Transcript of PC Will Riches Thursday interview on #LBC Breakfast

Transcript of PC Will Riches, Vice Chair of the Constables Committee on LBC last Thursday 17th May

NF = Nick Farrari

WR = Will Riches

NF - Home Secretary Theresa May hasn’t even started talking at the police federation conference in Bournemouth yet, but apparently it’s decided by them, she’s on the precipice of destroying a police service that is admired and replicated throughout the world, so say rank and file officers. Mrs May will address the federations’ annual conference less than a week after 30,000 officers marched through London to protest against changes to pay, terms and conditions. What sort of welcome might she expect? PC Will Riches is the Vice Chairman of the Constables Committee at the Police Federation of England and Wales, well Mr Riches, Constable Riches, what sort of welcome will she get?

WR - Good morning Nick.

NF - morning Will

WRI think she’ll get an interesting welcome definitely because our Members are very concerned and very worried and very angry at the way in which they’re being treated by the government.

NF - What are their key points of concern or anger?

WR - It’s the U-turning issue. Principally we just don’t accept that they’re not for turning. We’ve seen them u-turning before on other issues. The fact of the matter is, we’re hearing them say this has to happen and railroading the issue. Simply we don’t accept there should be no negotiation in actually getting away from the specific 20% cuts we’re talking about.

NF - The last time there was a review of police pay and conditions was more than 3 decades ago. Surely it is time for a review?

WR - Well police pay and conditions is constantly under review. There’s a mechanism and machinery for continually reviewing pay and conditions and it’s stood for a long time. We’ve just seen the Winsor Report I and II from Tom Winsor, with a whole raft of different recommendations. There’s been no public consultation, and we believe the content of those reports are ill founded.

NF - Why is it necessary lastly to have public consultation?

WR - Well the police are the public and the public are the police. We’re members of the public too and we do not accept that 20% cuts to police will mean that we the public will get the police service we deserve.

NF - But I say again, with the national health service or with other areas, you’re saying that there should always be public consultation if the government tries to implament anything such as this are you?

WR - Well the public are key stakeholders as I said, the public expect.....

NF - But they don’t have the level of knowledge of the job that you do, and they don’t have the knowledge of the budget that hopefully Theresa May has, so to involve the public, isn’t that just a bit of a red herring PC Riches?

WR - Well we’re all public servants at the end of the day, as are politicians, and we have to make sure that we provide people with what it is they expect, and we do not accept that it’s fair with 20% that frontline services won’t be affected because clearly they will, and they’ll be severely affected.

Transcript of PC Rick Nelson's @rickcccfed #LBC interview on Police cuts for @theconstables

This is a verbatim transcript of Rick Nelson, 8 Region Representative on the Constables Central Committee of the Police Federation of England and Wales, appearing on Nick Farrari's Breakfast Show on LBC on Thursday. Published without comment.

NF = Nick Farrari

RN = PC Rick Nelson

NF - I mentioned the police. It’s a fascinating part of it, the police federation taking out adverts in most of this morning’s newspapers, in which they quote some of the passed views of the Prime Minister on how important the police service is to this country, or police force, whatever we call them these days, and yet they say this doesn’t shine with his , or his government’s actions towards their pension provisions. Well PC Rick Nelson is with the Police Federation. He’s with the Constables Committee there in England and Wales, he joins me now. Why, why do you say this is the breaking point PC Nelson?

RN  - Well if you look at what’s happened over the last year, we’ve lost already 5,200 officers during 2011, and with an expected other 12,000 officers to go, what you can’t do is continue the service we’re providing the public at the same level with less than we’ve currently got. You know, the streets of England and London last year needed 16,000 officers to quell disturbances. We’re going to lose that number of officers over the next year and a half. What do people expect us to do? We can’t continue giving more with less, which is the position we’re in at the moment.

NF - So your biggest beef then is actually about numbers more than about pensions?

RN - My biggest beef is you know as a member of the public as well that the police service that we’re trying to provide to members of the public isn’t going to be there. I’ve got 30 years in the service, so I’m at the end of my term, but I’ve got a family, I’ve got children and I want to make sure they’ve got the same police service that I grew up with, so they’ve got the same protection as I got when I grew up as a child - and that’s my biggest concern, and that’s the concern of the police federation, now our pay and conditions and our pensions are being drastically cut. We’ll be paying more, and we’ll be paid less. We’ve paid more on our pensions than most of the public sector workers over about 30 years, and we’ll continue to pay more contributions - they went up in April. We’re asking police officers to work even longer for their pensions. We can’t continue with all the cuts that we’ve had already and continue giving the same service.

