Once again, just like water, gas, telecommunications, railways and potentially large parts of the NHS, a Conservative government is about to privatise a public sector service provider. This time, it is far more sinister because it is the police. On a personal level, this is not a bad thing for me. When I retire, I can take one of these jobs and add the salary to my pension. So I am not complaining about this because I will suffer. Far from it. I simply do not believe that the things we do should be done for profit.
Ministers have promised that frontline warranted police officer roles will not be undertaken by private companies for profit. The picture above shows that this is clearly untrue. You could be convicted and sent to prison on the strength of the evidence gathered by a for-profit corporate investigator.
Police target culture is bad enough; how do you feel about those investigators being under pressure to get results by shareholders and sales managers? People are concerned by senior Met Police officers having dinner with tabloid journalists; how would you feel if news corporations owned large shareholdings in these private security companies? Who owns G4S anyway?
Or is the whole thing so sad simply because it represents yet another example of selling the family silver for the short-term gain of a few privileged people? I believe it is far more sinister this time. Law & Order is not trains, water, electricity, telecommunications or roads.
It is time for Yvette Cooper to clearly state that the legislation which allows all this nonsense will be repealed under the next government.
As for Lincolnshire Police Authority and the Lincs chief officers who enabled this; they should hang their heads in shame. At least their names will forever be associated with the selling of British policing.
Taken from a Police Blog called Inspector Gadget -
http://inspectorgadget.wordpress.com/2012/04/02/not-a-police-state-a-private-police-state/
1 comment:
Will the police's pursuance of political objectives around 'promoting community cohesion' and the like be more target driven too, in the privatised police force? We nationalists should perhaps await more midnight knocks on the door. They are now deeming that certain 'gestures' ( heaven knows what gesture could specifically allude to an ethnic group!)are 'racist' and seeking prosecutions on this basis. Oh, well they'll be doing an "intelligence" search on my online activity now I've posted this - thanks to another new hideous piece of Tory legislation.
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