KETTLING - is this Police tactic wrong?

It is reported today that Liberty is challenging the British Police tactic of Kettling in the European Courts.

I have said before that I believe that there are to many bleeding hearts out there with big budgets and bigger mouths shouting about the human rights of all and while they are looking after and complaining about peoples rights being violated, we the ordinary and law abiding people of the country who want to get on with our daily lives, are being ignored by the minority who shout and stamp their feet the loudest.

Now, don't get me wrong, the core principles of Liberty are manifestly well intended but, as with everything else they end up ignoring the rights of the majority.  Ok, I know that they and others like them will argue that they are looking after and fighting for the rights of me and others like me, but I am 55, I am law abiding and I am white and want to get on with my life and not have it disrupted by protester's or the police who don't stop and search me because I am white, but who are out in large numbers to attempt to manage another protest.

But this blog is not about stop and search-  and I believe that this rule should be challenged as it has been proved over and over again that it appears to be a racist policy aimed at non whites, so Liberty keep going with that one, no - this blog is about KETTLING.

Again, I am with Liberty to a degree, that in some instances it does seem to go to far, but that is not to say that it is a tactic that should never be employed by the Police, that is Liberty's argument, BUT, it is not mine.

I wrote a blog recently entitled Jody McIntyre - Police Brutality I finished of the article with these comments:

You say,  "the Police incite violence", I say, "you and the protesters incite violence"

You say, "The real issue is the cuts that the government are making in education" I say "what a bunch of prats" People are starving all over the world, the 'under privileged' as you call them of this country are oppressed and ill educated IN EVEN A BASIC EDUCATION and have nothing AND YOU ARE PROTESTING AND RIOTING IN THE STREETS BECAUSE FEES ARE BEING INTRODUCED FOR FURTHER EDUCATION. Now if you were rioting because the basic education of the masses in this country was suffering and that millions of our children are being condemned to a life of ignorance, I might just have had some sympathy for you and these 'educated morons' but you didn't, so I don't.

So while you promote anarchy then I promote giving the Police bigger and thicker batons, giving them more guns, allow then to kettle you as you join the rampaging mob and I will continue to not have a problem when the Police drag you and your likes off our streets.      

Lets face it, and I think everyone must agree, you do have to have permission to hold a protest on our streets, that is only right and proper, so no one can say that they did not know that a protest was scheduled to take place in an area where a) they might be working in or b) where they might have planned to visit for social reasons.

Now it is pretty difficult if your place of employment is smack bang in the middle of an area that is going to be passed by a protest march to do anything about that and you really have to just get on with it, but is it not ridiculous when before a 'peaceful' protest takes place that we see images of businesses and local authorities boarding up those business premises, of course it is.  So most of us know that a high proportion of protest marches are not going to be peaceful because peaceful does not get the message out, but they still have a right to protest!  Is it ok then, Liberty, for the protesters to destroy and burn businesses and for the minority to disrupt the majority and not just for the day of the protest but for the days weeks and months that it may take them to recover and get their business up and running again, what about their rights?

What about the rights of individual Police officers being pelted with bricks, bottles, and fire bombs, I do not believe that I have ever heard you say that their rights are being abused, or is it that they lose their individuality and the rights that accompany the individual once they become Police officers?

I am not a Police officer, never have been, but I have had dealings with them over the years in the various jobs that I have in fact I even recall, although I can not recall what it was about, but many years ago [early 90's] I laid in to them in a letter to the Police Gazette.  I continue to be a critic of them today and no doubt tomorrow and let me make it perfectly clear, I do not have a problem with people taking to the streets in peaceful protest BUT, I do have a problem with protesters, whether it has been engineered by a minority within the protesters or not, then turning that protest into a running riot and street battle.

Every single time that happens or before it happens then I am happy that protest marches should be KETTLED.  Yes, the police need to review and manage the situation better and YES they need to take into account that there may be innocent protesters or members of the public contained within that action, BUT, if KETTLING means that the protest does not denigrate to the level of Neanderthal savagery, them I am happy for them to do so.

