Julie Spence thinks the old bill will take a pay cut to preserve Jobs

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/7933703/Hypocrisy-of-speeding-middle-class-motorists.html.

"Mrs Spence ... suggests that officers would be willing to take a pay cut, or a change in their rates of overtime and allowances, if it meant saving jobs.
“Talking to officers and staff they do not like it, but they’d rather jobs were kept and pay was reduced,” she says.
“Everyone understands the economic climate we’re in and they recognise they have a role in trying to support the country out of it Mrs Spence says some of the better-funded forces have to take a bigger proportion of the cuts to save the 16 whose funding is under the national average.
She also suggests that officers would be willing to take a pay cut, or a change in their rates of overtime and allowances, if it meant saving jobs.
“Talking to officers and staff they do not like it, but they’d rather jobs were kept and pay was reduced,” she says.
“Everyone understands the economic climate we’re in and they recognise they have a role in trying to support the country out of it."

When the Tories cut police Pay last time it lead to a collapse in police recruitment, a dropping of standards.

Doing away with the meaningless statistics the time it takes to collect, input, collate and interpret them into drivel which no one actually believes would save a fortune.

Police officer's should have the Automatic shift element stripped from their pay which should only be paid to officers working anti social hours.

There should also be allowances for frontline officers dealing with the public....
Basically a PC sitting in an office doing the job of an Administrative Assistant should be paid as an admin assistant.

There should also be an annual fitness test to ensure that officers are fit for their role with a bonus paid for those who meet the required standard.

The aim would be that an Officer attracting the full range of allowances would be paid the same rate as they are currently attracting.

Those frontline officers would be rewarded. Those officers no longer willing to get their hands dirty would pay the penalty of a reduction in pay in exchange for their cosy, safe office job.

There would have to protection for officers injured in the line of duty and those transferred against their wishes though the latter would have to be time limited incase they became too comfortable.

"Video: police officers filmed smashing up pensioner's car
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/7928289/Video-police-officers-filmed-smashing-up-pensioners-car.html
Two police officers have been suspended after they were filmed smashing up a disabled man’s car while the terrified pensioner sat in the driver’s seat."

Reading the headline my blood started to boil, Fearing the worst I watched the video, expecting that I was about to view police dragging a decrepit gentleman from out of his wheelchair through the windscreen of his wrecked invalid carriage.

Well they hardly smashed up the car, the driver’s window was taken out and there might have been muddy footprints on the bonnet.
The Officer did, rather sadly take 15 swings to put in the driver’s window. But that’s the consequence of locking the door to stop the police speaking to you.
I would have taken issue with Police stopping someone to report them for just a seat belt, except imagine the picture....
A Range Rover with tinted windows like the wannabee gangster making sure the “filth” can’t see the driver. A snide number plate, adding to the impression. Well you’ve gotta stop it.
Having stopped it, it’s not quite as bad as you think it is but you’re getting attitude.
Well if you weren’t going to report someone you shouldn’t do so just because they turn out to be an arrogant cock sucker. Simple: - everyone gets the chance to talk you out of issuing that ticket.
I’ve always found that if you are polite to the officer things don’t get any worse than they already are.
Of course that excludes having the lifeless corpse of a business associate in the boot and a kilo of heroine in the front.
Oh and the automatic weapons on the back seat.
As an example, I have only issued one ticket for fog lights in my career.
A bright clear morning, the red BMW, sidelights and fog lights. Thinks he’s rally driving in the Welsh forests maybe. “I’ve stopped you because of your fog lights; visibility is more than 100 metres, Sir.”
I save the line my Street Duties Instructor used –
“Can you see that bit bright object in the sky sir?”.
“The Moon”?
“So you’ll accept that visibility is over a million miles then Sir.”
Well the driver rather venomously responded “They ain’t fog lights, they’re driving lamps”
My reply “Oh, well I’m reporting you for a misuse of auxiliary lamps, sir”.
He’d made no attempt to talk me out of the ticket, it would have been quite easy, after all it wasn’t much more than a random stop.
But had he driven off whilst I was issuing the ticket, (unless I already had his verified name and address) I might have given chase.
But then the other issues. He’d had a stroke. Of course he was wearing a badge stating I’ve just had a stroke so I can behave like a complete cock. But if it was that serious should he have been driving.
Pensioner... My dad is 70 he looks 60 and I’ve seen 40 year olds that look like 60 year olds. Of course being a senior citizen one might have assumed that he might have behaved more maturely than a petulant yob.
Apart from the embarrassing jumping on the bonnet I see nothing wrong with the stop.
I see everything wrong with the way it was reported in the Telegraph.

Prince of Darkness

Mandelson walking along Downing Street with a fairly well known young Holywood actor.
Trying to impress said actor Mandleson says infront of Delta1 outside the front door of number 10.
"This officer is here to protect my life, isn't that right?"
Delta 1 replies," No sir. I'm here to make sure the man who kills you never stands trial".
Mandleson goes quiet.

Lost my Warrant card

I was asked to give it back.
It was too easy.
Oh damn have to pay for buses and trains now.
But now I'll have to just sit there and watch the scum get on with it and...
What am I saying I'm going to drive everywhere now.
No blood pressure shooting through the ceiling when they put their feet on the seat, play there gangster rap music out load, leave there refuse on the seat, let there dogs sit on the seats, bring their pitbulls on the train and let them wander, whilst the owners swig from the cans of tennent extra, swear their heads off, have extra loud mobile phone conversations discussing thing that ought only be discussed in hushed tones in darkened corners.
We'll if you're no longer a police officer I suppose that you have to give the wallet, shiney badge and card with the face worn off back.
Any regrets. Well the money will stop.