NF - Why do you suppose if you’ll allow me to say this, why do you suppose your complaints, specifically regarding pensions doesn’t appear to gain much traction with the general public.

RN - I think we know why, the general public’s pensions over the years int he private sector, and the public sector now are taking a knock. We can’t afford... I understand we have to take cuts, but to actually cut people’s pensions like myself who’ve paid in over 30 years and then expect to get so much less than you were expecting, I know it happens in the private sector, but there should be some relation to the public sector and the public as to what they expect from those people.

NF - But you’ll be aware I’m sure PC Nelson that public sector pensions are currently underfunded by around one and a quarter trillion pounds - that’s the equivalent of 45,000 pounds for every household in the land. PC Nelson, we can’t afford it.

RN - No, I realize we can’t afford it, and there need to be some harsh choices. What we’re asking is... what the government should do is ask the public what they actually want. We’ve been asking for a Royal Commission for a number of years now... that would have looked at the whole remit of policing, including pay and remunerations to find out what’s fair and what’s right for the police service that represents the public. The police service represent the public, and the public represent the police service. That’s what we’re there for, to provide a service, and we’re asking for a root and branch review. We have for a number of years, asked for this Royal Commission to find out what the public really need from their police service.

NF - I appreciate that you and your colleagues are going on this demonstration today. You know the government’s not for changing don’t you.

RN - We have to have a voice. Part of the future is compulsory severance of police officers. Now we’re one of the few people in this country who haven’t got any rights, not just the right to strike, we have no employment rights. We have to have our voices heard. All the police officers today, they’re not on strike, we’ve got a number of officers....

NF - No, no, no I appreciate that, but this government is not going to change.

RN - We need to have our voice heard. We hope the public will hear us, and we hope the public may assist us to understanding the changes that are going to come in the future to their police service.

NF - PC Nelson,, the public, unless they’re public sector workers have no sympathy for you at all. I’ll tell you, 88% of public sector workers are entitled to final salary pensions - 10% in the private sector. The average public sector pension, £7,000 per year, £3,700 in the private sector. Every single place you look PC Nelson, the public sector win. There’s no sympathy for your cause.

RN - You’re concentrating on one isue, which is the pension. We’re not there marching on... the pension is an issue I agree, but the main concern for ourselves is the service that we provide to the public. I joined the job 30 years ago to provide a service to the public, and I believe the service is going to go down hill rapidly over the next number of years because of these massive cuts in policing, and the policing budget.

NF - Thank you for coming on the show, and thank you for such a strong defence of your actions. PC Rick Nelson who’s on the Constables Committee of the Police Federation of England and Wales.

The type of silly law that they promised to repeal

Earlier today, I went in to the Post Office at Portcullis House in the House of Commons. The conversation went like this:

Me - I'm just after 100 Euros, can I buy them with my debit card?

Staffer - No problem.

Me - Ok, here's my debit card.

Staffer - Thank you. Now I just need to see your driving licence.

Me - (Pointing at eyes and then guide dog) erm... I'm blind.

Staffer - Oh yes, sorry. Do you have a passport?

Me - Err yes, but I didn't think to bring it to work with me.

Staffer - Oh.

Me - I have a Parliamentary Pass (round my neck)

Staffer - Oh sorry. I need either of those forms of ID.

Me - Why?

Staffer - Money laundering rules. It's the law.

Me - Right. erm, there's a cash machine 3 feet away from me, if I....

Staffer - Yes, if you take it out and pay me in cash, that's fine.

Me - Erm... ok, I'll do that then.

Staffer - Ok thanks - it's just the law you see, we have no say in the matter.


Isn't this the stupid kind of law the coalition promised to Repeal?

Well then?

My personal worry about Winsor's disabled police discrimination

As many followers will know, my freelance life means I work for a variety of people - providing paper and political reviews for Sky and the BBC News Channel, Olympic based content for talkSPORT and the occasional piece for Total Politics Mag - but most recently, I have been working as a media advisor to the Constables Committee of the Police Federation of England ad Wales. As a Lobby Journalist, I have been keen to stress that this is all above board, and my role is to advis on how to communicate through the press and media, not to make policy or indeed to personally encourage it - certainly never to advocate any position to politicians or to take on any role that could be conceived as lobbying... that's simply not what I do.

