Who is a pleb? And what price pissing off those in authority?

We have no idea what Andrew Mitchell said to the policeman at the exit of Downing St. And we probably never will. But there is something nasty about the incident (and it's not the use of "f***ing").

I can swear with the best and worst (ok I'll fess up to that, as many will confirm). So if some tired cabinet minister was biking up Downing St and was told by the cop that he couldnt cycle through the main gate, but had to get off and walk through the side gate, I can understand him saying. ..'Oh for f's sake, I've biked this way for years...' All this stuff we're hearing about propriety is a bit much. Like all those guys saying that they have never sworn in their life. WOT?

I was caught like that at the barrier at Cambridge station a year or so ago.The guy in front of me couldnt find his ticket, and I know the feeling. It was late, the train was very late and full, and we'd stood for most of the way; we were knackered and met the full force of authority on the gate. I certainly said that I thought that the level of enforcement being applied was slightly over the top (though the words came out rather more fruitily/frankly than that, I guess).

All that happened was a rather tolerant young policeman hoved into view and suggested that the barrier staff were only doing their job, and that maybe, madam... Well yes, true. I decided not to hold my ground and explain why the long arm of the law was not an appropriate way of dealing with those who had just suffered the kind of journey we had suffered.I beetled off and biked home.

But then I am not a cabinet minister.

So (if he said it) I dont hold the F word against him. That's what you say when you lose your rag, and we can all do that. You apologise after and anyone with a heart should understand.

What gets me about what Mr Mitchell is not him losing his rag and swearing at the long-suffering policeman. It's the word "pleb" that I cant stand (if that is what he said).. I dont see that "pleb" is a word you come out with when you lose it, unless you really are a toff -- and that your world view really is as "class-ist" as that word suggests. And if he said it, I find it quite hard to forgive.

There's a sense, I suggest, that we are seeing the ingrained view of the Tory cabinet there.

(I have to say, though, that when students use the word plebeian too specifically to refer to the great Roman unwashed, I always make sure to remind them that in the technical sense Cicero was a plebeian, as was Pompey the Great -- and they should never think that in Rome, the work pleb was simply a slur on the working class. On the other hand, the "Struggle of the Orders" betwen patricians and plebeians in the 5th century BC is the origin of all class struggles .)

To get back to policemen though: my recent encounters with them have been most effective when they have been aggressively lenient. I was caught a year or so ago jumping some traffic light. The young constable coralled all the culprits (most over 45) and said , "Look I could give you all a ticket .. but what would be the point. Just dont do it.. that's how people get hurt" (He didnt quite say "granny" but that's what he meant.)

Then a few months ago, I was caught comimg home without a front light. I had a helmet, and a back light, but my front light had switched itself on in my pocket, and wasn't working. The young man got his pad out, but then said, "Look, you look like someone who takes bike safety seriously... go home and make sure you get some spare batteries".  A brilliant move. If he had given me a ticket, I would have huffed and puffed, and made myself a martyr. Counter suggestibility is the name of my game. As it was, confronted with the nice young man, I went out and bought some more batteries.

But I still dont like people calling policemen 'ple' -- if that's what he did.