Sarah Everard Vigil and the Met Police

[TheDaddy]

Originally Posted by papa smurf

I'm annoyed at the dick that sent them in, if the dick worked for me she would be bouncing down the car park on her bony arse on the way to the jobcentre.

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

The Dick criticised "armchair critics" who saw her thugs (that time) kneeling on a girl's back, punching another girl and generally acting violently.

She failed to issue the right orders and her defence of the police violence is beyond unacceptable. Public outrage now crosses the bounds of "policing by consent". No doubt about that.

Show a bit of respect, Dame Dick...

The whole thing is entirely the fault of the idiots that turned up.

If they had stayed at home, like they should have, it would have been a complete non event.

What was the point - what would it have (or did it) actually achieve ?
The answer is basically nothing, no killer is going to stop because of some silly gathering in London.

Some woman was quoted as saying all they wanted to do is stand with other women.
Well guess what, we'd all like to stand with our families & friends, and go out - but atm, we cant, thats the rules. Suck it up.

Seems like another example of the stupidity of people who cant think for themselves anymore, just sheep doing what the latest [anti] social media fad tells them.

[Sephiroth]

Originally Posted by TheDaddy

Show a bit of respect, Dame Dick...

An oxymoron if ever there was one!

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Sephiroth

An oxymoron if ever there was one!

I think after these events Lame Duck is going to be more appropriate.

[Pierre]

Feminist mouth piece on R4 tis morning:

"I know that if I meet any man in his 30's that he will have at some point in his life behaved inappropriately towards a woman"

went totally unchallenged by the presenter. Here's the narrative, all men are dangerous , not a matter of if, but when, they will attack a woman.

[jfman]

Originally Posted by Pierre

Feminist mouth piece on R4 tis morning:

"I know that if I meet any man in his 30's that he will have at some point in his life behaved inappropriately towards a woman"

went totally unchallenged by the presenter. Here's the narrative, all men are dangerous , not a matter of if, but when, they will attack a woman.

It's worse than you portray.

She's probably right because at some point they redefined harassment to include almost any unwanted attention.

I've never once met anyone in a pub or nightclub whose opening line was "I'm thinking of chatting you up". So as soon as that has commenced and not reciprocated it's unwanted attention. Whether you take the hint after 30 seconds or 30 minutes it's unwanted.

[Julian]

Is their ultimate aim the end of the human race?

Why are these acts of civil disobedience referred to as vigils?

They are protests pure and simple and a chance to stick two fingers up to authority.

Originally Posted by Julian

Is their ultimate aim the end of the human race?

Why are these acts of civil disobedience referred to as vigils?

They are protests pure and simple and a chance to stick two fingers up to authority.

They are a way of channeling grief and frustration. A couple of generations ago this sort of thing would have been formally channelled via organised religion - the Church of England for the most part, though other denominations, like the Methodists, were very good at channelling energy for social action. I'll spare you a sociology/theology essay but suffice it to say, our society is presently in flux because there is no broadly agreed way of dealing with the feelings these sorts of tragedies throw up. Until there is, conflict like this is inevitable.

[tweetiepooh]

It looks like the police response really was not appropriate, if they needed to they could have monitored the event, collected evidence and then dealt with any activity like breaking covid restrictions as needed.


It's also leading to more powers to the "officials" to declare a gathering illegal and prosecute those involved. Want to protest? Better do it quietly then. I went on a number of the "March for Jesus" events in the 80's and 90's. All properly organised and all very noisy and being a march stretching for some distance with the larger ones. Wonder if "noise issues" would prevent them happening now? Likely wouldn't get the go ahead because it's anti-something that we are not allowed to be anti.

[Hom3r]

Did I actually here correctly that some woman group called for a 6pm on all men?

If so lets look at that.
How many businesses would be closed, like retail nightclubs, oh yeah and A&Es would have a very limited function.

Plus this world be illegal as it would discriminate.

[heero_yuy]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Did I actually here correctly that some woman group called for a 6pm on all men?

