UKC

Shocking, 

https://www.msn.com/en-gb/news/president-trump/donald-trump-uk-visit-police...

Totally shocking that we are sending police that could be protecting the public all over the country to protect a dangerous lunatic.

At least they've got an indoor climbing wall...

That's taking the piss, our officers should be looked after better but there is a bigger problem. 

A quick Google shows there are around 120k police officers in the country and 10,000 are going to be looking after this 1 event.

I'm sorry I don't care who you are, you do not deserve about 8% of the nations  officers.

It does sound excessive but, whatever you think of Trump, he is the leader of a foreign country visiting our country and we have to keep him, or any other leader who visits, safe.

Unfortunately, some might take their protests to a violent level. That combined with probably an over reaction to assumed threats by the American security staff leads to a very high level of security.

I'll be happy to see him wave goodbye.

Dave

during the catalan crisis, Madrid sent a load of extra police and they all stayed in a cruise liner with giant disney characters painted on the side. Kind took the edge off their authority when they all came trooping out of sylvester's mouth in their riot gear. 

Could be about to be flamed...

C'mon.  Yes it's dingy as hell but you get a bed and running water which is more than I can say for many, many nights that our armed forces spend in training and when on operations.   Perhaps this is where this has gone wrong - the Army thought "Well that would be fine for a bunch of squaddies".  The fact that it is Trump is immaterial he is, like it or not, POTUS and must be protected as such.  

The police aren't squaddies. They have legal powers of arrest etc which civilians and the military don't. They would be required (potentially) to arrest violent protesters which they would have to justify in court. I wouldn't want to make those choices without a 8 hours beauty sleep behind me

The least the US government can do is put them up in decent accommodation and pay for their overtime and travel

At least we're showing him how these things are done properly and in style (in sharp contrast to his general slovenly tackiness) and, interestingly, he really seems to have smartened himself up a bit for the occasion. 

Would you prefer to make a decision about whether to pull the trigger and end someone's life on two hour's shitty kip in the corner of some sangar somewhere in Sandystan? 

I think soldiers do in the overseas places we send them, and in Northern Ireland (legal powers of arrest and use of force.)

What's that got to do with the price of fish?

This is about police and policing.

Because the Police and members of the Armed Forces sometimes do similar roles and the Police should be professional enough to be able to conduct their duties whilst temporarily living in so called poor conditions.

Hardly looks poor.  Lacking in privacy, yes.  But not much worse than the kind of things anyone from cadets to scouts "endure" on camps, and a lot better than the conditions at most Glastonburys.  Its only for a few nights.  Don't see what the fuss is about.  What are the alternatives?

You want the military, deploy them.

You want the police, deploy them.

You want to deploy them, how about complying with the conditions they are expecting. It's not an emergency deployment - when emergency conditions might be anticipated, and there seems to be no hesitation in imposing any conditions that are recommended which are detrimental to cops.

In addition, looking at the spacing of the beds, I'm not even sure that squaddies would (or could) be packed in that tightly. 

Sleep affects things like emotional regulation and decision making to such a degree that I'm inclined to think the police have a point. That they sometimes do similar roles doesn't matter, it's about how to get the best out of people while working in a challenging role. 

I'm in two minds about this. No it's not ideal, but it is temporary. Yes it's better than what the Armed Forces might expect and deem acceptable, but no they don't do the same job and shouldn't expect to be working in the same conditions. No we shouldn't expect our Police to routinely function on a couple of hours of broken sleep, but yes they should be able to if there is a requirement.

Would I, as someone who spends most weekends in a tent, who enjoys bivying on glaciers and who is aspiring to join the Infantry, be ok with that arrangement? Yes (minus the snoring). Would PC Bloggs, as a 43 year old father with achey joints and who is very used to sleeping in his own bed and being able to have a warm shower before work, be happy with that? Maybe not.

