Just how useless are 'community support officers'?

Community Support Officers appear to be New-Labour’s cheap response to what had been the public’s demand for more police officers on the street. There may well even still be a demand, despite the police apparently targeting ordinary citizens and trivial effectively non-crimes in order to boost government targets.

These ‘Community’ (don’t you just hate this newspeak) Support Officers are a kind of pretend police officer, presumably intended to fool the public into believing there are actually police officers on the street. Well police officers used to be taught how to swim and use life saving techniques, they used to be taught CPR and first aid. They may still be, but not it seems these Community Support officers. Their Idea of supporting the community would appear to be to leave a child to drown .

Now it seems they are employing suppressors of free speech who might be interpreted as verging on the edge of being racists. Nothing new there then some of the more jaded and cynical amongst you may think. But it is. The reason police in the UK have been so successful until successive governments have begun to politicise and micro manage them was precisely because they were not. Because they were largely fair, even despite the natural tendency towards preconceived ideas we are all so often prone to - also they had and were allowed to use their discretion.

The question is why did West Midlands Police not suspend and hopefully sack this particular Community Support Officer? His behaviour went beyond the pale.

If the police are in the business of suppressing religion then surely they should be more even handed and suppress them all, or is it only some.

If it is ok for them to hate certain nationalities and treat them differently to others then maybe we need to come up with some alternative.

Or display a clear antipathy towards certain political parties, in this case the Republicans. Maybe the Conservatives and Liberals had better watch their backs.

West Midlands Police refused to apologise and fobbed off enquiries claiming the incident had been "fully investigated" They are going to offer training in understanding hate crime and communication. One fears it actually calls for a little more than that. Surely if investigated the way New Labour seem to prefer the PCSP’s behaviour could generate a number of ‘detections’ for them.
Depends on how you interpret the words "You have been warned. If you come back here and get beaten up, well you have been warned". In light of the whole incident.

Zimbabwe’s 'elections'

The results of Zimbabwe’s elections have still yet to be announced. The longer they take the more one worries.

It is clear that the old fraud Mugabe has stacked things as much in his favour as he can get away with - but will that be enough to keep him and his cronies in power?

The much abused opposition are certain they have won, but that is based on the counts at the polls, the results after they have been 'officially counted' may not necessarily be the same, or reflect reality.

Mugabe has managed to turn a country that was the breadbasket of Africa when he first became it’s ruler into the basket case of Africa. South Africa has been reluctant to intervene or criticise his regime. Most other African states have taken a similar or even more equivocal stance.

It would probably be the best result for Zimbabwe if Mugabe did the decent thing and stepped down. If the country could begin it’s probably long recovery, free of his corrupt racist incompetence.

I am sure the ‘Islington Tendency’, don’t even want to think such a thing – but he is clearly racist and/or cynically uses and panders to racism for his own purposes. I am not sure what is worse.

If this does come to pass, the UK should be very reluctant to become involved.

Zimbabwe was in a very strong position when it declared UDI. The UK worked to try to ensure a peaceful transition of power to majority rule, the country was prosperous and had an honest fair and functioning legal and political system at that point.

The terrible state of the country today is entirely due to the dishonesty, incompetence and corruption of it’s rulers since the advent of majority rule - and not the responsibility of the UK.

Though one feels for the ordinary people, when the time finally comes that the country gets the chance to recover, let Zimbabwe make reparations to their citizens who they have driven off their farms and let Africa repair the damage in their own backyard. The UK should not become any more involved than any other country.

Zimbabwe should not expect any more from the UK than any other country, except perhaps their immediate neighbours.