I. O'Neal: Embattled Old Bill

This is a very tender image, quite literally of two comrades upon the eve of battle, 9th of August 2011. Judging by some of the recent commentary, all that our officers have are each other.

But what do we want fromn the Fuzz? The Guardian has views one may already guess at: that the Coalition is to blame, quoting youths and a youthworker voicing grievance over cuts to services and the behaviour of the police prior to the action:

They cut our youth project by 75%. We used to work with gangs, run a workshop that brought police and young people together. Gone. (1)

This is, of course, precisely what the Guardian wants to push: Government culpability. There are some voices from the street referring to 'cuts', 'Conserva'ives', and 'rich peepol' but nothing that makes a coherent agenda, for there is none. With the exception of Tottenham, these riots are not communities defending themselves, as with Brixton in 1981. Eager not to be seen to condone them as political activists, the Guardian also includes locals who state that penury is no excuse for violence, and that the looters are simply opportunists. However, men like me find it difficult to accept the agenda of a newspaper that expects us to 'understand' the rioters' problems whilst people's homes and livelihoods burn to the ground.

The Telegraph have their own views, which can be guessed at also, expressed it in vociferous headlines which include 'The Long Retreat of Order' and 'Multiculturalists Turned a Blind Eye to Gang Culture'. The following view makes a neat summary:

The police, bludgeoned by criticism for the way they handled the Brixton riots 30 years ago and the Stephen Lawrence murder in 1994, have become more like social workers than upholders of law and order. (2)

One will immediately note that the examples Philip Johnstone, the writer, provides for us are from a time when the Met was 'institutionally racist' (official verdict). Those riots of 1981 were sparked in a penalised community when a black youth died in Police custody. The Lawrence investigation of 1994 was the biggest shambles in recent CID history, and no one doubted, then as now, that justice would have prevailed had Lawrence been white - I may have been young at the time, but I do remember. Thus, it seems that the Telegraph is chafing at an old gripe here, which men like me had hoped was long buried: why do they have a problem with the Police reaching out to communities? Not only is it effective, it also accords with the right's wistful nostalgia for the days when locals knew by name their local 'bobby on the beat'. As Nick Robinson reminds us, Hestletine berated the Tory right in 1982 for expecting minorities which the state neglected then to go and fight and die for it 8,000 miles due south. It seems the Telegraph never listened.

In amongst this, as Police officers are fighting to protect us, they do so against a backdrop of the right declaring they are just soft social workers and are failing the public (3); the left having damned them for years for being heavy handed and socially insensitive but now declaring they must do more to defend the public; public corruption scandals decapitating their leadership; and imposed redundancies and reviewed pay and conditions. Just now, they are political pawns as the right and the left manoeuvre to appropriate the riots to their own purposes.

I am heartened, however, that in the public at large the Police are not the targets. Though I do not agree with all the criticisms politicians face, I would rather see them face attacks for not doing enough to support the Police, than to see the brave and sometimes injured bobbies berated for doing what we demand of them. This image is especially heartening to me, not only as a former resident of Clapham, but also as a sign that the public know who not to blame.