Looking at your website there is an article entitled, "Inside the kettle" written by a 'child'  the article clearly written by a SCHOOL pupil, not a COLLEGE or a UNIVERSITY student, and all I can say to that is, she and the rest of the SCHOOL students that were there, were truants on the day and should not have been there and for you to justify your arguments by using this 'article' really does your cause  a disservice, please grow up and join the rest of us in the real world.  I do not believe that I am naive in MY outlook on this nor is it down to my suburban existence that I write these comments, no, it is a sense of frustration from the point of view of the person sitting at home switching on the TV and once again seeing someone from Liberty or other similar organisation blaming the riots and problems on the Police and that the poor downtrodden protesters are once again victims of Police Brutality.

Jody McIntyre - Police Brutality

The news has been full recently concerning the Independent Police Complaints Commissions ruling  concerning the 'assualt' on one Mr Jody McIntyre 

The IPC release states, "The IPCC has partially upheld an appeal from Mr Jody McIntyre in relation to a complaint he made to the Metropolitan Police Service about the treatment that he had received from their officers in Parliament Square during the student protests of 9 December 2010."


To be honest I only vaguely recalled this and I knew little of Mr McIntyre other than what I had seen on the TV at the time and I have to confess at the time my immediate reaction was, "well there you go a disabled person who wants to be treated the same as an able bodied person, and he is getting his wish".  By that I meant and mean that he chose to attend the student protests and when they denigrated to the level of thugs, as students protesting usually does, he was treated the same as any other protester on the street, so what is he whingeing about.  That was my thought then.


What are my thoughts now some months on.  Well I'll tell you.

What the hell are the Independent Police Complaints Commissions doing coming out with load of bollocks that they have done yesterday.

Look, we criticise the Police for being heavy handed (well I don't as a rule) and then we criticise them when they are standing back and letting thugs whether student or otherwise tear down and destroy buildings, destroy peoples livelihoods, throw fire extinguishers of tall buildings at police officers and other protesters seven floors below them and when they, the Police, are caught up with rioting thuggish behaviour we expect them, every single one of them, to be able to step back and look at every single person and consider his or her human rights before taking any action, really, lets get real over this, please.

Let me just say here that I have been known to be quite vigorous in my condemnation of the Police on many occasions, in fact here in the UK many Police forces have taken to social media and Twitter and so have individual officers tweeting about crime or events in the local area.  I follow the local Inspector, he follows my wife but for some strange reason he doesn't follow me! Well it's not really that strange when I think about it as he recently tweeted asking for comments about something asking if it was a good idea for the local Police to adopt something that was happening elsewhere.  I responded that it was always a good idea to implement or try new initiatives as anything that will help the public to help the Police to catch criminals had to be good in the long run and even if it didn't work, at least it was tried. However my response was twofold.  The second part of my response was along the lines of, "and anything that is done to show that the Police actually did turn up to a crime had to be good as normally when one is reported it was odds on that they a) don't turn up at all,or, b) turn up weeks later when it is to late to do anything about it!  so I suppose it is no surprise then that he isn't following me, and I really don't mind, really.

In my job I get quite a lot of visits from Police officers looking for CCTV or this and that and when they do visit they normally have put up with a diatribe from me on the lack of Police on the streets, cuts, laziness of investigations, the (current) idiot in charge, why I think PCSO's are a waste of space, not as people but as a quasi non authoritative and expensive 'cop out' by the government..... I could go on and on, but it always comes back to one thing, I wouldn't want to be a Police officer in today's modern society and just like our Servicemen and Women I have great admiration for them doing a lousy job in the face of even more hostile and vicious condemnation of them than I ever aim at them.

But back to Police Brutality and Mr Mcintryre....

