Whatever the police should be doing, it's not this: trying to bribe environmentalists with secret bank accounts (clue: it usually won't work, we're pretty committed), threaten their job prospects, suggest they'll be sent to brutal violent prisons and generally intimidate them.Campaigners against climate change aren't terrorists, they aren't extremists, and they're more clever than the plod (which is why the Guardian have the tapes).
It'd be funny if it wasn't so sinister, and it's got to stop. Imagine activists trying to bribe, infiltrate and intimidate the police. And that wouldn't even be public money for the bribes.
I don't have it in for the police, I really don't. I can only give a 100% endorsement to the Chicken Yoghurt view on this.
I guess the best way to describe my stance would be as follows.
While I have no issue with principal of the government sponsoring an agency to enforce laws, for the promotion of the common good, I have big problems with the way in which the police actually interpret their brief.
The idea that I might be spied upon for simply desiring to prevent runaway climate change does not seem a sensible use of police time or taxpayers' money.
Add to this the deep irritation I feel about the complete lack of community policing in areas such as mine and frankly I'm furious.
If they weren't trying to pretend they've got a right to prevent civil protest they might have time to do what they were formed to do - which is guard the streets.