Give a senior police officer a choice between real police work such as keeping police stations open or maintaining a police presence or indulging in various politically correct wankfests, then I’d give you a pound to a penny that the senior officers would choose the latter.
Since at least September 2015 the senior management of West Mercia Police have been whining to the media about how terrible their finances are and how hard pressed they are to maintain a police service worthy of the name. However, it seems to be that when it comes to spending on various bits of diversity stuff, there always seems to be cash available. A little anonymous bird in one of the areas covered by West Mercia has contacted me to inform me that although there are financial pressures on the real policing side of West Mercia, those pressures do not seem to be affecting the diversity sector of the force.
As far as myself and my contacts can ascertain that when it comes to spending taxpayers money on diversity issues West Mercia is behaving like a drunken sailor on shore leave. Not only have they spent who knows how much taxpayer money on ‘hate crime’ training for a community group, but they also fund an ‘Independent Advisory Group’, which appears completely dominated by various minority activists. The IAG is a route whereby members of ‘protected’ groups can influence policing and also get access to cash for things like publicity materials for LGBT/BME events. There is no indication on the West Mercia site if there is a route of influence for those who are not classified as ‘protected groups’ as per the Equality Act of 2010. The suspicion is that if you are not in one of those groups then you will not be listened to as intently than if you were a member of one of these groups. West Mercia are wasting money in this way despite surveys showing that rural crime not ‘hate crime’ is what most worries those who live in the West Mercia area.
As with other forces, West Mercia seem to be wedded to the idea of pushing their concept of ‘diversity’ onto people many of whom may question this policy and who may well believe, as I do, that all people should be policed equally. Diversity bullying, pandering to various minorities and the over-enthusiastic prosecution of ‘hate crime’ offences is attacking the whole concept of equal justice and is creating a two tier justice system. This means an attack on someone because they are gay/black/muslim/trans etc is treated as much more serious than an attack on an ordinary man or woman who is not able to claim membership of a ‘protected group’.
We need decent, equitable and effective policing and without a doubt much of the politically correct guff that police forces like West Mercia seem to be enthusiastic about, gets in the way of those noble ideals. It’s time to take the PC’s away from PC matters and police us all equally. An over emphasis on diversity issues is eroding the idea that we are all equal and should all be policed equally.
Links
https://www.fahrenheit211.net/2015/12/16/politically-correct-wastefulness-from-west-mercia-police/
https://westmercia.police.uk/article/9636/What-is-the-purpose-of-an-IAG
