You’re an arse, mate.
I know that Northants police never did care about the concept of policing by consent, or about acting in a proportionate way, but the spotlight is on you now.
This isn’t nicking motorists for doing 3mph over a comically low speed limit.
This is stopping people going about their lawful lives in a free and democratic society, making up the rules as you go, with no regard for the law as it is written and intended.
I know we are dealing with a national emergency here, but pretending that this law says things that it doesn’t about where we can go and what we can buy in the shops is going to get you nowhere good.
Most people are acting very responsibly, and if this ‘come down on everyone’ approach is because you’re afraid of discrimination complaints or somesuch – perhaps targeted policing has been abandoned altogether as a means to make best use of resources? – you need to say so.
If you read the linked article, you realise that what the Chief Cunstable is saying is based on 2 premises:
- There’s so much law on the books that, whoever you are, the police can feel your collar any time they like. You’re bound to have done something wrong.
- The process is the punishment, so it doesn’t matter if you eventually come away scot-free, you’ll still have spent 12 months in purgatory and probably spent your life-savings on lawyers, so the coppers will have got their result either way.
If you’re comfortable with any of this at all, I really want you to be the first one that Captain Jackboot here unjustly harasses. Only then will some people see where we are and what our direction of travel is.
AJ
UPDATE: I think I love you, Priti Patel, but you gotta get your shed full of arseholes under proper control.