A daring fellow of my youthful acquaintance, used to address police officers as 'Constable', but with the merest hesitation between the 1st & 2nd syllables(!)
The same stout fellow (for indeed he was..) would often attract a barman's attention with an exuberant, "Excuse me bar steward...!"
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>>>The Army has officers and men<<<
This reminded me of a TV sketch, many years ago.
Dick Emery was playing the part of a senior army officer and was showing a VIP around
the regiments barracks.
The VIP was so impressed by the way in which 'Colonel' Emery addressed each of his officers by name, that he enquired "What do you call your privates?".
Answer...."Tom, Dick and Harry" :o)
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Constable, officer, yes, mate - however you want really. Most of us seem to expect the "Wot yoo want, 'kin' pig?" so someone who isn't automatically rude is nice!
As for the Terrorism stops - you'd be surprised how much ordinary crime these pick up - uninsured, drunk/drugged drivers, the odd wanted person etc. Stand there and wait, and eventually it will come to you!
O
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You a police officer, Orson?
The great thing about living in a free state is that one does not have to submit to being stopped randomly by a police officer wanting to check our papers. If you want to return to 1940s Germany, then do. I resent being stopped randomly for the purposes of terrorist checks, when the apparent real reason is picking up "ordinary crime".
You may not like the fact that a policeman cannot stop one of HM's free subjects just because he wants to. If you do not like that fact, then campaign to change the law and introduce a totalitarian regime. Until that point... terrorism checks are for spotting terrorists.
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One can't help enjoying your point Mapmaker, but are we really all that free, and have we ever been (since the advent of systematic policing I mean)? Plod has never hesitated to stop and question me on one pretext or another ever since I can remember, and I am not a notable miscreant or very obvious villain. If you live a full life in this town for forty or fifty years it's going to happen more than once, I can guarantee it.
It happens much more to the young of course, because of their shifty and suspicious air, Kevin-the-teenager attitude and the general probability that they are more likely than the middle-aged to be up to a bit of malarkey. I didn't like it at all when I was small, especially when plod was dumb and nasty as any general category can be sometimes. But I can't say I've minded much for years now. And plod has behaved better towards me since I reached apparent years of wisdom. Funny that.
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I have just put Mapmaker's writings on this forum to the Warmtouch" test as explained here:
www.theregister.co.uk/2008/04/01/warmtouch_brings_.../
The results, which I have sent to MI5 :- "a person who feels like a victim" - Mapmaker lives alone or is still at home with his parents.
Edited by jbif on 04/04/2008 at 19:59
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Interesting viewpoint from one of many British bobbies now working in Calgary, Canada:
"Every day on my way to work I pass children going to school, and they always wave to me," ... "In the UK, kids might wave, but not using all of their fingers."
"Often when you stop (criminals), they admit there are warrants out for their arrest. They say 'yes sir' and 'no sir', even when you're arresting them"
Full story here: www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/mar/25/canada
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You may not like the fact that a policeman cannot stop one of HM's free subjects just because he wants to. ..and so on...
So you admit we are free then? If so, the free citizen cannot really complain about measures (or policing policies) that aim to maintain that happy state, surely? The irony of what you say is that if it we were in a true police state, the police would know already you weren't a terrorist or ne'erdowell - in a way, their 'imperfect' detection is testament & proof against your assertion or imaginings.
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I resent being stopped randomly for the purposes of terrorist checks when the apparent real reason is picking up "ordinary crime".
Why?
I'm sure you're not a criminal, so you've nothing to fear. And every law-abiding citizen surely has a duty to help the police in any way he can, whether that's to stop terrorism or to stop ordinary crime.
Don't understand.
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And, developing the "duty" theme further, if we fail to assist, then there opens up a division between the police and us. They cease to be our servants and we create an antagonism between us and them. Whereas if we assist in any way possible (I can remember giving a tow start to a couple of police whose car had broken down, maybe 20 years ago - dunno what elf and safety would do about that now) then we reinforce the point that they are there to police *our* society, according to *our* wishes.
Just random thoughts.
Edited by GroovyMucker on 05/04/2008 at 11:48
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UK 2008 bears no-relation to 1940s Germany - read a little book called "Defying Hitler" by
Sebastian Pretzel and you may learn something.