Some Baroness who's name I forget first mooted this.

Imagine the outcry if it had been suggested that all women had to stay in after 6pm.

[papa smurf]

Originally Posted by Hom3r

Did I actually here correctly that some woman group called for a 6pm on all men?

If so lets look at that.
How many businesses would be closed, like retail nightclubs, oh yeah and A&Es would have a very limited function.

Plus this world be illegal as it would discriminate.

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/g...d-b923587.html



https://www.worcesternews.co.uk/news...ot-fit-govern/


https://www.thenational.scot/news/19...omen-murdered/

Originally Posted by jfman

It's worse than you portray.

She's probably right because at some point they redefined harassment to include almost any unwanted attention.

I've never once met anyone in a pub or nightclub whose opening line was "I'm thinking of chatting you up". So as soon as that has commenced and not reciprocated it's unwanted attention. Whether you take the hint after 30 seconds or 30 minutes it's unwanted.

Or there’s this example from Adrian Chiles

https://www.thesun.co.uk/news/143507...just-standard/

Not long ago, when my older daughter was still in school uniform, we were in the car with the radio on. There was a discussion about the groping of women on public transport. “Nothing like that’s happened to you, has it?” I asked. “Course, yeah,” she said with a shrug. “That’s just standard.”

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. It turned out that her and her mates, on the Tube going to and from school, were regularly harassed.

Blokes staring, sitting or standing too close, even rubbing themselves up against them or groping them. All such behaviours were considered pretty standard by a group of girls yet to sit their GCSEs. Incredible.

I am no less incredulous this week to hear calls for kerb crawling of schoolgirls to be made illegal.

You what? So it’s not illegal as it stands? Apparently not. Kerb crawling is only an offence if it’s done with the intent of paying for sex.

[Stuart]

Originally Posted by Chris

As I posted this morning, a high court judge refused to rule on whether an event per se was a reasonable excuse or not. He asked the organisers and the police to agree together, a reasonable way forwards. The wording “reasonable excuse” in law is used precisely to provide leeway in unusual circumstances and to avoid criminalising behaviour unless it’s absolutely necessary to do so.

It was the police’s attempt to continue to pursue absolute prohibition that allowed things to get out of control. The organisers had dozens of crowd marshalls ready to assist, but they couldn’t do anything because the police threatened them with maximum fines as event organisers.

Precisely. It *could* be argued that protesting to make things safer for a large percentage of the problem *is* a reasonable excuse to leave the house. Especially bearing in mind there is evidence that the Black Lives Matter protests in the summer had little effect on the Covid figures. https://metro.co.uk/2020/06/24/black...ases-12899049/

Now, the Police were there to enforce the law. Fair enough. They are employed to do that. That does not mean the law is a good one. I'm not a lawyer, but from what I have read, there are a lot of laws our government has passed in the name of Covid that are at best dubious, and at worst, potentially illegal.

Beyond the fact that a large section of the population actually feels that we as a society are not doing nearly enough to protect them (which is a terrible reflection on us), what worries me about this is the government talking about making it an offence to cause a disturbance in a protest. Depending on how this is implemented, this could effectively remove our right to protest peacefully.

Let me explain that. While it is annoying to have to have a protest block roads or train tracks, or close off a major landmark, those protests tend to be the ones that have the most impact. Remember the BLM protests? Yes, they were annoying, but they got people talking about Racism, and started a dialog that will hopefully improve things. The Extinction Rebellion protest? Got people talking about Climate Change. Much as I think they are a good thing, how many online petitions have had a similar impact? Not saying protest needs to cause inconvenience to have an impact, but it can help.

Going back to this protest, I think the Met could have handled this a lot better. They gave permission, then withdraw it two days before the protest. Then it sounds like they went in very heavy handed against a bunch of women. At the very least that's not a good look considering the protest was triggered by a Metropolitan Police officer allegedly killing an innocent woman and hiding her body. Note: I say allegedly because at the time of writing, he has been charged, but not yet convicted.