ARE YOU ‘AVIN A LARF?

In recent days Her Most Gracious Majesty’s Chief Inspector of Constabulary (it’s got to have capitals or it  doesn’t count!) gave the British Police Service a B+ for doing well but marked it down it from an A because it could do better. In other words there was room for improvement! The mark down in fact was due to a wide variety of police naughtiness that came to the attention of the public over the last year or so. Here, in case you’ve forgotten, are a few examples. Firstly their seriously illegal conduct in undercover operations such as having sex with women they were spying on; spying on Stephen Lawrence’s parents while investigating their son’s murder, grossly manipulating enquiries into the murder along with manipulating evidence presented in a public enquiry into Stephen Lawrence’s death; falsifying evidence relating to the Hillsborough Disaster; telling lies about Tory Chief Whip Andrew Mitchell and forcing his resignation; the unacceptably large number of deaths of innocent civilians in police custody in the last two years; the repeated refusal of the police to look into allegations of serious sexual misconduct by Jimmy Savile made by many young men and women over many years.

And for that they get a B+ for doing well but could do better!

Actually, ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH? How about the large number of fit-ups and frame-ups of innocent people in recent years, the attacks on members of the public such as the newspaper seller in the City of London resulting in his death, the shooting to death of innocent people like as Charles de Menezes on a London tube train and the endless roughing up of student demonstrators to mention only the tip of the iceberg! This vast backlog of appalling conduct might under all normal circumstances allow you to kick off with a C minus at best, that is if you weren’t doing this assessment of your own conduct yourselves. A C minus from which you’d go steadily down the alphabet. But as it is your very own Inspectorate of Constabulary doing the assessing one naturally expects this only too typical manipulation of judgement.

Added to it all however is the front page news from the Daily Mail this Saturday 12^th April. A nasty little matter already known for some time but now a big breaking story. Namely the appalling cover up of the staggering paedophile activities of Sir Cyril Smith. You remember him don’t you? The jovial 29 stone tub of lard Liberal MP? His was a record that made the long dirty career of Jimmy Savile look like a playground romp. During the course of Sir Cyril’s history of crime over 140 complaints were made to the police by boys he offended against. He was arrested more than once but no charges were brought. The police and Crown Prosecution Service it seems were leaned on by the security services and prevented from acting so all the complaints were ignored. One hundred and forty or more sexually abused children betrayed in a hateful cover up with everyone shrugging their shoulders. The police knew the truth and stayed silent.  

And Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary thinks the force deserves a B plus and could do better next time! Okay, so tell me… for what services to children were Jimmy Savile and Cyril Smith knighted?

Were the politicians who organised those rewards ACTUALLY HAVING A LAUGH?

Recently however, as the police have only been too keen to let the public see, they’ve been quick to refer public complaint about police conduct to the Independent Police Complaints Commission, the body set up years back to investigate police misdemeanor. So, the police refer most of the serious complaints to this body thinking, that will sort it as far as the public are concerned and in this they are right. The IPCC was set up to investigate complaints about the police and most people accept that as their function. Whether they do it satisfactorily or not is another matter entirely. Indeed it’s not been satisfactory at all for the vast majority of complainants.

The trouble with the so called IPCC, as has been known for many years, is that the name is seriously misleading. This organisation isn’t at all independent! Far from it. A very fair proportion of its staff who make up the teams investigating public complaints about the police are, wait for it, former policemen! In fact the organisation is packed to the rafters with ex- policemen so it’s generally a case of the police once again investigating themselves, same as it’s always been for small scale misdemeanor. With the more serious offences, those likely to attract the attention of the media, there’s a rush to the IPCC. Yes, that ought to do it, the public seeing that we’ve handed things over to an independent body… joke-joke! That means that there’s no reasonable grounds for suspicion, even among all those nasty suspicious people about!

Again, it’s more than clear that over the years too many complaints have strangely got nowhere or simply been airbrushed out of existent while the IPCC, always kept strangely short of genuinely independent staff, have taken on more and more former policemen as people supposedly experienced in doing investigative work to fill the gap, that being to investigate complaints against fellow members of the fraternity! Police investigating police with a permanent high rate of inefficiency and ever low rate of conviction. OH DEAR WHAT A SURPRISE!

So when I see Chief Constables rushing to refer serious misdemeanors within their force to the Independent Police Complaints Commission in cases of police violence or the many other cases of police criminality that invariably get nowhere I can only think along with so many others, ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH?

Okay Mister Pistorius, so you fired four bullets through a closed door thinking there was an intruder in the bathroom?

