Sunday, May 27, 2007

Something else

I know most people who look here more often than not are observers of Inspector Gadgets blog. However, if you tend not to bother with the comments take the extra few minutes to take a look at this post and its subsequent comments.

The stories there from anonymous officers across the country are beyond anything I have the ability to write tonight. I'm in one of those tired and defeatist moods at the moment, where I look at the whole scene of policing and feel overwhelmed by the enormity of the task we have. I was reading a report yesterday online (which I cannot now find the link for to save my life) talking about the decline in so many things within the police with the flipside of the vast resources allocated to the recruitment of PCSOs; how official job media outlets are so disproportionately biased in terms of coverage towards PCSO's (I saw recently PCSOs recommended for bravery for chasing a shoplifter- no weapons or anything, just bags of clothes-, to which I had not even the will to shake my head); and how anyone with the capacity to influence or even question this stall of resourcing to front line police is either blinkered or going with the flow.

I was speaking to another skipper the other day, talking of how I am actually motivated to move up through the ranks to try and make some kind of difference on this broader scale. But to get there, I'd have to jump through all the yes minister hoops and try and sound enthusiastic about things I really don't agree with. Crocodile Politics, I think I'll call it. Like crocodile tears. But with political views. But I think you'd figured that out.