters Yes, it's a word to save using the word union. I completely understand why it's used. I also know that police officers can't take industrial action and though I might support their industrial action, I'm rather glad that they can't and think there ought to be a measure of monetary recognition for that, if indeed there isn't.

I'm not celebrating anyone losing their working conditions. I can't understand why anything I've said makes you think I am. But I remember young men with no qualifications in dead-end jobs joining the police in the massive recruitment drive of the early 80s when Margaret Thatcher was amassing people to go to the miners' picket lines and also to Wapping.

I don't resent that but please don't deny it happened. I can remember it because I went out with two of them. They were among the best-paid young men in my circle at the time. It was a major decider in going out with them.

One of them was sent to Orgreave. He must have been a bit of a lefty because it upset him.

Other than that I don't remember their politics and if I could I wouldn't bring it up. As long as no one holds hateful views how they vote is irrelevant. Well it is to me.

The other police officers I knew in the course of my work, and there were many of them, were also quite comfortably off. They were certainly better off and less educated than me and my colleagues at that stage in life - early 20s.

Never mind. We all make choices.

Well I don't know why a senior government minister would be riding a bike around London anyway. Wouldn't he be a great target for a terrorist?

So the policeman who started this is now in prison:

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26064536

not quite the one who started it, but considering he was not there, his witness account is very similar to what the police said in their notebooks

If the police will tell these lies about MPs imagine what they can do to us