I  believe that it is acceptable to organise and hold a protest over anything that you want to protest about but I do not believe and never will support any group of 'protestors' who in the course of their organised rally then turn it into a violent rampage through our streets, attacking property and businesses.  I really do not care what their grievance, is there is no excuse for this reversion to tribalism and viciousness.  Now one could argue in this instance that Mr McIntyre was exercising his right to attend a lawful and peaceful protest march that then went awry due to a minority who also attended with the intent of causing the trouble and one could argue that he or those who did attend who were not intent in causing trouble, could not foresee that trouble would break out, or could they.

Well of course they could because that's what happens nine of of ten times when these apparently educated buffoons take the the street.  I am not talking about the mindless, uneducated, oppressed and downtrodden from the [in McIntyre's words] "under privileged"  classes, who I do agree have got a right to feel irked at their lot through the inequality of a system that is stacked against them and maybe changes will be made to the system as a result.  But I still can not condone the riotous looting that took place.  Unlike McIntyre who seems to revel in it and even encourages it in his posts.

Don't get me wrong here I am not from a privileged background.  I fight every month to survive and I have written elsewhere in these blogs about the inequality of the systems. I did not agree with the invasion of Iraq and I think the Tony Blair lied to Parliament and us over it.  I do not believe that we should be in Afghanistan to the extent that we are and I have severe concerns about Libya.  I think the recent announcement that the USA and now I believe us through our government have decided to increase the sanctions on Syria by not taking their crude oil smacks of coincidence as Gaddafi is ousted from power and the likelihood of Libyan   oil coming back on stream is more than a coincidence and it stinks to high heaven.  The events on the West Bank and Gaza offend any right thinking person, BUT

This does not give you Mr McIntyre or your cronies the right to riot on our streets or to incite it.  As a disabled person who wants to attend these  gathering and not let your disability impair that right you then need to take the consequences that results from either your actions or your presence. If you go out on a protest that becomes a riot then get out as fast as your wheels will propel you, or take the consequences.  If the consequence of remaining there is that you are dragged out of your wheelchair and along the street, tough. I am not going to condemn a Police officer to over reacting in a riot situation, who is probably thinking at that moment that he or she chose a different vocation on that particular day.

Police officers, are being pelted with bricks and bottles and fire bombs, they are probably excited and afraid in equal measure, and no doubt there is a sense of confusion in amongst that as well both for themselves and their colleagues and friends also caught up in this mindless thuggery where you chose to remain.

If the Police are killing, carrying out illegal stop and search, or generally operating outside the law as you promote, then sooner or later those within the Police doing it will be brought to book.  You may call me naive and ill informed in this and I probably am.   BUT, this still does not give you and others the right on my behalf to make the rest of the populations lives miserable.  You do not have the right in my name to attack and burn property and businesses and take away the livelihoods of people who are content living in the status quo and who believe that sooner or later the system will change for the better.

So I say to you get of your high horse and get a bigger soap box, write your articles and promote change.  Encourage other like minded people to form a political party and stand in local and national elections, or, is it that you would rather see our towns and cities burning?  You said in one interview that the reason you were there in December 2010 was the same reason that other people were there, " because I was protesting that education should be free".  I agree but I fail to see how attacking businesses and Police officers can in any way be linked to that aim?

You say,  "the Police incite violence", I say, "you and the protesters incite violence"

You say, "The real issue is the cuts that the government are making in education" I say "what a bunch of prats" People are starving all over the world, the 'under privileged' as you call them of this country are oppressed and ill educated IN EVEN A BASIC EDUCATION and have nothing AND YOU ARE PROTESTING AND RIOTING IN THE STREETS BECAUSE FEES ARE BEING INTRODUCED FOR FURTHER EDUCATION. Now if you were rioting because the basic education of the masses in this country was suffering and that millions of our children are being condemned to a life of ignorance, I might just have had some sympathy for you and these 'educated morons' but you didn't, so I don't.

So while you promote anarchy then I promote giving the Police bigger and thicker batons, giving them more guns, allow then to kettle you as you join the rampaging mob and I will continue to not have a problem when the Police drag you and your likes off our streets.      

  The following links are to various stories and videos surrounding Mr McIntyres 'incident'



The Guardian     You Tube  McIntyre Interview   The Guardian 2