I wonder why I bothered

[Ed P]

Steve, I’m afraid you are blaming the wrong people. Those responsible for the parlous state of the Police are the elected Politce and Crime Commissars. In the main these just do the bidding of the Home Secretary and administer the cuts. I’ve yet to hear of any of these political toadies raising objections, they just take their 100 grand and pass the opprobrium to the genuiinely overworked police force.

The Political Police and Crime Commissars are exemplars of all that is wrong with our failed democracy.

[dwynnehugh]

Ed P – I’m not really 100% certain that cuts in the police forces can be laid at the doors of the PCCs – in the main police funding comes from the Home Office / Treasury etc. and it is they who decide what the total police budget / force is set at with a contribution from local taxpayers.  In the past few years this government has not only reduced police numbers but also police experience – replacing 30yr bobbies with new recruits – get rid of 1 and get 2 newbies!  On paper this is great but the loss of expertise, knowledge is incalculable – experience and expertise that has been achieve over decades of service. What we have now is Police PLC.

The PCC have added an extra ‘locally accountable tier’ to policing – to ‘make certain that local issues etc. are dealt with by the local force – God knows how much the PCC is costing each force area – it is an ever growing ivory tower.  Here in North Wales the PCC is often referred to as the ‘Plaid Cymru PCC’ with the suggestion that this is a political appointment.

I just despair!

 

The more you meet people the more you understand why Noah took animals instead of humans

[The Duke]

dwynnehugh wrote:

Duke – I’m not really surprised that you call my comment ‘pompous and arrogant’ – unfortunately your later comments seem to suggest that you live live in some ‘rose tinted world’ where everything is hunky dory. The reality is so different. Perhaps that hole in the road should be filled in by a police officer – after all someone could put the job in front of them. Your drains are blocked – call ‘999’ – will they send ‘Dyno-Bobby?’ With the attitude you display to the police I am certainly not surprised that so many officer nowadays display the same arrogance that you show. Whilst I’m sure that all officers will take heart and strength from your ‘paid by the public’ comment – would it come as a surprise to you to know that officers are members of the public and also contribute as well?

@d-dan scroll to the bottom, I doubt the first bit will interest you. You’re tagged again where my reply to you starts.

I wish, my world is far from rose tinted, sometimes it’s more a square room you can’t escape from. it’s a mixture of hospitals and doctors, mixed with sleepless nights, holding a family together and making sure bills are paid. everyone has their battles. I could make shit up if you like, and say my world is awful blah blah blah.. (I literally couldn’t think of somthing to make up) but this isn’t Facebook, so added drama is not needed or wanted here. My ‘world’ is probably very similar to yours, given we live relative close to each other. However your comment just highlighted why people have such a low opinion of police officers today. Then you have got sarky about it! I didn’t put no one down. If you read through my history it’s rare I’ll put anyone down or call them names or be rude for hat matter. Main reason I don’t see the point.

I don’t blame you for today’s perception of the police, you servered probanly in the days when the police was still respected. but many offerss today, the rotten ones that stick out in areas, and the ones that make the news, just spoil it for the 10x good ones. (one rotten egg make the whole place stink).

I do know there is a bunch of ‘dodgy’ officers in my area, but only though my older children. I’d don’t venture far past my local in the village. Never have done since we moved here in 2003iirc. Just as when I was young we know all the ‘ok’ officers, and then there was the ones that had other interests outside of policing. I here it’s still the same there today. Which is sad given it’s an open secret. But given I know the chief of police dines, actually published pictures on the echo in the 2000s,whith one of the biggest gangsters in the northwest. Two of the 3 partners met a grizzerly end. What type of signal does that give the local public, and what stsderd does it also set for officers? Not a good one. (that is 100% true, but I won’t give names in a public forum).

The police role today seems to be a job and not a vocation for many. That may come down to job insecurtiy from budget cuts, or it may run deeper, I don’t know. What I do know is not a lot of people have a high opinion of the police as a whole, and that remark just summed it it in one sentence. For me it wad really bad form.

The police are there to serve the public, paid by the public. But they rearly come across as liking them. I can only imagine it would be the best job in the world if it wasn’t for the pesky public. (a bit of Scrooby doo there to lighten the mood lol)

I didn’t mean to offend you, and I apologise for that if I did. I just thought the sentiment was insensitive at best. But I stand by the ‘thankyou is the pay cheque”.

