Thursday, February 23, 2006

The Worst Of All Possible Worlds

For proof of where we are in the Culture Wars, consider recent events in Kent. While a gang of robbers were able to carry out one of the biggest raids, if not the biggest, in British history, the Filth were concentrating on real criminals.

This country has an extensive range of laws covering public order, none of which were designed to encourage police officers to hang around skate parks at 9 PM, waiting to overhear yoofs talking like yoofs talk. Kent might be a dangerous place to run a security depot, but at least any maiden aunts wanting to get in some late night boarding are free from overhearing naughty words.

I could almost accept one or the other. If the Police’s habit of jumping out from behind trees to bust citizens for technicalities was accompanied by a similarly aggressive pursuit of real criminals, that would be one thing. Equally, if the all the rhetoric about ‘understanding root causes’, to say nothing of all the ‘my resources fell down-the stairs, guv’ whining, resulted in a fall in insane tickets, that would still be an improvement on what we have now.

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