Ah so the chief of police for Northamptonshire saying they will search baskets isn't at an institutional level? I agree it is important that the media keeps the police in check, but the police should be able to judge what is reasonable and what isn't without testing the waters to see what they can get away with - especially when government guidance is pretty clear. This kind of thing hugely reduces the trust in police, and it has been found that the more contact with police people have, the less trust they have in them.
OK. I agree that that was bad. But in this case the system has worked, no? Some individual made a mistake, the media noted the mistake, the individual's superior told him he was wrong.
In this particular case, one does have to question why someone in such a senior position is getting something that, really, isn't that hard to understand, so fundamentally wrong. Personally I would question why this individual is in such a senior position if he lacks basic reading comprehension skills, or thinks that he's too important to read advice, or thinks it's OK to make up his own rules.
So, I think we agree about this.
But let's rewind to your very first post, shall we? Did that not give the impression that the police in the UK are running wild at an institutional level, right across the country? I think that it did. And from where I am, I do not feel that that is what is happening.
Exactly, and that was what I was posting about in the first place. But what about the cases where the media doesn't notice? This is why it's so bad that some in the police seem to be testing the waters to see what they can get away with. For each story that makes it to the press, how many more are there that don't?
I would absolutely question the same. Seems to me much more like he's rubbing his hands together at the thought of arresting people who are doing no wrong. Unfortunately that's the impression I get with a lot of police forces here. Before the lockdown they apparently haven't the money/officers to send people out to anything but the most major crimes, but during lockdown they can suddenly magic up enough officers to patrol supermarkets.
Another example of an institutional level overstepping of given powers is Derbyshire police, they've inked a lake to stop people visiting and are using drones to try and find out what people are up to. Even going as far as publishing a video with people who are out exercising and pointing out it's "not essential", even though that's explicitly allowed in law. "Lord Sumption, a former justice of the Supreme Court, accused Derbyshire force of "disgraceful" behaviour akin to a "police state" and acting like "glorified school prefects"".
I didn't mean to imply there was a countrywide overreaction, it seems you are the only one to have interpreted it that way; my apologies if I wasn't clear enough, I was on my phone and didn't really want to list each force individually.
Considering the overzealous police here thinking we've turned into a police state, informing people they will (illegally) start searching shopping trolleys for "non essential items" and telling people they can't even exercise in their own gardens - contrary to the actual law - I don't think this will be used by too many people.
Only a handful of incidents in a couple of police forces. If anything, the police are being criticised for not being zealous enough in enforcing lockdown penalty fines. Zero chance of the U.K. ever becoming a police state, fascist, or communist. Brits have a healthy dislike of all extremists.
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I would absolutely question the same. Seems to me much more like he's rubbing his hands together at the thought of arresting people who are doing no wrong. Unfortunately that's the impression I get with a lot of police forces here. Before the lockdown they apparently haven't the money/officers to send people out to anything but the most major crimes, but during lockdown they can suddenly magic up enough officers to patrol supermarkets.
Another example of an institutional level overstepping of given powers is Derbyshire police, they've inked a lake to stop people visiting and are using drones to try and find out what people are up to. Even going as far as publishing a video with people who are out exercising and pointing out it's "not essential", even though that's explicitly allowed in law. "Lord Sumption, a former justice of the Supreme Court, accused Derbyshire force of "disgraceful" behaviour akin to a "police state" and acting like "glorified school prefects"".
I didn't mean to imply there was a countrywide overreaction, it seems you are the only one to have interpreted it that way; my apologies if I wasn't clear enough, I was on my phone and didn't really want to list each force individually.
Zero chance of the U.K. ever becoming a police state, fascist, or communist. Brits have a healthy dislike of all extremists.