I personally like manners, and do use them all the time, so I would, and did, thank the police officer on the day I collected my wallet from the station (since closed). He was a nice man and told him what a surprise it was, thanked him and had a quick chat, asked about the finder then left. Happy with my local plod office, and he may of been happy to help. If not I don’t see why you’d want to serve.

I can imagine how discrintled one may get if somekne walked in and took their property in an entitled way, grunted and walked out, some people are arses, that’s for sure. But sill no reason for to then not give a dam about every other person’s lost items. It’s a bit hypocritical of me actually, given I’m saying don’t judge the public backed on the bad one, but follow the norm in disliking the police for the ills of a few. But I’m not paid to serve the police.

I know it’s not the polices job to even return missing goods, and it’s just some secutery that types out a letter, so the station is just a glorified collection point, when it comes to lost goods, (not stolen).so it’s a non entity of a question in reality. But that wasn’t what spiked my interest your comment. It was more the distrain the sentence implies. I don’t really care about the lost property issues.

Police was respected when I was a kid, today it seems kids are scared of the police these days. That doesn’t make a rose future, respect trumps fear everytime. My daughter now ten, I realised was scared of the police when we I first took her to a football game. I asked her why and she couldn’t explain it, and I always tell her, like my other kids, they are the good guys. Hand on heart, I’ve never slagged a police officer or police in general,in front of the kids. Also one time I got a parking ticket. My girl thought I’d go to prison if I didn’t pay it. I thought was sweet at the time, but then with the football incedent it got me a little worried. Thaogh she does like the police officer that visits the school. I’ve not met the new pc the old one retired last year, he was a nice old guy.

I’m now opting out of this convosarion regarding the police. My opinion is now known as is yours. No need to fall out over it. If we all had the same opinions life would be a boring run for is all. Here is a hug ?

@d-dan hope your cards turn up quick. I had a friend that only last week he found out, cis I got him online, that his ex has second card in his account he never knew about, and has been taking about about 500 a week since they spit in March. That’s going to be fun for him. To make it worse that was his only bank account, so when he cancelled all cards to the account, he has been with out access to his money for a week. (yourkshire bank).

You may want to look at a Monzo account, for you daily spending life, it’s a real step forward for 21C banking. I can send you an invite if youre interested, so you can jump the que.

This is why I should stay off the Internet when I can’t sleep. *sigh*. Sorry to anyone that read all that.

 

[Dave Rice]

I’ve met Dwynne, he was kind enough to show my daughter and I around Bangor when she was looking at going to University there (she is). He and his family have helped us on other occasions I won’t go into here.

He is a very kind and generous man and I don’t think I’d be insulting him by saying I think he falls into the “old fashioned copper” mould. Not a Dixon of Dock Green , they never existed, but someone who cares deeply about the community he served and gets immensely frustrated when things get in the way of that. Personally I also feel his frustration having to clean up after the self imposed mistakes of others and that being seen as “your job”. It’s not enough to say well that’s what you’re paid for, it’s not. It takes time away from what is your job and that is improving the lot for everyone in your sphere of influence.

Ed is right, it’s the politicians we need to be looking at. I’m reading Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island. If you want an impartial view of how his adopted country has changed in the last 20 years read this (it’s quite funny too). Why can we no longer afford, or it seems care about, the little things we once took for granted, never mind the big things. Then there’s the lack of personal responsibility for your actions, or inaction.

[Ed P]

dwynnehugh wrote:

I’m not really 100% certain that cuts in the police forces can be laid at the doors of the PCCs – in the main police funding comes from the Home Office / Treasury etc. and it is they who decide what the total police budget / force is set at with a contribution from local taxpayers.

You are of course correct. However from my interrogation of our local (useless) Tory Kommissar they are not allowed to determine HOW these cuts are made. Despite most modern crime being across County lines they are not allowed to discuss using force regionalisation as a way of both cutting crime and budgets. When I pressed and said ‘Why are you not publicly lamenting this position on Press and TV?’, I received a shrug in reply.

As I said – democracy at its worst. (I’m very tempted to spell it East German style)

[Richard]

When two fists Prescot was ruling a neighbour became a local councillor. However, she soon learned that she, and the rest of the councillors could only ever do what Prescot allowed them to do, say or agree to. She left the role after a pointless time trying to improve local affairs for local people. In a position like those you are so keen to complain about, you soon learn that making enemies of those with control of the tools of the business is rarely a way forward. So if you want to be effective you work behind the public gaze and try to build agreement.

