Futile Democracy

When we were kids, the police were known by their more mellifluous title of “the filth“. They managed to gain this nickname, by insisting on turning up and supervising any group of teenagers standing around doing nothing. The result was not only a bunch of teenagers standing around doing nothing, but a bunch of police standing around doing nothing, and both groups inherently disliking and mistrusting each other. The difference between the two groups standing around doing nothing, was that the taxpayer didn’t fund teenagers to stand around doing nothing. If public funds were directed more at the kids, maybe we wouldn’t have been so bored we ended up standing around doing nothing, and maybe the police could concentrate on, you know, their job.

As we grow up, we learn to respect the police a little more. You note that they protect your property rights and at times, it must be difficult for them. And, we all love Gene Hunt. We suddenly respect what they do a little more, because we know we’d need their support if our house was broken into. Granted, that support would turn up 45 minutes after the actual brake in, take notes, and then spend the rest of the evening not actually finding your stolen stuff and instead supervising the next generation of bored teenagers in case they light up a spliff; but it’s nice to know they exist. But the respect we have for the police, does not give them the freedom to be vicious thugs.

The Metropolitan Police in London seem to have gained even more reason for the public to refer to them as “filth” recently. They are a formidable force of filth. Whenever they are on TV explaining themselves, I find I am more and more inclined to dismiss everything they say, as a crock of shit.

This tendency toward my absolute dismissal of everything the Met say (so that’s The Met, The CBI, and The IMF), stems entirely from the fact that they are, in fact, a crock of shit. First, the shooting in the head seven times, of Jean Charles de Menezes at Stockwell Tube Station, by the Met, because he looked a bit like a terrorist. Despite an IPCC investigation, which found that not only did the Met kill an unarmed innocent man, in the most violent of ways, but they tried to cover it up. It stated the Met:

made or concurred with inaccurate public statements concerning the circumstances of the death. The alleged inaccurate information included statements that Mr de Menezes had been wearing clothing and behaving in a manner which aroused suspicions.

The Chief of the Met at the time, Sir Ian Blair even tried to suppress an investigation, wishing instead to conduct an internal inquiry. Internal inquiries always clear the party involved. It is the equivalent of being your own judge at your murder trial. You’re not likely to send yourself down. Later, it became known that Metropolitan police surveillance officer codenamed “Owen” had deleted files off his computer, that involved a recording of deputy assistant commissioner Cressida Dick saying that de Menezes was not a threat at all.

The Crown Prosecution Service decided it would not press charges against anyone in the shooting of de Menezes. Shooting an innocent man seven times in the head apparently doesn’t even come under manslaughter.

And then we move onto the infamous G20 protest in London in 2009. The Met used the kettling technique to contain the crowd. A bystander on his way home named Ian Tomlinson had a heart attack and died during the kettle. First, the Met denied they had anything to do with his death. Suddenly, a youtube video appeared, showing PC Simon Harwood hit Ian Tomlinson with a baton, and then push him to the ground with ridiculous force, about a minute before Tomlinson had a heart attack and died. The police do not help him off the ground, instead they stand there, smug, doing nothing. A fellow bystander helps Tomlinson back to his feet.
Again, the Crown Prosecution Service said that they were unable to bring any charges against PC Simon Harwood. Harwood was known to have taken his police number off, and covered his face, to avoid detection. In 2009, a second and third postmortem on Ian Tomlinson revealed that he had died as a result of massive internal bleeding caused by a shock to the abdomen. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to point out that Harwood first hit Tomlinson with a baton, to the abdomen, and then shoved him to the floor…… a pretty closed case.

This is where the Met tend to act like great saviours in a land of crazed Anarchists, just trying to protect us all. They released a statement four hours after Tomlinson had died, stating that the police had noticed a man collapse, and had tried to rush in and help him but were bombarded by missiles from protesters. Those damn protesters. The only problem was, another youtube video surfaced, minutes later, after Tomlinson had collapsed. It shows police surrounded him, but not actually helping. It shows a female protester trying to help and saying “these are the bastards that did it“, and curiously, absolutely no “missiles” at all. This video surfaced just after The Sun, in its vast attempt to insult all protesters whilst masturbating furiously over the wonders of The Met, lead with:

“Man dies as bottles lobbed at rescuers.

