The boycott is not of the police, but to say that ethnic minorities should seriously re-consider if they want to join the police force, given the treatment meted out to people at the force.

I think anybody wanting to join the police force should seriously reconsider (and look for a real job, not a job as the boot boys of the state), given the treatment meted out to people by the force.

Political policing by the truckload. One of my friends still has a broken arm after his “treatment” by the MET at Climate Camp, for literally doing nothing more than being a bystander in a field when they decided to beat the shit out of a bunch of non-violent protesters for doing nothing more than being in a field with the landowner’s permission.

Justify that!

The MET are the worst of the lot – they know it, and they’re proud of it too. I have personally overheard them gloating about it to each other, for goodness sake! Bunch of fascist pigs, the lot of ‘em.

Why anybody would want to join the despicable and corrupt police, let alone anybody from an ethnic minority background, is totally beyond me.

Actually, I know the reason. It’s because you believe you are of superior character to the rest of the people around you, and because you have no problem doing whatever your political masters tell you to do, even if that means beating the shit out of others from the same downtrodden section of society as yourselves.

The police are the most dangerous violent gang on the streets, by far (not least because they have a monopoly on the legal use of violence), and I’m sure as worldwide economic meltdown gets worse, this will only become increasingly obvious.

btw, the piece is online at http://www.fourgroups.com/blog/archives/13/tarique-ghaffur-ian-blair-and-the-metropolitain-police-service/

Ken Livingstone says that there is no way that Blair has been racist towards Ghaffur.
And he has not been happy with the way Ali Dizaei has been running the NBPA.

Livingstone also said he thought that the case of Yasmin Rehman was weak.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/2777398/Senior-Muslim-woman-sues-police-over-discrimination.html

With all respect, that doesn’t sound particularly like a racial issue. Personality maybe, but you can’t seriously be telling me that personality clashes are always and everywhere racially motivated?

TG may not be saying that the Met as a whole are racist, but that surely is the undertone to the NBPA campaign in the article (assuming that the Guardian has reported accurately).

I just get the feeling that this is just another stalking horse that the Ian Blair haters intend to use to the full. Whether TG knew that would be the effect of his actions is another question. My instincts are that he fully knew his claim would rapidly become a circus.

It’s also a question of whether Ghaffur is a victim of racism at all rather than a personality clash or not doing his job/not being allowed to do it. Given that this seems to have been happening for years within the Met it’s also a question of the effectiveness and morality of the Met’s formal and informal management methods regardless of wh0- if anyone- was justified in the case of Ghaffur.

You’ve never met Tarique Ghaffur have you?

BTW – TG isn’t saying the whole police is racist. He’s saying that senior officers have run whispering campaigns against him and he’s been treated badly by the top. That’s a failure of upper mgmt rather than saying the entire Met police is racist to the core.

Ghaffur rose to a high position in that same institution, Dude, and seems to have aspired to lead it. If the whole institution is intrinsically disfunctional- which it is if one man can “represent” it- he was part of that corruption. Equally, the whole institution is disfunctional if Ghaffur claims to fear for his life and to need outside decurity. For obvious reasons if he is right, but equally if he is wrong and an utter nutter like that was very near the top and had senior responsibilities until very recently.

You’re funny! Ha ha. I mean you must have been in a time warp the last 25 years. Pray tell, when exactly did peace break out at the Met? I can tell you now it was not before, during or after the murder of Stephen Lawrence. I’d be really grateful if you could fill me in and take us all back to those happy days of Dixon of Dock Green.

Douglas

To tell you the truth, I’m as much in the dark about what is going on at the Met, than you are. It’s another reason why I’m so glad that this is now being brought to an head. At the end of the day neither of these dudes is a Jean Luc Picard and that’s what we need at the MET, someone with absolute integrity, which is earned through both action, deed and word. Mr Blair lost the plot when he reduced the death of a innocent man to a mere issue of Health and Safety.

Why is it regardless, exactly? I’d have thought, correct me if I am wrong, that for the third most important copper in the Met to have to employ his own security is pretty, what? Amazing? What is going on here?

What some people want is a return to the militant race politics of the late 20th century- they can’t bear to face the fact that things have moved on.

Any boycott will backfire spectacularly with the public. Even a fool can see the progress that’s been made at the met, except for the 20th century race dinosaurs picking this fight.

If you really had the courage of your convictions in calling for this boycott, you would have called for it on the ‘influential’ Liberal Conspiracy too.

Fair enough, Just not the planet I wish to live on. Whether Ghaffur, who was two off replacing the Kratos fan, Blair, is right to have employed his own security or not is obviously beyond the point.

Just asking, What is going on? This is genuinely weird shit.

I’ve just re-read your 1st sentence (31) and I can’t see how you can equate the actions of one man (Ghaffur) with that of a whole institution (the Met), because that’s what Ian Blair represents.

I’ve got some bad news for you. None of us live in a fair world and the MET plays by the Chicago rules, which equates to no rules. So Douglas, please don’t blame the player (Ghaffur), blame the game.

There is a MASSIVE difference between what you would call “information leakage” and what I would call “deliberate spin and misinformation”. Otherwise I couldn’t agree with you more. Right now the MET is a mess but at least it’s a mess which thanks to Mr Ghaffur, everyone can now see. I have to come back to my original point @P21. Which ever side of the fence you happen to stand the situation within the MET is now clear and open to the full glare of public scrutiny. This can only be a good thing.

Douglas

BTW: Most coppers I know wouldn’t want to touch a loaded gun with a barge pole, even now. Don’t believe the hype.

Frankly that is not as reassuring as it ought to be. Some cops are now regularily armed, airports for example. I believe that we have given up on an unarmed Police in favour of a US concept. Which is what we do. Whatever abides in the US becomes de rigour for the UK.

except for his/her misunderstanding of trial by jury. Which must come first, don’t you think?

Absolutely, Douglas.