Me to.  I’d be okay with it as long as I had my trusty silicone rubber earplugs and a towel to chuck over my head.  I’ve endured worse overnighters for both my job and for ‘pleasure’.  

On the other hand it’s not like this was an unexpected demand and it shouldn’t be beyond the wit of the police in charge to manage significantly better arrangements than 300 people in one gym.   I can only think it’s either total incompetence or a lack of a budget code to charge a few uni halls of residence to (typically empty over the summer months); although that itself would just be total incompetence at a higher level.

I always assumed that the Police took a somewhat Military outlook to poor working conditions and just accepted them with a grimace, a shrug of the shoulders and a lot of piss taking about it. 
 

Of course they would.
If they can live in a hole in the ground, then having a camp bed in an actual building is pretty good in comparison.

It’s a self sustaining outrage loop. All the folk that are outraged at Trumps visit, are outraged at the police presence that shelters Trump from their outrage.

It's a pre-planned deployment in the UK. Not a military exercise, warzone deployment or emergency.

LOL. If the military are so happy with poor working conditions, why do they even bother building barracks.

I'm fairly confident that there will be some sort of recommendations, even in the nilitary, about spacing between campbeds.

I struggle to recollect photos of emergency shelters for victims of serious floods etc where the rooms have had so little spacing between beds.

Obviously the women were 14 to a squash court with gym mats for beds, so that is much better...

No-one expected luxury, I believe the instructions included bring your own sleeping bag, but a barracks dorm or even a tent city would be better than that. 

The first line of my post was "the police are not squaddies" they aren't going into a war zone, and their actions may be challenged in court at some stage. Comparison to soldiers serving in Afghanistan is irrelevant (however popular)

Mrs C would have told them to Foxtrot Oscar, but she’s getting bolshy since she’s on restricted and only got a few months to go before her copper bottomed pension shows up.

I agree it’s totally unacceptable accommodation and whoever thought it up needs a rocket. Remember police don’t live in barracks, they’re not squaddies and shouldn’t be treated like them.

This part of the argument irks me. What do you think will happen to the squaddie who is deemed to have shot and killed someone unlawfully?

I wonder if the police officers tolerance to such things has declined (along with other public service workers) as they are increasingly treated badly and expected to work to ever higher standards with ever decreasing numbers of officers and support staff.  

Maybe when you are fed up with budget cuts and not being able to do your job as well as you used to as you are too overstretched to cover basics, never mind important preventative work, being made to sleep in a sports hall for a long planned event might be a bit of a kick in the teeth, particularly as you know you are leaving your mates at work even more understaffed to facilitate the visit of some one who in other circumstances you'd be locking up.   

Maybe if you want to phone your kids but you can't charge your phone you'd be a bit annoyed.  

Goodwill is wearing thin.  Austerity for some and not for others. 

Your anger should be directed towards those police officers in charge who have failed their fellow officers.

https://www.app.college.police.uk/app-content/mobilisation/mobilisation/

It would appear that the accomodation issue was quickly sorted once it was made public.

If forces are so stretched then maybe they could decline the request to provide mutual aid.

No we're sending them to protect the president of the USA, you clearly haven't even begun to consider the ramifications if a US president were to be harmed on British soil because we didn't provide a level of security that was obviously required.

I don't like Trump any more than most people but we'd provide whatever level of security was required when any foreign leader was visiting, even Putin, who's level of dangerous lunacy makes Trump look like a teddy bear. Of course if Putin was visiting we wouldn't have to spend this much as there wouldn't be all these protesters because their warped perspective on reality means they turn a blind eye to the tens of thousands who have been killed by Putin the war criminal and the numerous other flagrant breaches of international law and convention he has committed.

The irony of course is that this level of security is only required because of all the self righteous, virtue signalling dickheads making a pointless protest which will achieve nothing (because they never do) amoungst whom will be the usual cohort of rent-a-mob looking to cause trouble. The faux outrage misses the point that if it weren't for them wasting everyone's time this money could be better spent on the public services they no doubt profess to 'care passionately about', but no, they just want to have a fun day out waving their willies about how brave they are to insult the most powerful man in the world even though he won't actually see them.

