The level of threat

The police, or at least some of them, want tasers, according to Radio 4 today. Tasers are CEWS. Conducted Electrical Weapons. Oh alright, think of them as electric ray guns if it helps.

Still ouchy, but not dead ouchy.
You’re still going to be ouchy, but not dead.

Two hooks on wires shoot out of the Tasar into the target and about 500,000 volts gets rammed through them. It makes you convulse. It makes you fall over. It very, very rarely kills you, unlike any gun that could stop you as quickly. As a humane alternative to being shot by a 12-bore, which across a normal living room unlike on TV is something that is going to take your arm off, I’d choose being shot by a taser every single time. So far, so well, not good, but reacting to the level of threat, as the police spokesman said.

“When I joined in 1998, all we had was handcuffs and a truncheon. Now we go out in stab vests, with asps and CS gas. We’ve got to respond to the level of threat. That’s all this is. ‘Course, we’ve always had the long flight of concrete steps and the legal obligation to tell lies during the interview. And in court if we really have to, obviously. Don’t mind me asking but your car’s got an MoT, hasn’t it? Mind if I see the certificate?”

It may come as a surprise but the last bit’s not actually strictly true. He didn’t say that. Not on Radio 4 while it was on air, anyway.
But tooling up like this isn’t ‘responding to the level of threat.’ It wouldn’t have helped Lee Rigby, the all-too predictable mascot the police are wheeling out to support their militarisation. Lee Rigby was dead long before the police got there, but once the TERROR word has been used all discussion has to stop. By law very soon, I suspect.

If anything, the police are responding to a fear of being sued. By their own officers. The same logic applied to issuing stab vests. Are more policemen getting stabbed? You can be pretty sure the Daily Mail would tell you all about it if they were.

But is there a threat? Yes. There always has been. And as an employer, you have to make sure your employees don’t get hurt going to work if you know there’s a risk. You even have to make sure they don’t hurt themselves if they ignore what you told them to do to keep themselves safe.

An unlikely terror threat.
An unlikely terror threat.

Once upon a time a Mr Thornton worked for Qualcast, who made lawnmowers, pouring molten steel to make the heavy rollers to make people’s lawns nice. As a foundry worker, Mr Thornton was a bit rufty-tufty. In fact more than that. He was a bit of an arse. Qualcast knew what happened when you pour molten metal on your feet and if you’re lucky you’ll still have a leg to stand on. As Mr Thornton found out in court. He refused point blank to wear the safety gear Qualcast had bought him. Predictably enough, one day he poured molten metal in the wrong place and injured himself hideously. So he sued Qualcast. And won. Duty of care. Known risk. Negligent to let him continue with dangerous practices. Should have sacked him. Pay up.

Which is exactly the situation the Police Federation, ACPO, the various constabularies and the Home Office find themselves in. Of course, it doesn’t hurt to be able to use the ‘terrorism’ magic wand to justify what you’re doing. What really does hurt is the total inability of the BBC to do anything except parrot the Party line, without even a question. That’s a much bigger threat to everyone than the remote possibility of getting Tasered.

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Bunged up

I haven’t done any open mic nights or any other performance for a couple of weeks. And I’m getting antsy about it.

About three weeks ago, but maybe four, I got what I thought was hayfever. I haven’t had hayfever this bad for years, not just the sneezing (but suspiciously not much of that) and sore throat but eyes full of crud every morning as well as being itchy all day long and that horrible feeling in my legs as if I’ve had a massive electric shock and that never very pleasant pain in the kidneys. And a cough. And a really sore throat. And feeling tired all the time.

I don’t generally get ill, no more than one cold a year, but this was a big one. The net result has been I’ve gone temporarily deaf in one ear, which is ringing out white noise all the time anyway. It means I can’t hear how loud I am and I can’t accurately hear my own voice full stop.

So all in all, it’s not great for performing. I’m a little concerned about it, because I was enjoying doing it and the three-piece band that seem to have assembled behind me were really getting it together and transforming the spoken word stuff I do into something very much better.

That and the police. Last time I went to Woodbridge I got breathalysed. That was fine. I don’t drink and drive, or not over the limit, anyway. But although the breathalyser thing tested nil alcohol, which was odd in itself as I’d had two small glasses of red wine so it should have shown something, there were a lot of odd things about the whole stop, as we road-warrior non-criminals call it. So much so that a friend whose husband was a police officer until he was killed told me ‘it’s not what you think it is. Watch out.’

Back when I lived in Trowbridge a policeman saw a police van parked up at the side of the road so he went over for a chat, tapped on the window and found it wasn’t Gary Robbins’ dad, the PC who usually had the van. It was someone else entirely. Someone not actually in the police. And it wasn’t a police van either. As things got odder and odder at the side of the road I remembered all that happening and wondered if it was the same thing. My friend refusing to say what it was if it wasn’t what I thought it was in a Facebook private message creeped me out a bit too.

So that’s why I haven’t done any spoken word recently. I’m bunged up. But for the moment at least I’m not banged up too.

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