Corporate Corruption Of Our Police Force?

A little later today, after I pick up Mrs TBF from work, I will be visiting my local polling station to vote for...myself.

A situation far different from November last year when I deliberately, and on principle, boycotted the elections for a Police and Crime Commissioner. As I noted at the time how long would it be before a scandal erupts, where a PCC of a certain party persuasion is advised by a government of the same party to lean on 'his' police force whose constables are investigating a corrupt MP of the same party?

Now today we learn that the Police are set to be "sponsored", a proposal naturally couched in terms of "huge potential benefits".

A police tsar has held talks with a possible sponsor for his force in a bid to survive "austere times with a shrinking budget and workforce".

Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) for Dorset, Martyn Underhill is considering private sponsorship, on an arrangement involving all five PCCs in the south west region.

The former detective chief inspector for Sussex Police wrote on his blog that he could see a "huge potential benefit to forming appropriate sponsorship relationships with reputable organisations".

The implications of this are enormous. The Police will now go from upholders of the law to a force that has to bear in mind where its funding originates from, thus turning it from a service supposedly accountable to the public to one that can, and will be, de facto, if not de jure, influenced directly by outside interests This begs all sorts of questions; would potential sponsors now have preferential treatment from plod? Would potential sponsors influence other aspects of upholding the law? Who decides who are "reputable organisations" - certainty not the people, given the horrendously low turnout, and the above average spoiled ballot papers in the election.

When Cameron stops faffing about with promises he has no intention of keeping he might like to reflect on that tonight when the bad news filters in (I doubt he will). What this illustrates is the discontent goes much deeper than a simple vote on the EU, to the extent that even The Sun newspaper has given up:

THE Sun is not going to tell you how to vote today.

From our very first paper, 44 years ago, we have always remained politically independent.

We have never served any set party — and we never will.

Sometimes we endorsed Labour or the Tories at election times.

But today, as 18 million people have the chance to elect new local councils, none of the big four deserves our support.

Tories, Labour, Lib Dems and yes, even UKIP, have all proved beyond your trust.

David Cameron’s Conservatives should be the best at getting value for your pound.

But many of their councils have defied the PM’s demand to freeze council tax for struggling workers. That is unacceptable.

Labour is still in complete denial about the economic mess they created while in power.

And to judge Ed Miliband’s competence, look no further than his shambolic last few weeks.

Nick Clegg’s Lib Dems remain as two-faced as they ever were, cutting in Westminster then moaning to the heavens about it on doorsteps.

And UKIP? Nigel Farage has shaken up Westminster’s cosy elite with admirable plain talking. But little of it really stands up as proper thought-through policy.

And how can you trust a chaotic mob that mistakenly puts forward so many fruitcakes and extremists?

Who you choose today must be a local decision, not a national one.

Read the leaflets. Listen to what all the actual candidates are telling you, and judge them individually.

Did they deliver on their 2009 promises? Have they the right priorities for the next four years?

Let them all win back our faith the hard way. One by one, from the bottom up.

We need another way, urgently.

Constitutional Issues?

Ah bless, Labour MP Chris Bryant is worried about "constitutional issues", in a speech this afternoon about the phone hacking scandal, he says (my emphasis):

It pains me to say this but I think the honest truth is a lot of lies have been told to a lot of people. When police officers tell lies, or at least half-truths to ministers of the Crown and then Parliament ends up being misled, I think that is a major constitutional issue for us to face.

So no prizes for guessing on how he votes regarding the EU (click to enlarge):

And Mr Bryant has never been guilty of half truths himself, oh no:

Quite extraordinarily, the Tories have even flirted with the idea of trying to opt-out of the European arrest warrant scheme, which has been used to fast-track the extraditions of over 350 fugitives from British justice since it took effect in 2004. The average extradition time has fallen from 18 months to 50 days. These are not any old criminals, either. These are people wanted for terrorism, murder and child sex abuse

The same warrant that did this, and nor did he tell half truths here during a debate on the European Union bill (my emphasis):

Chris Bryant: Referendums in different countries operate in different ways. I think that I have heard the Minister say on a couple of occasions both here and elsewhere that there was never a referendum that supported the Lisbon treaty. That is completely untrue, as the Spaniards were the first to hold a referendum and it had an 83% or 84% yes vote, so he is wrong about that.

Spain's referendum was on the EU constitution not the Lisbon Treaty.

Lowest Of The Low

Claims that News Of The World hacked Milly Dowler's mobile after she had been abducted are shocking. Not only was the voicemail accessed but messages were deleted when the inbox became full - leaving Milly Dowler's parents to hope that their daughter was still alive. Truly despicable stuff.

Predictably and understandably there has been outrage from all parties, from twitter and the usual suspects and it's hard not to agree with Labour MP Tom Watson's strong words.

But how much do outraged people really care? Ranting on twitter is not going to worry Murdoch's 'evil empire'; his concern is money. So will there now be mass boycotts of The Sun, The News Of The World, The Times or Sky and Sky Sports in protests? The answer will be a predictable no. Are Scousers the only people of this country with a backbone?

And what about the political parties? Labour didn't care when they cosied up to Murdoch because it suited them, before they threw their toys out the pram in 'disgust' when the The Sun ditched them for the Tories who cosied up to them. Will Cameron or indeed Ed Miliband now distance themselves from News International?

And no outrage over the corruption of the Met who have covered up the scandal (under a Labour government) or that other papers are being unusally quiet about the whole hacking scandal. It's highly unlikely that this was a one off in a case such as this.

As Obnoxio the Clown says: "We get the government we deserve. We also get the media we deserve. "

The inevitable outcome is outrage and condemnation today and tomorrow a phone call into SkySports; "can I renew my subscription in time for the new football season".

Odd

'Prisoners' get the vote' doesn't appear to be getting much traction in the Sun (surely that's a Sun story if ever there was one) or the Times. Hmm I wonder why that could be? And what was the price?