Much of the money isn't even being spent protecting Trump anyway, its being spent to protect the general law abiding public from harm when rent-a-mob kicks off.

Where to even start with your little foot stamp?

1. Trump is fully paid for by the "lunatic" Putin. Owned.  Destabilising the Middle East, ramping up the potential for conflict in a  number of different theatres- you think that doesn't have the potential  for way more  chaos than Putin could hope to achieve on his own? You think Putin is more unstable than Trump?

2. Flagrant breaches of international law? Trump. Israel. Recognising Jerusalem as Israel's capital?

3. Do you think the public services that you think are being squandered will be enhanced by a trade deal with the Donald? I'm sure the multiple bankrupt with extremely questionable  business practices would bend over backwards to give the U.K.  the very best possible trade deal, given our Very Special Relationship. 

4. Describing people protesting  against the most divisive, personally and politically repugnant U.S. President in history as dickheads makes you look like.. well, a dickhead. 

Jog on. 

By eck. Today's youth. Precious princesses. Shiny cars. Back when I were young. National Service. Bobby on a bike dragging yer off to yer mum by the earlobe. Bivvy bag under the stars. Never did us no arm. Mutter mutter grumble grumble.

I don't think the local Bobby shipped in from rural Hampshire and sleeping on a couple bed will have anything to do with preventing harm coming to the President that's what the Secret Service are for. They are there to stop any embarrassing protests .

I did actually cover that point in reply to Skip

They aren't going to be stopping the protests, they are there to protect the general public from the rent-a-mob element which often use these protests as an excuse to cause a ruck. A point I also made.

That as well but I'd be surprised if, in the coming days, we do not hear of legitimate protests being prevented from demonstrating in places they have a legitimate right to be.

I’m with pec on this, so I kindly invite your good self to “jog on”  you can even stamp your bigly feet whilst doing so. 

My feet, unlike the Donald's teeny tiny hands, truly are bigly. By dismissing legitimate protesters against such an abhorrent creature as virtue signalling dogooders, I kindly invite you to jog on and take your covfefe with you. 

Virtue signalling dogooders - glad you articulated my thoughts so precisely- just tying my laces 

don't thank me, those are your fellow traveller pec's words.

Start a new thread for that. Just because soldiers face extremely tough conditions is no reason to impose those conditions on police officers. This is what a race to the bottom looks like.

https://rightsinfo.org/american-trump-london/

“It’s really important to be here,” Amy Sparrow tells RightsInfo. She’s 38 and originally from Chicago, but has lived in the UK for five years. “It’s really important to show it’s not just a small minority of people in America who care about this, his actions affect a lot of people around the world,” she adds.

Peaceful protest is a protected human right...but call them dickheads if you want?

Agree with Pec.

...and he wasn't referring to the peaceful protestors. He was referring to 'the usual cohort of rent-a-mob looking to cause trouble' who routinely turn-up to protests for the purpose of smashing stuff up.

It's they, not the police, who endanger lawful protest.

He wasn't talking about 'rent a mob' people exclusively. I wouldn't have responded like I did, if he had been. 

He would seem to simply see protesters as being 'self righteous virtue signalling dickheads'. 

 ''this level of security is only required because of all the self righteous, virtue signalling dickheads making a pointless protest which will achieve nothing (because they never do) amoungst whom will be the usual cohort of rent-a-mob looking to cause trouble''

Which is why I pointed out that peaceful protest is a protected human right. He can come across as rather reactionary, and less than tolerant, too.

The whole point is that no one is expecting the Police to have to live in 'extremely tough conditions', but rather, that they seem to be making a fuss about a few days of hardship for which they will no doubt be adequately compensated.
I agree that the conditions aren't ideal, but I'm surprised and disappointed that the Police felt the need to whinge about it on social media as I thought they would just grimace and carry on working being the professionals I thought they were.

