karajorma wrote:Well they get more attention than any other in the country. It could simply be that the others are equally crap but the met are where all the reporters are.
But yeah, they've been pretty bad for years. I think it's due to an increasingly political aspect in the job of police commissioner. I don't think many people could even name the chief commissioner before Sir Paul Condon.
And where all the protests are, to be fair (excluding things like the G8 at Gleneagles, which involved officers from across the country and was rather unique anyways).
Albeit the individual actions are still well below the 'standard' you'd expect from what should by all rights be the countries
best police force at protest management - I've just seen the latest footage of violence against a protester, may I add (
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/apr/1 ... ssault-g20) - and the tactics the Met use seem calculated to escalate the situation, not ease it.
There is, perhaps, a calculated political aspect there in that more violence at protests is better for the police as it gives them more leeway to use what would otherwise be considered extreme methods. Although even I'm not quite cynical enough to suggest that the police set out to deliberately provoke riots (but perhaps they presume they'll occur regardless of situation).