Yes My Lady!

Well Mister Pistorius, how do you think an intruder got into the gated, high security housing complex that your house is in without being detected and without knowing you lived there chose your window especially to climb into?

I don’t know my Lady. Anything is possible.

Well Mister Pistorius, if anything is possible, when you heard the sound in the bathroom and felt anxious why didn’t you give Reeva a nudge to tell her and make sure she was okay? Why didn’t you think about her for a moment? I mean, just make sure she was there. That it wasn’t her in the bathroom taking a leak or a dump before you fired your gun so quickly. Why didn’t you shout out, Reeva, are you in there taking a leak? I mean, didn’t you think it just might be her?

No My Lady! I was very axious. I thought it was an intruder in there. I had to act fast.

You had to act, you say Mister Pistorius, before checking on Reeva, even though you thought she was right next to you in bed? I mean she would have only been inches away so why didn’t you give her a nudge… Reeva, I can hear a noise in the bathroom… Maybe an intruder’s got in through the window and is taking a leak?

Why didn’t you do that Mister Pistorius?

I’m sorry My Lady, I don’t understand. Why would an intruder be taking a leak?

Okay Mister Pistorius, when you broke down the door and found Reeva inside the toilet why do you think she had her mobile phone with her. I mean, what do you think made her take it into the toilet? Do you think she wanted to talk to you maybe or call one of her friends. I mean there she was. She’d got out of bed and went to the toilet taking her mobile with her then locked the door. Isn’t it unusual to get up in the middle of the night, go to the toilet with your mobile and lock the door? What I’m asking Mister Pistorius is whether she’d done it before? I mean, had you ever had any conversation with her before from the bathroom where she’d been taking a dump and wanted to phone you.

No My Lady. We never talked before on the mobile from the bathroom.

In that case why do you think the bathroom door was locked Mister Pistorius?  If it was an intruder who’d come through the window why would he lock the bathroom door from the inside if he wanted to get into the house?

I had no way of knowing if it was locked My Lady. All I remember thinking was I had to act fast. Maybe someone was coming in to attack me! I picked up my gun by the bed and fired on instinct.

Four loud shots Mister Pistorius, straight through the door, and you say you heard no-one scream. Not even after the first two that you fired? I mean, why didn’t you assume that you’d already killed someone in there if you didn’t hear any screams before you fired another two rounds?

I don’t know My Lady. I heard no one scream.

Now those shots that you fired. They must have been loud. Don’t you think they would have woken Reeva up if she was still lying in bed? That she might have asked you what you were doing or shouted something at you?

No My Lady. I assumed she was sound asleep.

What, even after those loud bangs from the first two shots. Now Mister Pistorius. I’m the Chief Prosecutor of South Africa and I’m putting these questions to you and hear what you say. So tell me Mister Pistorious,

ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH?

Maria Miller looked safe! She’d done the taxpayer for forty-five grand. No problem. Everything looked good till some Labour pipsqueak stepped in and asked for it all to be looked at. Looked at again after the initial enquiry had cleared her for forty. Okay she’d come out on top with forty large. Just pay back the rest, don’t make a fuss and say sorry. It’s all easy-peasy. Say sorry and look like you mean it. You know what it’s like. We do it all the time and for much less! Just sorry, express your regrets and off you go with a quick forty.

Maria was safe. Repay the five grand as required. Don’t get indignant with anyone and promise to be a good girl in future!

But no! Maria was someone with scruples. She was a working class-lower middle class girl who come up through the ranks. She really hadn’t done anything wrong, and she’d looked after her parents! She wasn’t taking advice from any arse-holes. She’d apologize, but only as much as was needed. And more than anything else she had David Cameron on her side. Three times he never denied her. Labour was incensed but the Tories were pissed. She was too up front. After the expenses scandal five years back the House of Commons was now an honorable place, and politicians honorable people. Tory Grandees like Lord Tebbit put in the boot. There was disquiet over the back-benches. It didn’t matter. She was still safe. And looking more like Thatcher than ever. No, she wouldn’t be bullied out of her job!

Not until fate lend a hand. Up spoke Boris Johnson, the leery shifty-eyed jackanapes and admirer of Thatcher. Silence those critics! Maria Miller was brilliant where she was. He wouldn’t have her bullied out of her job… bla-bla-bla. He was on her side with support from the Tory hard right!

That did it! It was Cameron’s decision, not his. He’d supported her up to the eyeballs till now and didn’t need Boris there in the frame. It wasn’t looking good anymore with the electorate. The Tories at the Telegraph were incensed. The moment Boris stepped in Maria Miller was doomed.

ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH BORIS? Thinking that your support carried more weight than mine?

So goodbye Maria, see you in the next life. You never know who your real friends are with the Tories!

BBC Television News, fresh from its wall to wall coverage of recent events in the Ukraine where its reporters played an active role in encouraging the takeover in Kiev by openly Nazi friendly political groups has recently turned its attention to new and presumably more relevant news with extensive coverage given to the early death of twenty-five year old Peaches Geldof. Who’s that you may ask? Was she an important scientist or politician, a major sports star or entertainer, educator, philanthropist or artist who already had remarkable achievements to her name. Alas none of these. She was the mother of two young children and daughter of minor musician Bob Geldof and his wife Paula Yates, herself an entirely artificial celebrity of some notoriety. Why then did BBC television think it important to give the death of this entirely socially unimportant individual such massive coverage? After all, there are many other young mothers out there who die at a tragically young age so why this one, along with the pathetic tweeted tributes of a variety of so called celebrity friends. In short, who the hell was this person who’d done nothing in her life to deserve such attention for the BBC to rummage around in her demise?  

With its recent Nazi friendly coverage of events in the Ukraine the BBC finally lost any trace of respect that anyone may have previously had for its impartial, unbiased reporting. Now, with its seeming obsession for reporting details of individuals whose newsworthy status was entirely dependent on family connections one increasingly feels the need to ask precisely what, tell us, are we paying you a license fee for when your reporting has turned into politically biased or minor celebrity inspired rubbish?

Countless people quite frankly got Peaches Geldof coming out of their eyeballs. The wretched attention you gave to her was as incestuously intrusive on her life as it was tedious, fatuous and unnecessary to ours. The head of your news service must have been mad to think that he was doing us some sort of favour. The public do not want silly tabloid style celebrity crap reportage that competes with the yellow press all the way down to the gutter. They still need to be inspirationally engaged rather than have your reporters rope them in on behalf of the American intelligence services.

So, to the Controller of BBC Television News from a member of the public…  

ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH?

… at the expense of your viewers. Taking their money and giving them cheap celebrity crap because if that’s what you’ve got planned for us in the future I’d much rather watch Al Jazeera who are actually pretty good with the News and News Reporting. Furthermore the public have had enough of your outfit being a reality program channel for estate agents, property developers, the auctioning of old people’s crap, do-it- yourself fixing on behalf of stores such as Homebase and B&Q along with bailiff invasion of people’s homes and police rough stuff activity on teenagers going large a bit to put it in the words of Rudyard Kipling. Your cheap, low cost incursion into people’s lives is only of interest to stay at home underclass long term television addicts and if your program controllers think it’s fun or educational for people to watch police and bailiffs playing at bullies well quite frankly it’s not. Your daily diet of property hash, dished out state violence, oldie auctions, needless celebrity titillation and strictly soft porn is intrusive, uninteresting and boring.

ARE YOU HAVING A LAUGH ON THE TAXPAYER BECAUSE YOU’VE GOT THE MONOPOLY ON THE LICENSE FEE?  

Hello President Barak Hussein Obama! So sorry about all the recent shootings of high school kids, university students and military personnel at their barracks in recent weeks. Something must be seriously wrong with America when the whole world can see your people regularly killing each other! Something must be seriously wrong with your country when so many of your people live in the kind of abject poverty we more generally associate with India yet you spend so much time and money threatening other countries, invading them and bombing their people! Something’s just not right when you have so many poor people at home yet spend so much money spying on them, that is, apart from everyone else you spy on round the globe.

Spying on people, threatening them, bullying other nations and bombing them. Then there’s your ghastly system of criminal justice which is an affront to any modern civilized society. Little wonder that you’re on such good terms with Saudi Arabia, Mister President!

But then you also spend so much time telling everyone what a great and free society you are and that your land of the free has so much to admire, to be copied and envied! Tell me Mister President, have you forgotten that one of the first genocides of modern times was one committed by Americans in your own country in the late 19^th century, against your own people, the tens of thousands of Native Americans that you hunted down, shot and killed or put away in Reservations which were little better than starvation camps?

Honestly Mister President, if yours was a society of genuinely free people given to social equality, justice and decency I’d say fine, we consider that you incorporate all the best of human values and inculcate them in your people, but as you actually are, behaving like violent spoilt little children or adolescent juveniles and lecturing everyone about your non-existent virtues, I can only say,

MISTER PRESIDENT, ARE YOU ACTUALLY HAVING A LAUGH?