You are aware that the US doesn't have a great record of protecting their presidents from assassination, or attempted assassination on their own soil...?

And you continue to come across as a patronising pompous tw*t who likes to give it out but can't take it when it's given back.

I'm sure she does genuinely feel it is really important but that doesn't mean it is.  Street protests are probably the least effective means of politcal campaigning ever devised, they almost invariably achieve nothing and in a democracy there are any number of more effective means of campaigning which also don't inconvenience (and in the process alienate) the wider public and don't waste large amounts of taxpayers money better spent on other things

I'm not denying anyone the right to peaceful protest, just saying what I think about the hypocrisy of people who complain about how much we're spending on policing Trump's visit when much of that cost arises from their actions (read the post I was first replying to to see where I'm coming from).

I take your point about 'dickheads', fair enough, that's a bit strong. I imagine some of my friends went on protests when they were young and naive (foolish) so I shall retract that but the rest remains true. Street protests are about hanging out with your tribe to make yourself feel good not about achieving anything meaningful.

Yes of course, but that's not our problem. If it happened here it absolutely would be our problem and it's a risk we don't need to take.

"...just saying what I think about the hypocrisy of people who complain about how much we're spending on policing Trump's visit when much of that cost arises from their actions..."

Fair point...makes me wonder why the peaceful protesters are aiming their ire at the cops, rather than the violent element of their movement.

Incidentally, the military would not put-up with this kind of thing on a pre-planned peacetime deployment; they have Environmental Health Techs who ensure that there is sufficient space between cots, enough toilets, showers, plugs and privacy etc. They also have Engineers to get thing up to speed. 

Yes, army personnel endure arduous conditions when on operations, but so do the police. When operational conditions dictate, surveillance, CROPS and armed officers regularly spend weeks-on-end in leaky observation posts or hiding in ditches waiting for the baddies to turn-up. 

The issue here is that this operation is not an emergency, so squalid conditions are not an operational necessity. It is a pre-planned deployment in which the conditions, welfare and entitlements of the workers were not given adequate weight.

Interesting that those who carp-on about their sacrosanct entitlement to protest are happy to see the entitlements of the people who turn-up to police their demonstrations ignored.

I haven't seen anyone bashing the police in this thread. Much of the discussion has been criticising the poor accommodation they have been provided with. That may be a criticism of those in command of the police and of their funding, but it seems rather supportive of the actual police officers themselves. Criticism of command and funding is more of a criticism of government than of the police.

Like who?

Edit: Or whom.

Without being argumentative, I don't feel alienated by protests, if inconvenienced, I never have done.

Where have there been protesters in the news/media complaining about the amount being spent on policing Trumps visit, can you provide a link or something?

Can't they also be about bringing wider public attention to a specific cause, when the protest is covered in the media? The disabled people who have protested about changes to welfare and how they're assessed as being fit for work have stuck in my mind as protests recently. 

Yeah best just to tug your forelock and do nothing except whinge in the background while the world goes to Hell

If you actually read the words I've written in my posts you'll see I said there were many other more effective ways of political campaigning.

Great political campaigners like MLK, Gandhi, Mandela, the Chartists, etc, all organised mass rallies and demonstrations. But perhaps you know something they didn’t.

Interesting such as for instance?

What is your prefered form of effective protest?

No, Pec is correct. That’s why repressive regimes never crack down on them. No need, they’re pointless. In fact, unpopular governments the world over positively encourage mass demonstrations, and get their paramilitary police forces to distribute cups of tea and packets of digestive biscuits at them. 

Don’t they?

And closer to home, the poll tax was dumped because the Conservatives had a change of heart and just realised it wasn’t such a good idea all by themselves. The mass protests were entirely incidental, and had no bearing on their decision whatsoever.

