Andrew Mitchell needs to resign.

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Honestly he does......calliing a serving police officer "a pleb".
What an utter twat of the highest order....spoilt rich scumbag.

My father refers to pushy car drivers as 'peasants'. I don't think this means he wants to bring back the feudal system.

Mitchell obviously gets wound up quite easily.

That has manifested itself in him being rude to an obstructive policeman. Not great, but a better response than punching people for example, which was no barrier to being Deputy PM.

Why is blood wanted? The public are not buying it because they know its a non story and imo it stinks

(and an ignorant elite - all that expensive education and yet, as people have said, he doesn't understand the position of the plebians in Rome nor apparently the origins of the word 'plebiscite' despite being a politician).

Well I'm no keener on your father calling people peasants than on Mitchell calling them plebs, Skippy.

me neither skippy. That's a pretty unpleasant insult, but at least he's not shouting it in their faces as Mitchell did.

Hands up everyone who really believes that there is no sound recording on the security cameras.

Well I don't think it's a statement on their financial background, since the kind of drivers who do this are most commonly found driving BMWs and the like.

I don't think he believes that they are going home to till their rented strip of arable land.

I have no idea why Mitchell might use the word 'pleb', but people have their favourite epithets I suppose.

No, nobody is accusing your father of being a confused literalist.... I personally don't like the idea of calling people 'peasants': I think it's quite unpleasant. Same goes for pleb or prole.

Silly men (it's usually men which is whjy we need many more women in this type of role and more men like him at home cleaning the bathrooms all day) often do lose their tempers and use stupid language. An anger management course might do him good. I pity his family. I bet he's always losing his temper at home.

Who gave this so called evidence to the Sun?

They're probably phone tapping again.

Some CCTV do have sound capability. Whilst waiting to go into a prison once I was waiting for aages and so burst into my version of "Don't Cry For Me Argentina" - full length with feeling. It amused me at the time - as well as the CCTV operators. Round of applause at the end.

The fact he will not be accountable and say exactly what he said indicates the contempt he and many of his 'colleagues' hold the public in.

one law for the rich, and one for the poor

He's got a point.

piglet I don't think Gemmell should have been jailed for swearing. It was a political over reaction that people were happy to go along with without thinking that in certain circumstances they might find themselves in court after an altercation with the police.

That was the conclusion of a judge very recently. I'll dig it out if anyone really wants me too.

In Gemmell's case the officer may have genuinely felt threatened but a night in the cells works wonders.

In his case, and Mitchell's, 'run along sonny' is usually sufficient.

Anyway, it's gone to the Met Commissioner and he doesn't want it going any further. I think those officers were very badly advised by their police Federation rep and the newly-appointed head of the Chief Supts' Assoc who wanted to make a name for themselves.

I think all of them have been told to wind their necks in. The officers on duty at the time will be the ones who come off worst for opening their notebooks to The Sun. I'll be flabbergasted if they're still waving Dave through tomorrow.

limited, that'd be a shame. The public needs to know what kind of people are running the government on our behalf. If we only ever see the shiny PR spin, we aren't getting a true picture.

Interesting to see the relationship between The Sun and the Met hasn't been damaged by all that norty phone-hacking...

Just for a different perspective, here's a self-important arsehole policeman cutting up a cyclist.

The arrogance comes oozing from every pore.

The cyclist speaks to him appropriately, but it's easy to see how you could lose your cool.

edam At the risk of being cliched, they're all in it together, aren't they?

The first police officer, a Met chief inspector, was charged yesterday for allegedly passing information to the News of the World. It's taken long enough. I wonder if she'll appear in court with NoTW executives. I would have thought that was logical. I wouldn't like to think that people were trying to stagger prosecutions so they fail.

Yes, people do need to know about the kind of people in any govt, but the paramount responsibility of union reps is to protect their members. Quite often that's against rash things the members do to themselves like breaching employment conditions that could lead to minor disciplinary action right up to instant dismissal for gross misconduct. It looks like there's been a serious breach of the Met's rules here. If it happened it was tempting and even understandable but dangerous.

I'm aware that John Tully of the Met Police Federation and his fans on this site don't like to call him a union rep. But as I said in a different discussion the other day: if it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck...

I think he's been incredibly stupid and glory-hunting and has served these officers very badly. As has Chief Supt Irene Curtis of the Police Supts' Assoc who also stuck her oar in. That's also not a union, I was assured in the same discussion. Unions aren't allowed in the police, so obviously they don't exist, not even under names like federations and associations.

He's said sorry, but still doesn't admit he actually said it.

That's not much of an apology is it?

Oh and AFAIK the Met's commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe is Teresa May's pet.

When the previous commissioner Sir Paul Stephenson had to step down last year through ill-health - nothing to do with his embroilment in the NI scandal - May had the untempting choice of three senior officers who were likely to be a bit difficult to handle.

Tim Godwin, who'd been doing the job in Stephenson's sick leave, Stephen House who I don't really know much about and the front-runner Sir Hugh Orde, former Chief Constable of Northern Ireland who had a high profile and said to be very popular with the rank and file and tabloids.

There was talk of a pact between the three whereby they'd refuse to bitch about each other making it difficult for May, and Boris Johnson who had his pawprints all over the resignation of 'difficult' Sir Ian Blair, someone else who was trashed in The Sun and the Mail for being too PC, to choose a puppet.

Suddenly Hogan-Howe, nicknamed Haagen-Dazs by officers in Merseyside because he allegedly melts in the heat, streaked ahead.

It's Hogan-Howe who's ridden to the rescue of the govt by refusing to take this any further.

At least one of the officers may face disciplinary action.

"My father refers to pushy car drivers as 'peasants'. I don't think this means he wants to bring back the feudal system."

Your father is not (I assume) running the country nor meant to be representing the public.

That he chooses to direct such ignorant language towards members of the public in the privacy of his car is none of our business.

That an elected MP does is. It's absolutely appalling that he has such attitudes.

The quote (from The Independant) is:

'Best you learn your f place ... you don't run this f government ... you're f plebs.'

It's not just the word, it's the whole context, I can't see that his position is tenable.

It's crap, for sure - but only to be expected. They are toffs. But, fatally, pretending not to be.

I wish so much all the sound and fury could be spent on looking at the real , real, appalling, lasting damage to society this government is wreaking.

Of course the report is true - it's the 'pleb' word. Few bobbies would invent that. Fewer still readers of a mass market paper under age 30 would understand the spectrum of offensive implications but of course that's not the point.

Few bobbies would invent that. Fewer still readers of a mass market paper under age 30 would understand the spectrum of offensive implications but of course that's not the point.

alicetrefusis I may or may not agree with you but that's an offensive thing to say.

Just like calling people plebs, in fact.

It's the gulf between what Mitchell said in his mealy-mouthed apology, and what the policeman said Mitchell said, that is the issue for me.

This is not a 'difference of recollections'. There is a clear statement by a police officer serving at Downing Street that Mitchell was warned about being arrested for his behaviour. Mitchell on the other hand has been less clear and appears to be dismissing that event as a frippery of his day.

Do I believe that police officers sometimes lie? Yes. Do I believe Mitchell on this occasion? No. He is the one who is not credible.

linerunner the police, politicians and The Sun have form for making things up for a splash. It's barely two weeks after the 'definitive' Hillsborough report.

No one comes out of this well.