Once upon a time in a land far far away.......

Once upon a time, in a land far far away, the people realised there were a few bad eggs amongst them.  So they decided to give some people within their community “special powers” to deal with these bad eggs.  They could arrest them.  And all with the consent of the people who appointed them.    

And so it went on for many happy years.  Until one day one of these people who had been given these "special powers" decided that, well, maybe he could push the boundaries just a little bit.  And so over time he began to think, "this is easy".  And so corruption slowly invaded the system.  Others who had been given similar “special powers” saw this and thought, “well, if they can push the boundaries, so can I”.   

And last year in this land far far away there were 3,000 allegations of “special powers” people having behaved corruptly.  And anyone who tried to expose this was hounded and persecuted.  But it gets worse, only half of these allegations were properly investigated — because for “special powers” people, corruption was becoming routine.  

So you are asking, where is this land far far away.  Russia?  North Korea?  Israel?  India?   Er, no.  The United Kingdom.    

So, how do we know this?  Well, it was all in a little-noticed report by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary for England and Wales. It went on to tell a sorry story.  Nearly half of 17,200 officers and staff surveyed said that if they discovered corruption among their colleagues and chose to report it, they didn’t believe their evidence would be treated in confidence and would fear ‘adverse consequences’.  Only two things flourish in such a climate.  Dishonesty and malpractice.  

The current MET Commissioner Bernard Hogan-Howe leads from the top.  One of first moves after arriving at the MET was to use the Official Secrets Act to try to compel a Guardian journalist to reveal the source of a story. The Official Secrets Act is meant principally to be used to trap spies, traitors and those who threaten the defence of the realm, real seriously bad eggs — not reporters going about their business.  Surely this was a disproportionate and oppressive use of the law.   

Similarly, legislation designed to combat terrorism and serious crime, such as the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act, is used with alarming frequency by Hogan-Howe and other police chiefs to snoop on the internet and phone records of law-abiding citizens.  This is the tactic of the police state. Not so much total policing as totalitarian policing.    All in the cause of necessity, they claim.  So little wonder his officers push the boundaries of what’s right legally but forget what’s right morally.   

And, as Neil Darbyshire writes in the Spectator this week, “One of the consequences of a heavy-handed police leadership stretching the law and using their power to bully and intimidate is that rank and file officers are encouraged to think they can do the same.  Once ordinary officers start abusing power, a culture of semi-criminal behaviour becomes normal and whistle-blowers are treated not as honourable but as traitors.”  As we saw in my earlier blog, What would Peel think?, officers already think they can make up the law as they go along.  That should worry you.

To quote Pitt the Younger, “Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.”.