No more rainbow badges for the met

[Hoardasurass]

Is sense returning to the police or is this something else?
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2023/08/28/mark-rowley-police-not-allowed-support-causes-at-work/

I wonder if it is OK to wear white poppies as well as red?

Dont really think they should be wearing poppies either or anything connected to help for heroes. Remembering dead policemen is different. Doesnt mater that the vast majority of the population, including me, wear poppies for remembrance.

Even when I support the cause the police should never make a political statement, they should be seen as impartial. Obviously they also need to root out problematic people in their ranks but that is far more difficult. It's simple to start the process of reminding officers what they are there for by removing symbols.

I would see the poppy as about support for the armed forces and remembering e.g. often very young men that gave their lives for the country.

If you don't support the defence of the country you are basically traitorous.

I don't think the symbol involves anyone having to support particular modern wars that may be controversial.

If people want to argue the police shouldn’t wear poppies they have clearly got nothing at all better to do.

Poppies aren't political no matter how much people want to make them so. Although i do think that if you're going to have to wear one (as some people do) the choice to use a white one should be there.

The question above shows that poppies are already political.

White, black, purple poppies, all devised by people who don't believe the red poppy represents causes they care about and support.

The poppies came from a time when every street and every town knew someone who had died, some of those streets holding households where they'd lost the entire family of their sons. I grew up with my grandfather every single year without fail putting poppies in the remembrance garden named for school friends who died in the DD landings with guilt that he came home and they didn't.

It's only in recent history when no one really remembers or cares any more that it's got to be puddling about with different colours and virtue signals and political messing around. It's a bit grim really, but there's almost nothing in our time now that hasn't be pomo destroyed.

I think it's "political" in the sense that support for democracy is political.

Yes hypothetically there are alternatives, but in the modern world everyone should be signed up to democracy I would think.

If anything, support for the armed forces is even more essential.

You can't have a successful society that isn't willing to defend itself against outside enemies, unless perhaps it just gets lucky and no one attacks.

What next? It's too political if the police even support the use of punishments against criminals? These are just the basics of running a society!

White poppies have a long history and are associated with women's peace activism (many of whom who had lost sons).

I would say police shouldn't really be visibly embracing any cause, woke or not.

I don't really think of poppies as a political statement, and I don't think most people do. But if that ends up falling under the same kind of rule I think it's still an improvement.

It's not just the symbol to others. When you belong to an organization that has a mandate to be neutral, it's important that the employees themselves have that held in the front of their minds, because it doesn't come naturally to most people. As soon as it becomes ok to be non-neutral in some situations, people begin to think it's no longer a general value of the institution, be it health care, the police, universities, etc.

This was taken in 2020 in Sheffield but the horses, trained to cope with traffic, bombs and riots, knew BS when they saw it.

Poppies become political when people are compelled to wear them or berated for not wearing them, or for choosing to wear a white poppy.

Poppies are definitely political. I am pretty neutral to them, although don't wear them, my DH who is ex-military but now very anti-militarist, would not wear them to save his life.

How about charity pin badges?

The police should be in their uniform and nothing else. It doesn't matter how good the cause may be, when on duty you are there to do your job, not tell everyone about your personal beliefs and hobbies

Well said.

Also, if you let one thing, such as poppies, be added to uniforms you then have a situation where you have to decide what is and what isn't acceptable. You back yourself into a corner which is completely unnecessary when you should be concentrating on the job.

I had a think about this myself the other day.
The poppy is meant to remind us of the horrors of war, the sacrifices made by those who fought so the rest of us might live in freedom. Raise a bit of cash for charity. But it doesn't seem to want to achieve any future goals beyond perhaps less war. Most importantly it's not pushed down people's throats against their will.

As it stands now I don't care if a person buys or displays a poppy or not. It's their choice, and I don't know if I can even be so pompous to say I respect that choice, because I don't even notice it. It's very much a take it or leave it thing. It's very rare to heard even mild controversy over poppies.

However if the police started painting their cars with poppies, the NHS started covering lanyards and everything in poppies, the police started treating people differently depending on if they were wearing a poppy or not, people who didn't wear poppies started being deplatformed and losing their jobs, banks started cancelling the accounts of customers who didn't buy a poppy, etc.... I think very soon I'd start to dislike the authoritarian nature of the poppy brigade very very much, despise them in fact.

Part of my vitriol is not the cause itself, but the way adherants of that cause have conducted zirselves ( OMG when did the twitters unblock Godfrey Elfwick?!?! pbuh ) since inception. Entitled brats demanding the world conforms to them.

I think there's a tiny bit of wiggle room around impartiality and rules. Sikhs being allowed to carry a kirpan for instance I think is a great compromise that shows a just and open society. Unfortunately where we stand now on police impartiality is long past a tiny bit of wiggle room and far into multi coloured clown world. Those police cars look ever more stupid like Noddy's car in a child's picture book.

@lechiffre55 great post.

The poppy is meant to remind us of the horrors of war, the sacrifices made by those who fought so the rest of us might live in freedom. Raise a bit of cash for charity.
This is how I have always viewed the red poppy. Seeing it flourish on the literal battlefields where so many have lost their lives, it's a symbol of something beautiful coming from something so horrific most of us cannot even comprehend it. But then it got diluted with so many different colours which eventually became even more diluted with different causes not even related to the original meaning. I once proudly defended the rights of police, ambulance and other front line workers to wear the red poppy at work. But no more. The bastards have taken the inch and run the fucking mile.

@Pixiedust1234

What do they do with the poppy you don't like ? Or is it not the poppy, but the wider social causes activism?

Wonder whether this will mean the toxic LGBTQ police twitter accounts will be banned? They repeatedly enable anti women attitudes to be broadcast by the police - it would benefit society if they disappeared.

The fewer things that can be used by authoritarian police as leverage, the better, in my opinion.

It's a shame about poppies. But I can absolutely see a situation where not wearing when is seen as negative. And we all know how that can be exploited.

In fact, hasn't that already happened? Wasn't a news reader berated for not wearing one? Apparently he forgot. But It was already seen as a symbol of tribalism.

I didn't mind the poppy, the horrors experienced by the people, soldiers (of any side) and civilians, caught up in wars deserves something to commemorate their suffering. That's what it meant to me. But I took against it slightly when I saw people being shamed for not wearing one.

I think in stating wearing the poppy is okay they have undermined their arguement.

A lot of people, including those who benefit from the sale of poppies (not sure of the trickle down to the front line of need - there have been complaints) have always said it is NOT compulsorary to wear it.

It is only in recent years, thanks to really dumb people in the media who said presenters had to wear them, that it has become a political issue. It is now seen by many of being part of a little englander, nationalist, farage type mentality.

Are all politicians idiots?

Added to which most people are seeing this statment as an attack on BLM / taking the knee as within the context of the police, racism and lack of trust of the Black community in the Met is extremely high.

Unfortunately as has been said on other threads, the rainbow is seen as a be kind sort of symbol not political.

Funnily enough, even though sexism in the Met is acknowledged to be high, I dont think the Met has every made any sort of public symoblic wearing of a badge or whatever that indicates support for women.