County lines are a relatively new development and the level of end to end support needed by many agencies is very significant and, I understand in some cases almost impossible to achieve, even when carefully worked on. Social services are a key missing part in many areas and reluctant to become involved. In my area common services have been combined across areas, though county lines have not been displayed as a key publicity earning problem. Though I have no doubt that they are an aspect of (low) life in some of the towns and villages. Already such as ANPR is playing a part in changing dealer habits with the use of subscription car hire becoming a choice for the mules. As such drug dealing is an evolving and ever mutating problem the management of which is not best suited to the long time scales of local politics and rivalries. Certainly not one where the greatest demand is to improve lost property management, which I said earlier has almost nothing to do with crime fighting or even crime management. So, why is police time wasted on unproductive paperwork? Because no one else wants to deal with the mess – we already know it is NOT a legal matter.

As for Steve’s comment about his daughter’s attitude to the police, I blame the ‘playground mafia’. No doubt some child or another has had a relative fall foul of the law, in some areas perhaps more than 25% of the kids have. Such things as drugs, using, buying or selling them under the pedestrian underpass* on the way to school. Driving an untaxed car or in a dangerous manner, etc. So they have a chip on their shoulder that their relative is in trouble for being caught – note not for being an idiot and breaking the law in the first place. As everyone knows such people are always ‘innocent’ and never guilty.

*It was happening several days a week on the way to granddaughter’s school.

[Ed P]

I guess it depends what you mean by crime across county lines being a recent development. The Home Counties Chief Constables were talking about it ten years ago when May threw her tantrums and started the savage Police cuts.  It has grown since then: in fact burglary has even been recently outsourced to Chileans!

[The Duke]

Dave Rice wrote:

I’ve met Dwynne, he was kind enough to show my daughter and I around Bangor when she was looking at going to University there (she is). He and his family have helped us on other occasions I won’t go into here. He is a very kind and generous man and I don’t think I’d be insulting him by saying I think he falls into the “old fashioned copper” mould. Not a Dixon of Dock Green , they never existed, but someone who cares deeply about the community he served and gets immensely frustrated when things get in the way of that. Personally I also feel his frustration having to clean up after the self imposed mistakes of others and that being seen as “your job”. It’s not enough to say well that’s what you’re paid for, it’s not. It takes time away from what is your job and that is improving the lot for everyone in your sphere of influence. Ed is right, it’s the politicians we need to be looking at. I’m reading Bill Bryson’s The Road to Little Dribbling: More Notes from a Small Island. If you want an impartial view of how his adopted country has changed in the last 20 years read this (it’s quite funny too). Why can we no longer afford, or it seems care about, the little things we once took for granted, never mind the big things. Then there’s the lack of personal responsibility for your actions, or inaction.

No body insulted Dave. I went out my way to put that straight  in post two to say the same. It was more a go at trh current situation of the view of the police officers and their attitudes.

Richard, I tend to agree with some of  even most of your view, for teens and upwards. But found it strange in a 7 or 8 year old. Given they don’t break crimes or have a notion of them. It’s not till older when the police make them selfish know to you you on a personal level. I can recall being about 13 or 14 when I got to know which cops was good that was nic, and which was offloading pot for instance, and the ones that would go ones that would take your pot and pocket it.

I smoked a lot of pot in high school. Though stopped at 16 and when I come out of service, couldn’t, I just made me sick. I hear today’s stiff is about 10x as strong as the stuff from the 90s also.

[Richard]

Ed P wrote:

I guess it depends what you mean by crime across county lines being a recent development. The Home Counties Chief Constables were talking about it ten years ago when May threw her tantrums and started the savage Police cuts. It has grown since then: in fact burglary has even been recently outsourced to Chileans!

Nice change of subject focus, County lines has been a recent cause of concern with burglary being a well established craft industry run by well known families who bring in their foot soldiers. As I said the pace of change has stepped up but the one hitting the headlines has been the running of small-ish children from towns into other locations where their associations are not known. Very damaging to the children with the objective of making them hard to identify. however, you know that all along didn’t you. The Chilean connection is relatively recent but run by some well known foes, and yes that one does require the central organised crime agency to tread on toes.

