Who Are These People?

On the afternoon of Thursday October 30 in Richmond, two would-be thieves took sledgehammers to the windows of Ernest Jones the jewellers and tried to break through to the valuables behind. While shoppers stood and watched and, presumably, the police raced to the scene, the two thieves continued to hammer away at the toughened glass that was beginning to give way under the onslaught.

This bizarre spectacle continued undisturbed until a lone, elderly crime-fighter in a brown mac appeared, took one villain by the shoulder and pulled off his balaclava. At this unplanned intervention in the proceedings the startled thieves took to their heels, whereupon the off-duty Batman turned, smiled at the crowd, stepped on to a bus and disappeared.

The Evening Standard reports - A police source said: “While it is always welcome when acts of bravery are successful there is always the possibility that they will go wrong and we urge people to call the police immediately to deal with these type of situations.”

‘Deal with’? If the citizen had not acted we can safely assume that the robbers would have achieved their objective and escaped, not empty-handed but with pockets stuffed with jewellery. My interpretation of the phrase ‘deal with’ is obviously somewhat more dynamic than that of the police. Certainly Ernest Jones, whose staff are certainly shaken by the events, at least have only broken windows to ‘deal with’ and not injuries or stolen watches. They might care to add a certain old gentleman to their security systems; he certainly has practical ideas on how to ‘deal with these type of situations’.

An unavoidable observation as a result of this incident is to compare the effectiveness of CCTV and the police versus the sheer determination of a member of the public.

The CCTV cameras impressed the criminals, drably dressed and with their heads covered, not one iota. Presumably the staff had already called the police and most probably had a panic button with which to do so. This probability likewise did not deter these thieves, who continued to swing at the windows as if they had made an appointment and had no cause to rush.

Thus nothing caused these two any concern until a member of the public, and an elder one at that, took them completely by surprise. Without his intervention the thieves would most certainly have made off with at least a few handfuls of jewellery before the police arrived.

So, who or what was most of value here? The CCTV? Nope. The police? Certainly not to minimise the impact of the attempt, and possibly never. No, one old gentleman with courage and a sense of indignity who used his initiative.

Both CCTV and the police have little, if any, deterrent value. This incident demonstrates this. They are documentation that a crime has occurred.

If you find the old gentleman let me know. Next time I need the police I’ll call him first.

‘If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear’. Rubbish. No-one should trust to luck that they won’t get caught up in the machine when it runs amok.

John Charles de Menezes, if he were available to comment, might also find the statement questionable. So indeed would many other people convicted of crimes and imprisoned but later released after many appeals.

Tony Blair destroyed my trust in politicians. He lied to me. The details can be debated at length but he lied to us all and, more frighteningly, I do not know why. So whereas I was always skeptical now:

I - do – not – believe – or - trust – the – Prime – Minister – or – his – cabinet.

(Some would ask why it took me so long.)

It follows that I do not trust Jacqui Smith. I do not trust her ability, her argument or her motives. Let me confirm a basic premise: in a ‘free society’ the individual should be at liberty to move where and when he or she wishes without being monitored or coerced. (There do have to be limits; we would not want foolish people wandering over MOD testing grounds, for example.) Basically – do you believe, as I do, that what we think of as liberty and privacy should NOT require a case to be made for them?

The case is being made that, in order to preserve our lives, we must sacrifice our privacy; because there are a few who would take advantage of our freedoms to hurt us we must all relinquish our historic liberties. Also, to my great irritation, the old argument is trotted out that if you are not in favour of these impositions then you must be against all attempts to protect the nation against terrorist acts – i.e. ‘You are either with me or against me’. As with Tony Blair I have no idea why this government is so determined to turn our country into a total surveillance society.

I recently walked along the embankment and passed the Battle of Britain Memorial. It is indeed ironic that this memorial to one of the most heroic periods in our history, when men and women from many countries fought against overwhelming odds to defend the freedom of our islands and beyond, should stand so close to the Mother of Parliaments where our representatives are now trying every trick and tactic they can to destroy the very reason that it exists. I would not be at all surprised if our Home Secretary shied away from this memorial as Dracula does from a crucifix. 

And above all, never let it be forgotten that all the information and activities that will form part of these systems will be managed and accessed by ordinary people – fallible, lazy, incompetent, corruptible, foolish, untrained etc. The powers that be would have us believe that the technologies being proposed would work without error. Anyone who has used a PC will be only too aware of the mistakes that machines can make as indeed can their users.

Finally, bear in mind that these controls, for that is what they are, would nicely form a foundation for even more draconian policies for some future government that might declare itself even more concerned for our ‘security’.

Wiser heads than those of this government have already covered this ground and summarise the risks better, and more succinctly, than I. The fact that the following words were spoken by a man, Patrick Henry, who was proposing military action against the British Army in 1775 during the American Revolutionary War, is perhaps ironic but nonetheless appropriate.

Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death!

(Ref: http://libertyonline.hypermall.com/henry-liberty.html)

Has anybody heard an apology from ‘The Best’? As I expected, recently some fellow on a radio program warned that ‘The Best’ should not be penalized after the debacle in the banking system and elsewhere. I had been awaiting the repeat of this comment for some time – ‘If you want ‘The Best’ you have to pay for them’. It has been trotted out regularly whenever ordinary people have the temerity to question why some executives receive salaries and bonuses that are written in astronomical units.

So where are these ‘experts’ now? The ones we have to pay so much money to because you have to pay to get ‘The Best’. If they got it all wrong, then, does that mean they weren’t ‘The Best’? Or maybe we just failed to offer enough. So, if we offer the same people more will they then become ’The Better than The Best’? Or should we have offered more to some other people? But if we didn’t then somebody else must have because they’re not queuing up at the Job Centre. So what did we pay for and where are the ones we didn’t get? I don’t hear the ‘Real Best’ boasting about how they got it Right when ‘The Best’ got it Wrong.

Is there just a chance that, like the rest of us, they are fallible? And being fallible they should not profit regardless of mistakes that are costing ordinary families so very, very much. An apology would not go amiss, I feel. Sadly, I have a cynical feeling that they are merely keeping their heads down, and when the taxpayer has paid for their incompetence they will arise phoenix-like from the flames and carry on amassing their/our wealth as if nothing had happened.