A sign of things to come?

[River Song]

I've been on both sides of this issue. I've done 'time' in my distant hippie days but I've also helped the police.

Going back to Jonas' OP. There is a major difference between the UK and US context.

In the US, in major metropolitan areas, police chiefs are officials and subject to all the usual pressures and pecadillos. Outside of the metro areas, my understanding is that you have Sheriff's and deputies, the Sheriffs beong elected by the local people. They live amongst the local people and know them well. If they dont do their job they dont get re-elected.

In the UK, we used to have the village bobby who lived in a police house in the village, who knew everyone and knew the lads and lassies as they were growing up and if things went a little wrong, they would get a clip round the ear and a stern talking to.

Nowadays, we have the Just in Time philosophy inherited from supermarkets and other businesses. In my rural area of East Anglia, the number of police officers available at night in a HUGE area is around 6.

In a local town full of druggies and other lovely people, they have a few more but they only have to have more than 2 incidents at night and they are screwed.

The long list created by NR of failings are just that. Failings. I do not believe that they accurately define the overall culture. Having said all that, if we ever get into a situation WROL, they all bets are off.

I dont actually believe there will be enough officers to enforce HMG's dictats.


Allons-y