Our regular columnist Ken Rogers picks up the recent public disorder in the UK.
These will increase as the recession bites, creating job losses across the spectrum and increased social deprivation. Such incidents can increase in violence, due to the actions of police and other authorities – violence will be met with violence causing an unnecessary escalation of public disorder. I have been present at public demonstrations in Grovenor Square outside the USA Embassy and other demos including marches, I did not witness any ‘police with truncheons drawn’; in fact during part of my police service in East London and elsewhere I never drew my truncheon or fired my ‘38’. How times have changed! We must ask: why? Recent events have been against the conduct of persons in authority and have turned into violence by the state against those demonstrating. We cannot justify violence in any form. Violence witnessed on our screens has a mutually degrading character undermining those in authority. Recent demonstrations have been a clash of cultures between the ‘haves and have-nots’. It has been by those who feel justified in demonstrating about the profound affect on their lives by those in power at the top of government and the banking system – many today are referring to a corrupt government and corrupt, greedy bankers. The recent demonstrations in the City of London revealed a form of militaristic style of policing formulated by senior police officers with government officials. Response should not be in the form of heavier policing and moves to militaristic styles of policing, it is a foregone conclusion that this would escalate the situation making it worse; and increase the isolation of the police from the public. The right to peacefully demonstrate must not be undermined otherwise can we will drift into a ‘police state’. Will the government contract out some of the services to ‘private policing’ for crowd control? There is considerable evidence that the government are contracting out increasing numbers of policing contracts to the private sector. The private sector has been warned.
Ken singles out a book on planning in case of a swine flu epidemic. Covered are clinical aspects of influenza; its international Progress and importantly for readers, defining the response at the local level.
Pandemic Influenza – Emergency Planning and Community Preparedness. Author Jeffrey R Ryan. 252 pages, hardback. CRC Press. ISBN 978-4200-6087-4. With a useful index.
