Dangers of politicising the police

Rule by the overpoweringly self-righteous has throughout history led to the crushing of the liberty of the individual. The monopoly of power achieved by the government of the Blairs in concert with their colleagues of equally rigid conviction in the BBC and in executive positions in the public services led to the most offensive curtailment of free thought in Britain experienced for centuries.

This concise, lucid letter to the Telegraph by David Green, the Director of Civitas, spells it out and forms the most damning indictment of the Blair government.

David Green writes:

Since the Macpherson report, the Government has used the police to
re-educate the majority of the people to have different views about race. The majority are seen as racist and in need of forcible re-socialisation. But our tradition is of policing by consent, which can only mean that the majority must be signed up to police objectives before they are enforced.

If a party wants to change public attitudes, it must first persuade people through discussion. The Government has got into the habit of using police power for its party-political aims. Thus it failed to see that the arrest of an MP for exposing official mistakes was an abuse of power for the narrowest of party-political ends