The Specials

[2 As and a B]

For anyone not already aware of the origins of the Metropolitan Police's Territorial Support Group:

http://www.met.police.uk/co/territorial_support.htm

The Special Patrol Group (SPG) was formed in 1965 to provide a centrally based mobile squad for combating particularly serious crime and other policing issues which could not be dealt with by local police.

The convenient presence of a disciplined, well-organised team brought the group into increased use for the policing protests and demonstrations, where their presence came to assume unwanted symbolic significance.

In 1986 the SPG was disbanded and was replaced a year later by the Territorial Support Group.

The Territorial Support Group (TSG) has three main tasks

* Provides an anti-terrorism and domestic extremism capability.
* Provide an immediate response to spontaneous disorder anywhere in London.
* Reducing priority crime.

For those not familiar with why they are in the news: Met suspends G20 footage officer

[Mean Mr Mustard]

Need 'disambiguation' here.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town

[gug]

The Territorial Support Group (TSG) has three main tasks

* Provides an anti-terrorism and domestic extremism capability.
* Provide an immediate response to spontaneous disorder anywhere in London.
* Reducing priority crime.

* Assaulting innocent protestors (i've seen this with my own eyes before)
* Smashing dissent rather than facilitating peaceful protest
* Enforcing "policy" rather than "policing".

Considering that I'm a law abiding , tax paying home owner rapidly approaching my 40th year and that my attitude to the police has over the last few years gone from support to "F--k-em", because i have no faith in them at all, i'd say that the police are going to be in trouble soon.

I really dont like the way this country is going. Without dissent and the safe ability to protest and lawful rebellion then this country as a democracy is finished - although with our undemocratic push into the EU thats going to happen anyway (before anyone assumes anything, I'm no little englander, i love europe and europeans generally and given the choice would move to france in an instant , but the EU is not much more democratic than Francisco Franco).


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOcG2G_6uC0



Anyone see the police medic at G20, two rows back from the protestors, obviously in no danger but needing to drum up some business ?


http://bristle.files.wordpress.com/2009 ... =500&h=388

[2 As and a B]

After discovering what had happened to the Special Patrol Group, I decided to see whether the Special Branch was still around. No. Their duty is now done by the Counter Terrorism Command.

Then there are special political advisers, neither official party apparatchiks nor civil servants, despite being paid out of the public trough.

[JohnB]

Were books like 1984 and Animal Farm scarily accurate predictions of the future, or training manuals?

[2 As and a B]

although with our undemocratic push into the EU thats going to happen anyway (before anyone assumes anything, I'm no little englander, i love europe and europeans generally and given the choice would move to france in an instant , but the EU is not much more democratic than Francisco Franco).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOcG2G_6uC0

The EU is deeply, deeply undemocratic. I defy anyone but the most ardent supporter/critic to describe how it works. I believe a street poll would come up with a 99.9% "haven't a fugging clue" or wrong answer. That video is from UKIP. I heard their leader, Nigel Farage, speaking on the radio just this morning. He said, yes, they had had problems with dissent within the party but they had expelled those dissenting members. If they were in power that would be a purge. UKIP is a deeply, deeply nasty party. The Greens are the only sensible and only pan-European party worth voting for, IMHO.

Anyone see the police medic at G20, two rows back from the protestors, obviously in no danger but needing to drum up some business ?

http://bristle.files.wordpress.com/2009 ... =500&h=388

Surely he is just hammering down that 7' nail in front of him?

Is it my eyesight, or is the copper on his left with the long lashes quite a babe?

[Vortex]

I was at the G20 'do' at the Bank.

99.99% peaceful except for a tiny group of young anarchists in black.

They smashed up RBS - not too clever.

However they also broke through the police lines so I could sneak out of the 'kettle' and go home.

I even made it back to Worcs in time for The Apprentice .. unlike those who couldn't get out ... they were stuck there until 7PM!

From what I read the REAL trouble started when a special riot unit arrived at about 7:30PM ....

[biffvernon]

Another video of police assaulting someone:

From the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8005966.stm

and from the Sunday Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 122785.ece

It is REALLY IMPORTANT to watch that vid fron the Sunday Times.

[JohnB]

It is REALLY IMPORTANT to watch that vid fron the Sunday Times.

Important enough to download and install Flash on my new laptop so I can be spied on

[2 As and a B]

Another video of police assaulting someone:

From the BBC
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8005966.stm

and from the Sunday Times
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 122785.ece

It is REALLY IMPORTANT to watch that vid fron the Sunday Times.

It's not a police state when we do it, is it.

These are assaults that would be chargeable if they were done by a MOP on a MOP, certainly if done by a MOP on a policeman. Jeez, they would be shown the inside of a police cell without their feet touching the ground. I appreciate that the police were doing a job and would be pumped up by the atmosphere. Even that it may just be individual police officers being overaggressive, but an unprovoked attack on a person is an unprovoked attack on a person - an assault - and the police should not - cannot - be above the law.

However, I suspect things are going to get a lot uglier as the government, like other governments around the world with the exception of the Maldives, doesn't have answers to the economic-environmental disaster unfolding.

Lessons learnt.

When the police move in, everyone sit down and link arms immediately to prevent being pushed back and kettled.

Take lots of music and food.

Stay.

[WolfattheDoor]

The EU is deeply, deeply undemocratic.

Unlike this country where:

• the Head of State is unelected (and choosen due to historical chance)
  the second chamber is unelected
  representatives of a particular religion sit in the second chamber
  many people effectively have a meaningless vote because there is no PR

Sometimes the EU has forced the government to do the right thing when nothing else would.

[Bozzio]

According to someone I know who a few years ago did a lot of work inside one of the major London institutions which surround St James' Park there is a largely secret network of underground tunnels and meeting rooms for the police to access different parts of London very quickly during civil unrest. How true this is I don't know but if it is then it shows the lengths the government will go to to deal with public disorder.

[biffvernon]

I've voted in every available election for over 35 years and was even the candidate in one of them. I have never voted for a winning candidate.

It's a democracy in which not everyone's view is represented.

Make sure you watch the Sunday Times video

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/u ... 122785.ece

[Vortex]

According to someone I know who a few years ago did a lot of work inside one of the major London institutions which surround St James' Park there is a largely secret network of underground tunnels and meeting rooms for the police to access different parts of London very quickly during civil unrest. How true this is I don't know but if it is then it shows the lengths the government will go to to deal with public disorder.

London is riddled with tunnels, built in WW2 then more in the early 1950s then more in the early 1960s tying in with Soviet nuclear weapon developments.

They are for cables and also for government use in times of war etc.

They could be useful for allowing police to move around - but they weren't originally built for that purpose.

[Bozzio]

According to someone I know who a few years ago did a lot of work inside one of the major London institutions which surround St James' Park there is a largely secret network of underground tunnels and meeting rooms for the police to access different parts of London very quickly during civil unrest. How true this is I don't know but if it is then it shows the lengths the government will go to to deal with public disorder.

London is riddled with tunnels, built in WW2 then more in the early 1950s then more in the early 1960s tying in with Soviet nuclear weapon developments.

They are for cables and also for government use in times of war etc.

They could be useful for allowing police to move around - but they weren't originally built for that purpose.

Let me extrapolate.

The guy I know had the contract to complete part of the access between the tunnels and meeting rooms for use by the police and special forces. He described it as being something out of a sci-fi film and very well fitted out. No doubt many of the tunnels are existing but the areas he worked on were new and for police use.