A Necessary Change of Subject

 Every time I make my standard criticism of modern policing,   I get exactly the same response. And each time the response has very little to do with what I have said, is emotive and takes the same precise form. It also look as if it has been whipped up on some website somewhere, because it is so repetitive in tone and content. The fact that I have all this many times before, and replied to it many times before, doesn’t seem to have any effect at all. It is like pouring a small bottle of water on to the Sahara desert at noon. Soon afterwards, there is no trace at all of what you have done. This is the fate of all writers who do not have regular and frequent access to mainstream TV or who are not on the magic list of authors whose books are puffed by the big reviewers and promoted by the big booksellers. We can say what we like. Most people , if they hear it at all, will be hearing it for the first time. Many will never know we have said it. If we defend it against attack, they will not be aware of our defence, though they may well be aware of the attack.

On the police, I have written a book devoted to the subject (and given a copy of it personally to the current Home Secretary who, I am assured, has read it) , and more articles in print and on line than I care to recall, I have responded personally to scores of often rather rude letters (in many cases never receiving any acknowledgement or response to my carefully-marshalled arguments).  The same might be said of my attempts to discuss Britain’s entry into war in 1939 (even now I am receiving posts suggesting that I think we should not have fought in the Second World War, a view  I have never expressed and do not hold. My arguments are about the timing and purpose of our entry, and of the misrepresentation of this war as a moral crusade, so as to justify new and allegedly moral wars. But in much of the response, there is  almost  no understanding of the actual point of what I am saying, however many times I explain it. One even advances the argument that we had to go to war in September 1939 to fulfil our guarantee to Poland. Yes, we did.  But the questions are ‘Why did we give a guarantee to Poland in the first place?’. And why did we do absolutely nothing to help Poland in practice? And round we go again.

 

In both cases, this of often caused because people's most treasured illusions are being threatened. And treasured illusions, as know, are treasured all the more because those who hokld them secretly doubt them. They *hate* hearing their secret doubts expressed openly by others.

 

 

I’m going to leave aside 1939 for a bit ( it’s bound to come up again) and urging those still interested to use the index  to study what’s been said (‘Churchill Cult’ is the best entry to follow, though also ‘World War Two’). Everything that’s come up in comments is dealt with there. Instead I’m going to try to offer a definitive riposte to my police critics (who are also to be found, interestingly, in large numbers on Twitter) , taking their arguments as they are usually made.  That will be on the next post.