I would however like to share my own concerns over Winsor's proposals of ditching disabled and ill Police Officers who are physically unable to reach 5.4 on the bleep fitness test. Now to be clear, this represents my own views when I say that any even rather unfit able officer aught to be able to do 5.4 and above on the bleep test without breaking a sweat - but as was pointed out to me by the Thames Valley Fed Chair this evening, there are many Officers injured in the line of duty who won't in the short, mediam or long term be able to achieve this.

Under Tom Windsor's recomendations, any Officer who is on any form of restricted or adaptive duty should be cast from the job. This incidentally would have applied to PC David Rathband potentially had he not sadly have chosen to take his own life.

So let's be clear - Police Officers are being told that their terms and conditions of service should be comprable to other public sector workers. Many of course would argue that proposals go way beyond comprability, but how is it compatable to say cops should be treated like any other worker on the one hand, yet boot them out in a way that would be criminally unlawful (Equalities Act 2010) in any other job?

If someone was sacked from their job because they became disabled through no fault of the employer ,they would be hauled before the Courts if they tried to sack that employee. How can we say that it's ok to discriminate against cops in the same situation, or worse, a situation where they have become disabled or long term sick as a direct result of Service to the Crown?

Again, this is a very personal perspective since I know Officers who are not fit for working on a Response team for instance, but who nevertheless provide essential back office support... also not quite sure why that essential back office support should be substancially less well paid when doing that role due to frontline service injury.

I speak for myself - but I don't see how this is fair.


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Location:St George's Way,Stevenage,United Kingdom

Time to outlaw texts like this?

Received from 07549 449 486

"Hi. We now have the details of how much you are owed for your recent accident. Visit www.ukaccident.info to continue the process or txt stop"

Now I get about 5 of these a month from different numbers but look at it- clearly total spam. No accident, no query, no claim and no interest. I will text stop but they keep coming in.

Time for a law?

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THIS new law will make buying cigarettes harder and less pleasurable.

Every smoker will be made inescapably aware, every time he or she buys a packetof cigarettes, that smoking is a disapproved activity.

It may push many smokers to give up. It will cause some tobacconists to close.

But this is the stated intention of the law, and I could fill up this article by arguing that it is an attack on adult free choice – that we have an absolute right to do things that are harmful to ourselves; that the claims about "passive smoking" are a statistical fraud; that the various claims about harm to children are also fraudulent.

Why bother? These arguments have had no success so far, and will have none now.

In a few decades, smoking has been demonised and restricted to the point where it may soon be effectively forbidden by law.

Libertarian arguments have failed. So has the numerical weight of smokers.

The only worthwhile question is why?

One reason is the cushy jobs provided by the anti-smoking movement – doctors who cure no one, but preach further restrictions on free choice; epidemiologists churning out bogus correlations; activists in charities funded by the taxpayers, or employed in central and local bureaucracies.

These people are a solid interest group, and have no desire for the truth to come between them and their next salary.

The other reason is that smokers, in the main, are "sheeple." Every time they are faced with robbery through taxation, or naked persecution, they simply roll over. Unlike some groups in society they never question the lies thrown at them. They never challenge the existence of the interest group that is working for their suppression.

Of course, smoking is less basic to identity than religion or sexual preference. But the persecution of smokers is a good example of how no freedom lasts when those who use it will not defend it. Tough luck smokers – you brought this on yourselves.


SEAN GABB IS DIRECTOR OF THE LIBERTARIAN ALLIANCE
Www.libertarian.co.uk

Location:Guest Post: Dr Sean Gabb on why smokers are to blame for their own demonisation

Breaking: Osborne hasn't commited to releasing tax information

This is a quick note since I'm about to tell the wonderful viewers of the BBC News Channel what I've just learnt from senior Treasury sources.

The Telegraph have an excellent front page, focusing on their interview with the Chancellor, however it's worth pointing out that the Chancellor has gone as far as to say he would "consider" personally releasing tax information - but it would have to be investigated carefully, balancing transparency with confidential tax information.

The point George Osborne was making was aimed at London Mayoral hopeful Ken Livingston, following the release of their tax records.

Officials and political sources in the Treasury are far from signed up to this idea, and it's not actually being "considered" just yet... but still, it's exciting talk.

Tune in to the BBC News Channel now for more.


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