The Policeman's lot

I am known, universally, as calm, reasoned and sage. I scorn to jump those instant opinions which so limit the arguments of others without that careful balance and weighing of evidence that is, so self evidently, the characteristic of my discourse. But, there again, there is nothing quite so self satisfying as whipping yourself into a deeply comforting rant which is based on knee jerk response.

The news today is full of a Muslim policeman’s request not to guard the embassy of Israel being granted by his superiors. This brings to the forefront all my anxieties about the position of the police in society today and their function and purpose.

One of the more satisfying sights that an old die hard liberal (with a small ‘l’) can see connected with the police force is when they try marching together. Why is it satisfying? Because they do it so badly; and why shouldn’t they? It’s not the be all and end all of their training. They, the police, are not a military force. I resent the use by some senior policemen of the term ‘civilians’ to describe what they used to call ‘the public.’ We are like them, they are like us. They are not soldiers; their relationship with their clients is not that of a military force with civilians. Their function is to defend the public, to ensure that we can carry on our lives in peace and be able to ‘go about our lawful purposes.’

For some people the ideal policeman is that individual who approaches more and more nearly to Sherlock Holmes: the brilliant individual, capable of intuitive leaps of breathtaking intellectual audacity; the person who, with reference to nobody, is able to pursue an eccentric course, scorning procedure, breaking rules, creating his own moral universe and, of course, apprehending the villain in a pyrotechnical blaze of casuistically astonishing logical deductions that leave mere mortals gasping with astonished admiration. Crap!

The Holmesian type of policeman is a dangerously beguiling exemplum; with the emphasis on dangerous. In this country we give our police force a great deal of public support. We automatically assume their probity in a way which is almost unique to these islands. We trust their honesty, their fairness and their methodical approach. We expect a professionalism which is based on proven practice, not on dangerous flashes of uncontrolled genius. PC Plod may seem to be a negative appellation, but, in my view, it is the backbone of the security of this country: honest effort as part of a team.

I am not, in spite of appearances, saying that I want a police force of kind idiots. There is a place for genius within the force, for the unconventional, the inspirational, the thinking-outside-the-box, and the individualistic – for all of these: but the basic policeman should be stolid and calm and follow orders.

Our police force, if it is anything, is a force which ignores differences of race, creed, sexuality, status. It is a police force for the public – all the public. Like doctors they have to treat all equally, whatever their thoughts about the individuals with whom they treat.

This one case has thrown all of this tradition into relief. If this is allowed to be the norm then everything that I have said is in he melting pot, and all the very real forces within our society of politics, religion, caste, status, everything come into play. I am not naïf about what happens now. No policeman has ever been anything than polite to me: they listen to my modulated middle class accents and respond appropriately. I know that they are only human and they do respond to aspects of life which they should ignore. But, and it is a big but, they know that they do not have any official or public sanction for these attitudes. In short, it’s wrong, and they know it’s wrong. They are a force for everyone: everyone is equal before them – like the law, which they embody.

I’m sure that more details will emerge about the particular case of the Muslim (British) policeman. Perhaps they will explain why a man who had obviously volunteered to join a diplomatic unit of the police would not carry out an aspect of his duties. To my mind, if he could not, in conscience carry out an order, then he had only one course of action: resignation.

The publicity given to this case is, in itself, encouraging. It is recognition of the importance of what is at stake here: the whole concept of a force which can police with the support of The Public. As Baldwin said, ‘Wait and see’ there is a whole way of life to preserve. Let’s see if we can do it.