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How to address police officers is obvious from TV detective progs where all the non-plod say things like "Well inspector..." or "If that were so, Detective Chief Superintendent...". (Yeah, right. These folk normally have plummy accents too.)
The other way round, plod always seem to introduce themselves along the lines of "I'm DI Smith, this is DS Jones." (Eh?)
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" Thought those T5's were supposed to be pretty quick? Must be a rumour 'cos it's taken you ten miles to catch me up, or is it just that you are a bit out of your depth with a powerful motor laddie ? "
"Now what can I do for you today officer ?"
:-0)
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"Good morning/afternoon sir. You do not have to say anything but it may harm.................etc".
You see politeness costs nothing!
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I dealt with a lad who T boned a fully marked up Jam Butty parked across the road. Moped rider (who by now was laid on the Tarmac) "Were you trying to stop me ?" Officer "looks like I did expletive stop you". Both gave the same account in Court, I asked the Officer to recall his exact words in Court and he did in all their glory, the only reason I did was that the Bench's average age was in the 60s and I wanted to see their faces. There was a lot of sniggering that day.
Edited by Pugugly on 06/04/2008 at 01:25
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"not a criminal, so you've nothing to fear"
Isn't that the argument for ID cards? Given the problems of wrongful arrest (even DNA's not 100%) and HMG's difficulty in keeping any form of data secure, I'd say there's plenty to worry about.
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If we want to live in a country where we can be stopped randomly just to see what crimes we are committing, then we can vote for it.
Currently we do not live in such a country. Random stops and searches are currently purely legal for Terrorism purposes. Fair enough, that's what the law says; I don't much like it, but it's the law.
The law does *not* allow an officer to stop an individual just because he feels like it. Until it does then other laws, introduced for other purposes, should not be used in that manner.
I was *very* glad that the officer did not open the glove box, where he would have found a four-inch long sharp kitchen knife (complete with remains of crumbs and butter from the last impromptu picnic). I have now removed this from the car.
Paranoid? Probably not.
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>>The law does *not* allow an officer to stop an individual just because he feels like it.
The law may not allow it, but the officer's superiors allow it, and so do we.
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Sir or Ma'am (depending on whether the police officer is male or female) are titles given from respect. tinyurl.com/57d7o8
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When my father was at Officer Training School in the 1960s, the commanding officer made things abundantly clear to the future officers/gentlemen/holders of a Queen's Commission.
"YOU will address me as SIR and I will address all of you gentlemen as SIR...But I will not mean it".
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Probably an NCO, not the actual CO Bilboman...
'Mr Prince Harry, sir, you are a horrible little man...' etc., etc.
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The law may not allow it but the officer's superiors allow it and so do we.
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'We' being who?
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Er, the population scouseford, as it is called... Us, knowImean? Those shoved from pillar to post by the gestapo (as some see it) or occasionally, fairly civilly if they are over 25 and sober, pulled for one reason or another by the old bill.
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Afraid I am, Mapmaker.
No need to be paranoid, and quite take some of your points, even though I may not agree with them all. This government in particular seems to have taken the UK from being a country where essentially everything was allowed if it was not forbidden to being a place where everything is forbidden if it is not specifically permitted. You personally may or may not have voted for them, but enough people did. If you (and I mean you as in society) don't like it, vote for someone else.
As far as Terrorism checks go - it's actually quite a lot of hassle to set one up. It needs to be a specific area and authorised for a Terrorism check. I have no idea where they are, though there are a lot in London. It essentially gives police the "random" stop power that we do not have for anything else. In reality though, as others have said, if police want to stop you, there are a number of powers that can be used to do so in a non-random way. It has always been so - back to the "sus" laws and further back during the 20's, 30's and especially the war years. Things aren't really any worse now in that sense than they were then. It is simply public perception that makes it so - added to the fact that we have to be more accountable now, and that means being more formal/filling out bits of paper etc. The traditional "mind how you go" is now a form called a GEN164 that takes (apparently) 7 minutes to fill out.
You will not get a Terrorism check set up to allow you to trawl for other non-terrorist crime.
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