I had a chat with some of the cops at the Edinburgh event today, by way of asking them if they'd had a good day, as going by their expressions and general mood, they had. Issues about cancelled leave and under-resourcing were diplomatically hinted at but all in it seemed that they'd had as pleasant a day as they could have hoped for, save for the readiness during the march in case something kicked off, (which I admit on another thread that I hoped would). Thankfully it all seemed good natured. Anyway, general hat waving to the boys and girls in blue. I don't know about other cities but the Edinburgh plod generally always seem to be on our side. Hopefully the rest of their day went peacefully. 

Didn't have quite the same effect on stopping the 2nd Iraq War. In that case a massive (million plus) turnout and a peaceful protest and Blair still joined the war and went on to win the next election with a healthy majority. People can have short memories. 

The thing is, not everyone has powerful friends controlling political discourse.

No, it didn’t stop it. But Blair ignoring the massive display of public dismay was his biggest mistake. Instead of being remembered as possibly the greatest post war prime minister, he is an outcast, loathed by his party and has adversaries alike, and his legacy has turned to dust as labour have retreated to the left and the country is leaving the EU. 

So you are right; it didn’t stop the war. But when the war went ahead, there was a reckoning to be payed when it turned out the million that demonstrated were right. 

Something our current leaders may want to pay heed to with what’s happening now.

I think you are mixing squaddies up with moles.

I was thinking of the war in Iraq. I wonder if that's had anything to do with any disengagement from politics (until more recent times)?

Edit: I guess it could be seen as a reason not to protest, or a reason to protest & make a fuss in other ways more so. I know of people who would see it in the second way.

I wonder if pec has ever even heard of the March on Washington.

jcm

Should the moderators move this post to the Saturday joke thread for you. 

Why? Minimum wage, peace in NI, building schools for the future, Scottish devolution, real and sustained investment in the NHS...

but: Iraq. 

One bad decision can outweigh all the good ones, if it’s a big enough mistake 

Other parties had proposed it too and have developed it further since.

Started with Major and Mo Mowlam deserved the credit for years of graft. Blair just went for the hand shake and glory.

PFIs building debt for the future. Labour also started tuition fees at uni.

Or degrees for all, the uk must now have the best qualified zero hour contract Amazon warehouse workers in the world.

More PFIs, stalling real investment for future generstions

Selling off  gold and assets, increased borrowing, continued deregulation of finance etc...etc.. 

One big error can over shadow all your previous smaller mistakes.

And no money left at the end of it.

its going off topic, but while its fashionable to dislike Blair and  claim he achieved little, as you seem to be going in the direction of, it isn't really born out by the evidence, and the experience of people that lived through it. its immaterial if other people had thought of a minimum wage; Blair's government actually introduced it. And extending higher education was clearly the way we had to go; have a look at the figure on page 10 of this report:

http://english.uka.se/download/18.5d85793915901d205f911834/1487932593308/st...

all OECD countries took the same path, including the one you live in; and the UK even with the expansion trailed Japan and the US in proportion of the population with tertiary education. 

and yes spending went up, but not all on PFI- there were real increases in NHS funding which made a massive difference to performance. Here is the increase in funding as a percentage of total NHS budget on a ten year rolling average from 1959 to now- after a squeeze in the 1980s and a modest increase in the early 90s, the period of the labour government is shown to be the biggest period of investment the service has ever had

https://www.health.org.uk/chart-how-funding-nhs-uk-has-changed-over-rolling...

this extra funding had an effect- the waiting list crisis you may recall from the early 90s was successfully dealt with

https://www.ft.com/content/168e1278-2b24-11df-93d8-00144feabdc0

there were massive improvements on wider economic performance, with unemployment rates of 10%+ seen in the 80s and early 90s cut to 5%

https://tradingeconomics.com/united-kingdom/unemployment-rate

and on probably the most important economic indicator of all, GDP growth, the UK had the best GDP growth per capita of any G7 country from 1997-2010- see slide 7

http://speri.dept.shef.ac.uk/wp-content/uploads/2012/07/Dan-Corry-UK-Econom...

so the funding increases were not all on the never-never; there was sustained good economic performance underpinning them, of the sort that we'd be happy to have now.

it ended badly, and labour must take a share of the blame; but that happened on Brown's watch, not Blair's. there were plenty of other errors, but no government lasts that long in  power without racking them up; and on balance, its perverse to think that he would not be thought of as one of the great Prime Ministers. 