POLICE were battered with beer bottles and cans as they desperately tried to save a dying man at the height of the G20 riots in London last night. But when cops struggled through the crowd to reach him, they were pelted with missiles. They finally got to him and set up a cordon as two ambulances rushed to the scene. ”

It’s amazing “journalism“. The Sun appear to have received a press statement from the IPCC, and manufactured a story around it. What is even more amazing, is that Harwood was hired by the Met, even though he had previous disciplinary action taken against him over the past decade. The Met are hiring lunatics.

Skip forward to the Student Protest in London last week.
Alfie Meadows, a Philosophy Student from Middlesex University is found wandering in a dazed state covered in blood, by his Philosophy Professor also at the protest. Meadows had been struck on the head by a police baton, with such force that he required brain surgery. The Met were kettling again at this point, and when the Professor begged them to let him and Alfie out of the kettle, they only allow Meadows to leave….. on his own……. in the middle of London……. needing brain surgery. Despite students and reputable professors from across the Country all claiming the violence started after kettling began, and after several unprovoked horse back charges by police took place, the media and the government still seem intent on keeping quiet on the subject of police brutality, instead choosing to focus their crocodile tears on a bit of paint on Charles’ armoured car.

This monday night, the BBC conducted a shameful interview of a man named Jody McIntyre. They asked him if he’d been throwing rocks at the police and if he were a “revolutionary” attempting to paint him as violent. The reason for this, is a video surfaced showing a Met officer pull Jody McIntyre ……. from his wheelchair…… which he can’t operate without the help of his brother, because of his celebral palsy, and dragged across the street. The BBC interviewer asked him if he’d provoked the attack….. by wheeling toward the police…. the muscular, trained, armed police. The BBC surely shouldn’t be acting as a mouthpiece for the angry right wing who are stuck in a tornado of shouting “omg it’s political correctness gone mad” arguing for “sanity” whenever it suits them, but claiming rather outlandishly that they’re second class citizens whenever someone with slightly darken skin complexion gets a job ahead of them? They aren’t the Daily Mail. Although The Daily Mail took it one step further, by comparing McIntyre to Andy from Little Britain, with the quite insufferable turd Richard Littlejohn stating:

“…he should have kept a safe distance.

Jody Mcintyre is like Andy from Little Britain.
‘Where do you want to go today, Jody?’
‘Riot.’
‘Are you sure? Wouldn’t you rather go to hear Bob Crow speak at the Methodist Central Hall. You like Bob Crow.’
‘Yeah, I know.’
‘So, we’ll go there, eh?’
‘Riot!’
‘Ken Livingstone will be there, too. He’s your favourite.’
‘Riot!’
‘All right, then.’
Five minutes later at the riot . . .
‘Don’t like it.’ ”

Littlejohn apparently thinks disabled people should not stand up for what they believe in, and if they dare to, they apparently shouldn’t complain when police drag them out of their wheelchair.

The Tory Party aren’t exactly the friends of disabled people, what with cutting adult social care funding for those suffering a disability. But Tory Councillor Phil Taylor took it one step further, when, on his blog, he said:

” Although he presents himself as a cerebral palsy victim in a wheelchair he does not mention that by his own account he walked up the 9 stories of stairs of the 30 Millbank building during the student riots of 10th November.”

– How utterly irrelevant. Even if he did an elegant handstand, all the way up the stairs, with a cartwheel finish, into a double somersault….. it still doesn’t justify police dragging a kid from a wheelchair and throwing him into the street.
Taylor posts a quote from McIntyre’s website, in which Taylor highlights certain areas of the text, that in Taylor’s odd opinion, paint a picture of a disabled kid who deserves to be pulled from his wheelchair by The Met. Let’s take the sections of McIntyre’s blog that Taylor highlighted one by one:

The sun was shining on the morning of November 10th, and our blood was boiling.

– Yup. That was the feeling among all 50,000 of us. I was there too. We didn’t go down to show how happy we are with the Coalition. Absolutely no reason to highlight this. Also, John Major, the former Tory Prime Minister, and a man who lost his personality in the 1970s, told the BBC’s Andrew Marr Show, that Labour’s attacks on Coalition policy……. “makes my blood boil“. The violent bastard. The Met need to be kicking the shit out of the ex Tory PM for that. They can count on Phil Taylor’s support too!