[D-Dan]

The Duke wrote:

@d-dan hope your cards turn up quick. I had a friend that only last week he found out, cis I got him online, that his ex has second card in his account he never knew about, and has been taking about about 500 a week since they spit in March. That’s going to be fun for him. To make it worse that was his only bank account, so when he cancelled all cards to the account, he has been with out access to his money for a week. (yourkshire bank). You may want to look at a Monzo account, for you daily spending life, it’s a real step forward for 21C banking. I can send you an invite if youre interested, so you can jump the que. This is why I should stay off the Internet when I can’t sleep. *sigh*. Sorry to anyone that read all that.

It wasn’t mine lost, it’s one I found and did my level best to return to the owner before it was cancelled leading to inconvenience and for both her and the bank. Unfotunately, the bank weren’t interested, and simply cancelled it.

Ironically, I’ve been awaiting a new card through the post, and it not having arrived, finally got on to my bank yesterday. Apparently it was posted on 7 September.

Fortunately, they checked and it hasn’t been used. I do wonder, however, if it has been (a criminal offence) how Dwynne would have handled that. With the same disregard for other’s misfortune when they lose something, despite me having no control over it? Or perhaps with some sympathy?

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

Richard I actually wasn’t  deliberately changing focus. When this was raised with my local Kommissar there was no awareness of cross-county crime extending to children trafficking drugs, that is as you said is a relatively recent development.  The Home Counties police focus at that time was on ‘reverse commuting’ burglars, mainly using the train services to cross county boundaries so avoiding ANPR. In fact one complaint was that unlike the Police, criminals did not respect county or Police boundaries!

[The Duke]

@d-dan sorry I count confused. A bit side tracked one could say. Hope your card sorts itself out.

Years ago my wife was with TSB and she had a few card sent out that never arrived. In the end she had it posted to the brach. That’s was a terrible bank bank then, I can’t recall what, but she had a about a year of small issues, that lead her to move to Halifax. Mainly cos I banked there. She now uses Tesco for her daily banking and is happy with it. I tried to tempt her to monzo, but she don’t like change.

[dwynnehugh]

D-Dan Not wishing to draw this rather tiresome argument out I note in your comment:

”  .. Fortunately, they checked and it hasn’t been used. I do wonder, however, if it has been (a criminal offence) how Dwynne would have handled that. With the same disregard for other’s misfortune when they lose something, despite me having no control over it? Or perhaps with some sympathy? … “

Can I just ask when /if such a matter is reported to the bank – do they give you tea and biscuits? A chair, a towel to dry your eyes?  People should learn to look after their own property and not expect others to pick up the pieces.  As your card hadn’t been used in any fraudulent activity – we would not have met hence the rest of your comments are pure speculation – even more so as you don’t even know me.

The more you meet people the more you understand why Noah took animals instead of humans

[The Duke]

The bank do usally offer tea and biscuits. I’d imagine if you was crying that too would at least offer some form of tissue. I doubt they are monsters, also it’s the polite thing to do.

I’d recommend not accepting coffee, as when me and my youngest lad was opting him an account last year, it’s was the most bitter, heartburn enduring, cup of hate, I’ve ever had the priverlige to pretend to like. Get the tea.

 

[D-Dan]

dwynnehugh wrote:

Can I just ask when /if such a matter is reported to the bank – do they give you tea and biscuits? A chair, a towel to dry your eyes? People should learn to look after their own property and not expect others to pick up the pieces. As your card hadn’t been used in any fraudulent activity – we would not have met hence the rest of your comments are pure speculation – even more so as you don’t even know me.

So would judge me for not having received mail? No amount of looking after my stuff would stop that. I truly pity you if that’s the height of your compassion.

Arch Linux, on a Ryzen 7 1800X, 32 GB, 5 (yes -5) HDs inc 5 SSDs, 4 RPi 3Bs + 1 RPi 4B - one as an NFS server with two more drives, PiHole (shut yours), Plex server, cloud server, and other random Pi stuff. Nice CoolerMaster case, 2 x NV GTX 1070 8GB, and a whopping 32" AOC 1440P monitor.

[Ed P]

This has unnecessarily become a little heated. Although I can see both sides points of view, (I just dislike Political Kommissars) I think there has been a little misunderstanding of positions on all sides. May I respectfully suggest that we draw a line under this thread.

[Author]

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