Except Iraq happened, and everything else he did is rightly undermined by that. 

I was in the military once.  

It was part and parcel of the job that you lived in shared accommodation with no choice of fellow sleepers, snorers and certainly no privacy etc.,   Its what you expected when you joined up.  You lived away from home so you didn't expect to be living in some luxury hotel.

But if I was a policeman I wouldn't be living  in a barracks.  I'd expect to sleep at home, in my own bed and with someone of my own choice.  I certainly wouldn't be happy being told I had to sleep in some big room with no privacy or peace and share it with other folk I've never met before.

I’ve not heard of any trouble in the anti trump march.  

In fact I understand some of the protesters were even passing out bin bags to clear up after themselves.  

Unlike the free Tommy lot the day after.   

Just to slim down my reply. 

Blair increased post 16 or 18 yrs education, just like many other countries, yes. But what other countries in northern Europe didn't do is completely destroy their vocational and apprenticeship training, for the sake of everyone having a degree. Hundreds of technical colleges, polytechnics etc..  became universities qualifying people in sectors they couldn't hope to ever be employed in. 

As for the economy, every economy boomed in that era in the world. It wasn't Blair's magic, it was debt fuelled growth. Bank borrowing, public sector borrowing, personal debt, 100% mortgages..  economies were riding the debt wave, until people wanted paying back. It's not over yet either. The problem was Blair and Brown didn't plan for a rainy day, after all they end boom and bust, didn't they? 

You can blame Brown, but the problems were en route because of Blair, he knew it and left Brown carrying the can. Typical of the smarmy ucker Blair is.

re every economy boomed- no they didn't; the graphs i linked to showed we only had growth of between 1.5-2%,  a long  way off boom- but every other economy in  the G7 did worse

i can link a graph showing falling debt to GDP across the blair premiership if you want. it all went south in the crash, and i dont hold that labour get off scot free as 'everyone got hit' (yes, but not all as bad as us), or 'the tories would have done it too' (maybe, but so what, they didn't, labour did); but brown was chancellor from 97-07, and then PM- Blair doesnt carry the whole can on that one. 

you seem determined to find nothing good in the Blair years at all, and to hold to a position that nearly every decision he took was wrong, every positive outcome the work of others and every negative event his fault and his alone. 

fair enough, you can think that if you like; but the record tells a different tale. 

and overall, i agree with you- he is tarnished goods, his reputation  in ruins, and his legacy erased. Iraq obliterates everything else.

which, coming back to the topic of this thread- shows that demonstrations may not stop events they protest against; but that the penalties for ignoring them can at times be severe. 

Did I say it was? It just frustrates me that you put the argument across as if it's some unique condition of being a Police constable. It's not.

I agree with your comparison with other North Europe countries re vocational/technical education, but I'm certain that turning every red brick tech into a university was well under way before anyone had even heard of Blair.

He did inherit a good set of books when he entered office. So he was hardly a miracle worker. 

It was going south all the time. The economy was doing relatively well I agree. Did the UK plan, invest or save no; it sold off assets and entered into PFIs. These won't show directly on your borrowing charts though; but it is debt that is still being paid today. 

Sorry but only a poor PM can blame their chancellor. As PM you are in charge and carry ultimate responsibility. 

What penalty? He has a money, his property empire. He hasn't suffered at all. He would really like to be eu chief commissioner, but thankfully they won't ever happen.

Yes, 1992.