We passed Trafalger Square, and half way down Whitehall found ourselves approaching the main bulk of the demonstration, which had assembled there. It was an endless sea of people, but unfortunately, they had been corralled by police and NUS stewards into one lane of the dual carriageway. Me and Finlay immediately set to work, tearing down the metal barriers which separated the two lanes.

– Good! I’m glad someone did. We were squeezed in. For a guy in a wheelchair, it couldn’t have been easy. Even if he were stood up and walking, it couldn’t have been easy. I moved a barrier twice, to make a bit more space. There was no reason for the divide whatsoever. Taylor wasn’t in the mesh of people being held together like sheep.

A group of 200 followed, including me in my wheelchair, and Finlay pushing at full speed.

– Erm, okay. So he quite likes to go fast. I’d hate to see how angry Taylor gets at the Paralympics. “THEY AREN’T DISABLED!!! THEY’RE GOING TOO FAST TO BE DISABLED!!!” presumably.

We continued down the sixty stone steps at the other end of the Treasury road without so much as a pause for breath. We were on the rampage.

– It’s a figure of speech. He wasn’t literally on a rampage, shooting innocent bystanders (or pushing them over inducing a heart attack). It is a figure of speech, and its a soundbite. Like when Taylor himself refers to a man in his constituency who said “I see broken windows as being totally justified compared with the damage being done to the public sector. This is just the beginning“, as a “Leftie, nutter headbanger“…….. he isn’t literally saying that the man quite likes to bang his head, nor is he even suggesting that the man in question listens to music one might “headbang” to. Figure of speech, Phil. The same sort of figure of speech that he used, when in his latest blog about a rather useless cowboy builder, with the phrase “It took a lot of kicking and screaming from local councillors to get this site sorted out“……. if we are to go by Phil’s new found literal approach to sentences that quite clearly, aren’t meant that way, we must presume that local councillors Taylor is speaking of, literally did kick and scream……. the violent thugs.

It was an epic mission to the top. Nine floors; eighteen flights of stairs. Two friends carried my wheelchair, and I walked.

– Having just spoken to my lovely girlfriend Ashlee about the effects of cerebral palsy (she is a physio at a disabled kids school, and deals with this everyday), she has informed me, after watching the BBC interview herself, that of course McIntyre can walk, but judging from his posture, and the way he spoke and his twitching, he would find it difficult to get too far without help. It would take him a long time to get to where he was heading, he wouldn’t be able to balance himself properly for very long at any one time, and he’d get overly tired very very quickly. So, he should be commended for fighting for what he believes in, at the same time as going through the trouble it must have been to achieve it. But, the fact remains, the police considered it perfectly okay to pull a man from a wheelchair and drag him across the street. Phil Taylor, is a tremendous scrotum. His entire blog is drivel. Right winged, miserable, vicious drivel in which anyone slightly left of Reagan is considered a thug. It is people like Taylor that make me proud to wear the badge of the Left Wing, with pride.

Tory Blogger Guido Fawkes waded in on the subject, stating on his blog:

“Jody Macinytre, radical pro-Palestine supporter and sufferer from cerebral palsy”

– They are his only two attributes apparently. He also isn’t “radical” pro-Palestine supporter, although even if he was, i’m not sure why that’s a bad thing. Fawkes continues:

“However he has revelled in, and incited, violence on his website……”

“Macintyre can’t hide behind his disability when the police treat him like any other violent trespassing thug. It’s called equality…”

– Yes he can. Because he’s disabled. And the police are fully armed, trained guards. And also, because 1) he wasn’t trespassing, and 2) he wasn’t being violent. What a horrible sense of equality Tory bloggers have. Disabled people causing no problems are apparently just as equal as the rest of us causing no problems, in being beaten by the Met. We should all be thankful for that little gem of equality.

The point is, despite the talk of violence from protesters…. the only serious injury, was caused by the police, and the only shameful attack on a disabled man, was caused by police. The media tend to tread carefully with the issue, because criticising an institution like The Met, who they clearly still consider to be a reputable source, could provoke anger amongst right winged commentators like Phil Taylor and Guido Fawkes, who would inevitably refer to the BBC as “left wing” if they dared to criticise the police. The Government keep telling us that the “full force of the law” will come down on violent student protesters, but never mention any such repercussion for Police. The Met are not on a higher moral plateau. They are dangerous, provocative, murdering, violent, lying…………. filth.