If I weren't leaving

If I was staying in the country and entering TOWBAR (Tasking Orientated work based assessment something) and perhaps my own neighbourhood. See if I could get a Safer Neighbourhood Team.
Turn up outside the news agents in the High Road ask the youfs to move along, then “Nick” them for a B.O.P. if they don’t. PACE says that if you’re not going to detain for more than six hours you don’t have to take them to a designated police station. So clear out those old cells full of files and broken furniture and stuff them full of the little yobs. Perhaps no more street signs dragged down their poles and then bent double just at shin height to catch the unwary.
Hunt them down. OK they aren’t serious criminals but they create an atmosphere of fear and dread. As you walk along the streets at midnight and a slightly older bunch of youfs hanging outside the chicken shop. Oh couldn’t I have brought my Glock with me just incase?
Oh my goodness he’s smoking cannabis. P’ taker.
Perhaps the smashed bus shelters the, the graffiti, the drunken assaults, drug taking and the urinating in the street.
“The streets of London are paved with Gold”! Are they really because to me it smells of wee to me.
What else the oiks with their pitbulls. The ignorant so and so’s with their feet on the seats or making their loud personal phone calls disclosing all sorts of embarrassing personal details.
Anyway hopefully ...

Police Pay

Well do I care. I took a step closer to Plan B last week. All going well Canberra here I come.
Yes I will be sorry to go:-
Three personnal reasons but they can join me later if they can leave my ex here. Life there would be better for them if they can tear themselves away.
A few good friends, but they can come and see me.
Danger for the rest of you if they do but they might decide to stay.
18 years of Police Pension scheme frozen til I'm 60 now.
Just passed my Sergeants Exam.
Leaving a country I was brought up to love.
How might it gone in Jim Hacker's world.
Sir Humprhey these police chappies I can't give them this money it would show me in a very poor light.
Yes Minister.
So how do win.
You can't, Minister.
Sir Humphrey you usually have a way, can't we promise them a public inquiry to chair or something.
Oh the Court case, that easy enough, I thought you meant the police.You'll never win. It will always rankle them.
A small price to pay for the greater good.
Hmm. Very noble of you Minister. Your personal sacrifice will go down in History.
Sarcasm Sir Humphrey.
No Minister. I merely note that there are two armed police officers outside your office. There are armed police officers permanently outside your house. There are countless armed and unarmed police officers around Parliament.
They wouldn't.
No Minister they wouldn't. But they might also be looking the other way when someone else does.
Oh.
Pay a mere irritation, amongst all the many things wrong with this country.
There need to be a better way of selecting senior officers.
There needs to be a focus on leading a Police force and fighting crime.
Not the current corporate logo, buzz word infested, sound bite geared drive to get the best possible position before retirement.
A chief constable makes a pronouncement on the lack of significant number of officers from ethnic minorities. A knee jerk reaction means that measures are taken to increase those numbers, and he is seen as a hero on his march towards becoming Commisioner of the Met Police.
One wonders whether they actually care at all about about the make up of their officers except in the sense that he'd have no some to have a service.
One impotent officer walking around in a fluorescent jacket is as good as another.
My children are Asian. I've told them they shouldn't join the police.
If they did, they would benefit from coaching to ensure that they would pass the interview.
Would the recruiters think I not interested in what they are saying, pass them anyway, then we can't be accused of being prejudiced, I don't know.
They would be given priority in being appointed as police officers.
Would they pass their probation in the same way.
Then be encouraged to go for promotion or specialism.
But alway the doubt with white male colleagues that my children had an unfair advantage.
It will cost me a fortune as they work through medical school or univercity but they will have transferable skills to work anywhere in the world and not this God forsaken Septred Isle.
I've been dishonest. I rarely wear fluorescent, it doesn't go with a Glock and MP5.
I try not to arrest people, sometimes it happens.
I work incredible ammounts of overtime.
But quality of life and the ability to forfill the Oath I took to maintain the Queens Peace alludes me.
How did they solve the problem about the Oath. Change it.

What Boris needs to do!!

Oh how naive you all are. Put more police on the street you say. Put conductors on buses. Give them radios so they can call police. Conductors would work if you go back to the old days. You know the violent drunk giving the conductor grief. The Driver would run round to the bus and whack the offending individual with a starting handle.
Oh dear these days the extra police would be obliged to arrest the driver, the violent drunk would go to hospital to be treated as a victim. If the police didn’t jump to his tune he would be able to make a complaint. The case is reviewed by the Crown Prosecution Service who make their judgement on the grounds of whether there is more than a 50% probability of a successful prosecution not whether justice would be served.
Police need to be granted the discretion of the old days, to turn round to the alleged victim and say “you had that coming mate” and not fear disciplinary action. Obviously there still needs some supervisory oversight to exercise common sense which these days appears to have evaporated. But oversight should be by the sergeants and inspectors not by a committee of rabid police hating axe grinders that these days leave police officer in dread of doing the job they joined to do.
Then there are there’s the problem of youths hanging around committing anti-social crimes. Ah but they’ve got nothing to do I hear them say. Well as my neighbour pointed out. After the war there was no youth facilities. But they didn’t go smashing up bus stop. They didn’t hang around on street corner drinking beer. Didn’t harass a mother into murdering her disabled daughter and kill herself. Didn’t throw stones at a pensioner’s house at all hours causing a heart attack. Didn’t return with their mates to commit GBH on workmen who intervene to protect children from firework lobbing yobs. No the clip round the ear prevented it from ever getting to that stage in the first place.
You pay for a fluorescent clad, professional, anti-racist, anti homophobic, socially representative, disinterested, tamed police service with the lives and health of the innocent who were just trying to live their lives.
Boris, unleash the dogs of justice. Suburbia will be safer in weeks; inner cities will take a little longer.