Andy Coulson's ARREST (My comments explained)

The former news of the world editor Andy Coulson has been arrested / charged as in the meaning under Scottish law, which is different to that of England and Wales over allegations he lied in Evidence he gave against Tommy Sheridan while working as director of communications at number 10.

Let's get the first bit out of the way quite categorically - Andy Coulson, like everyone else is innocent until proven guilty in a Court of law. I have made no comment on the facts of the case or the allegations - not simply because I don't have those details but also to comply with the law of the land and to ensure any accused person (whoever they may be) is able to get a fair trial if that's what the Crown decides.

Now that's out of the way - perhaps I can explain the comments that seem to have upset so may prop,e particularly for some puzzling reason some Scottish tweeple.

I said last night that I felt it disproportionate to send 7 Scottish police officers to London to arrest and transport Andy Coulson to Glasgow. I stated my view that if the Metropolitan Police wanted to arrest a Glasgow resident in similar circumstances, rather than subjecting them to a 7 hour drive, they'd have given that person the opportunity to attend a police station by appointment and to be dealt with in a considered manner.

I do not believe that anyone, whoever they may be should receive special treatment - and actually, a point missed by many is that it's for this reason that I have reservations about the way in which Andy Coulson's arrest was executed. I do not believe had the intended prisoner been Joe Bloggs of ordinary street that the taxpayer would have been picking up the bill for 7 fully warranted police officers to travel 500 miles and transport a prisoner in this way. It is a real testament to what remains of the system of "English law" which operates in England and Wales that such behaviour is still considered a bit over the top - and while I fully admit that I have no idea what the strategy of the arresting officers is or was, I think it's highly noteworthy if nothing else for someone to be arrested in London, by Scottish Police Officers, acting under Scottish law with no redress to the usual rights conferred by the police and criminal evidence act 1984 in all but the most urgent circumstances.

I do not seek to defend Andy Coulson personally in this blogpost since to do so would be to prejudge his case, and as I say, I simply do not know the facts. My view that the circumstances surrounding the arrest were exceptional stand - and I don't have any truck with small minded twitter abusers who wish to silence fair comment and opinion when it does not affect the freedoms or rights of others. It's a hysterical reaction to the fact that Andy Coulson's name has been mentioned.

It's as simple as thos - if you wouldn't like it happening to your granny, you shouldn't like it happening to anyone.... no?

Civil Service tax arrangements

Head of the Civil Service Sir Bob Kerslake said:

"I believe it is completely inappropriate for any senior permanent position in the civil service to be held by a contractor instead of a civil servant paying tax in the ordinary way.

"These new measures are an important step in addressing the relatively small number of cases that breach this principle.

"Of course, like all other organisations, the civil service needs to bring in certain specialist skills for short periods and it wouldn't make sense to incur the cost of putting these people on the payroll.

"But it is only right that the civil service should be more transparent than any other employer about these arrangements."


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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