Traditional bobby-on-the-beat policing died years ago under a tide of social engineering. Now, who’d be a cop? Is it a job few will now touch for any money? The ‘Dixon of Dock Green’ (1950s TV police series) style of consensual policing, with jovial, kindly and trustworthy walking coppers keeping everyone safe, vanished long before August 2011’s riots. Some think problems began when the police ‘force’ became the police ‘service’. News on just one day (21 August) from one national newspaper (The Sunday Telegraph) illustrates the problems faced by those policing contemporary Britain, the policed and the taxpayers paying for it. All Bad News Stories The paper reported the search for the new chief of the Metropolitan police as ‘in chaos’: government officials persuading officers to apply. The deadline was put back so … Read entire article »