Like It Is

The Head of London’s Metropolitan Police is coming under fire again for the raid on a house in Forest Gate, London. The area has a very high Muslim population and relations between the community and the Police are strained in the wake of the raid.

The Police raided the house acting on a tip-off and arrested two brothers who have now been released without charge. Nothing yet has been found, and so now the Police are being pilloried for both the raid and the fact that someone was shot and wounded. If they act on a tip off they get blamed for not coming up with anything. Never mind that the bulk of intelligence is less than 100% accurate anyway. But if they ignore the tip-off or intelligence and a bomb goes off and people die as they did on July 7th or September 11th… well guess who gets the blame for NOT acting on a tip-off when they had it? Of course – the Police.

Of course the Police must act with the highest integrity. It’s worrying enough that they now have to carry arms. And the British public has always been right up there with criticism of the police and politicians should they step out of line. Think John Prescott. Think Ken Livingstone. Think Tony Blair – not that he listens.

It’s healthy and necessary to be able to criticise our public servants and we Brits are very good at it and very vocal.

However I think people should at least wait for the Independent Inquiry into the unfortunate shooting before passing judgement and demanding the Police Chief’s resignation with information that currently seems to be based on gossip,media reports (more gossip?) innuendo and very little fact. Difficult and changed times indeed, where your enemy could be your next door neighbour and when politicians are abrogating their responsibility and relying on the polls. Sad.

But it does seem as if whatever they do these days, the Police are damned if they do and damned if they don’t. They have a difficult job. We’ll see what happens.