Plebgate - 12 months for this?

[limitedperiodonly]

I think it's right and I can't ever imagine myself being a fan of Andrew Mitchell.

He's a police officer who fabricated evidence.

It poses problems for the Met Police Commissioner who defended him, the Police Federation and David Cameron's dealings with an inconvenient situation.

That's not me being anti-Conservative btw. It's just that he does it a lot when it suits him.

Apparently Andrew Mitchell was at least as competent in his roles as other ministers.

I can't decide whether that's it because Dave is incompetent

or whether he's teetering at the head of a minority government.

I think what's worrying is that the extent of the conspiracy will probably never be known because he pleaded guilty and wasn't cross-examined. The contents of his original complaint letter exactly matched the police log. Who passed him that information? His local MP just happened to be the Deputy Chief Whip. Very happy coincidence or was he selected as the person who could do most damage? What's happened to the 'nephew' he took along to back up his allegations at interview?

I remember the good old days under Labour when the police did what they wanted; when all Police Commissioner Blair worried about was PC issues, like ‘thought crimes’.

When 90% of policeman at any one time were back at their stations, rather than causing trouble on the streets.

And those that were running around with guns, could mistake a Brazilian on a tube as a terrorist and pump 9 bullets in his head – and where the officer in charge, a Ms Cressida Dick, was later promoted.

When police cars had ‘Vote Labour’ on them.

No political ‘agendas’ there.

All the Mitchell officer was doing, was trying to politically assassinate a cabinet minister, in memory of those ‘good old days’, when Labour was trying to bring in a 90-day lock up without trial – and we flirted with becoming a near police State.

Where Tony Blair was caught 'bang to rights' offering Cash for Lordships', the police 'investigated' - and he was found not guilty.

I shan't go on, but I think the police know where their bread and truncheon meat sandwiches were buttered.

Really Isitmebut - is there anything you can't blame on Labour? I'm old enough to remember the police attempting to fit up Geoffrey Robinson, a Blair minister, by planting drugs on him.

Catkinsthecatinthehat….frankly there was very little I DON’T blame Labour for by 2010, and I’m happy to give you the fact list if you want. Lol

Individual cases aside, (and I have not seen the Robinson case you allude to) there is firm evidence that the police institutionally, went in a different direction under Labour, as name another decade the likes of Commissioner Blair’s ‘politically correct’ focus would have been seen as ‘fit for purpose’ ?

Administrations stuff their Public Sector with apparatchiks, that is not new, but the wider case here is if the police can try to fit up cabinet minister whilst in Downing Street, what does that mean for the rest of us?

The police complaints mob, the IPCC(?), is seen to be too close to the police and based on the way this ‘complaint’ was handled, who can argue that with their ‘nothing to see here’, defence.

Bear in mind, this was not a random political target, remember that the Coalition were unpopular with the police, based on the reforms a Conservative Home Secreatry were putting through.

Oh, I'd agree with you about the laughable IPCC, and that if the police would fit up a Minister they'd fit up anyone.

What I'm saying is that the police are a law unto themselves and have been under governments of any political stripe for years.

The Robinson case was interesting. He was stopped and asked to take a breath test. He agreed to do to in their van, and the police suddenly produced drugs and said 'you just dropped this' - completely untrue. He then refused to do anything without a solicitor, and was arrested. He passed a breath test at the station with flying colours, but they successfully prosecuted him for refusing a test as he'd objected on the roadside after the drugs 'appeared'. The police later admitted that the drugs weren't his (they initially claimed they were in his car) but that they'd 'accidentially' left them in the police van after a previous arrest...

"What I'm saying is that the police are a law unto themselves and have been under governments of any political stripe for years".

Maybe, but I still can't see one of the young Kray brothers getting a police visit/warning, for calling someone racial names.

As I have alluded to, this was not an individual/spontaneous police officer ‘event’; and generally speaking, senior figures in public sector organisations, for too many years having been thrown more and more tax payer’s money for unreformed services, have severely pushed back at the coalitions ‘more (and better) services for less’ policies – often defending mediocre results for those increased budgets.

The Police Federation obviously thought that they were a law unto themselves, but as they've found, they picked on the wrong woman.
www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/law-and-order/9269542/Police-Federation-humiliates-Theresa-May-by-forcing-her-to-make-speech-in-front-of-criminal-banner.html

And it appears that the Police Federation’s agenda influenced Plebgate, but as it a subscription story in todays ‘The Times’ newspaper, I cannot see all the detail here,

www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/politics/article4003083.ece
"The Police Federation hijacked the Plebgate affair for its own political ends and betrayed the officers who were on duty at the Downing Street gates, a key witness to the incident told The Times.”