Just wondering...

Over at EUReferendum, on the eve of The Budget, Richard's frustration is particularly evident and his dire predictions of bloody revolution becoming ever more bloody... [Emphasis mine.]

The average British household has seen its real-terms income fall by £365 in the worst three-year squeeze since the early 1980s, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, dragging it down 1.6 percent since 2008. During the previous half-century, the average income had risen by 1.6 percent each year.

Against that, inflation is up to 4.4 percent, taxes are up, and are set to increase further with today's budget, as Government finances continue to spiral out of control.

This is balanced by reduced entitlements, poorer services, increased charges and public sector fees – all the while the ruling classes continue to pay themselves more and better salaries and pensions, while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer.

This, it seems, it just the time to embark on a foreign adventure, to keep the minds of the plebs focused on the bread and circuses – except that most people aren't buying it. They are deeply suspicious of the cost and alarmed at the evidence that the Boy doesn't actually know what he is doing.

This is getting close to the stuff of revolution. We are not there yet, but each of these developments brings us a step further down this perilous road, from which there is no turning back once the destination is reached.

Maybe so and I have often, in the past, yelled loudly for British citizens to man the barricades!

But I am troubled by just one question should this unhappy situation ever arise...

Tell me—who will rush to enforce a no-fly zone in Britain when the government turns its guns on us...?

Thank goodness we have the police to uphold the law!

Now, the motorist was obviously being a bit of a git, but I do happen to think that the police might be over-reacting slightly here.

Personally, I feel totally relieved that we have such nice, reasonable people in the police—the kind of responsible people who will only uphold the law, rather than using bullying and vandalism as tools to intimidate the population.

Oh. Wait...

Two police officers have been suspended after they were filmed smashing up a disabled man’s car while the terrified pensioner sat in the driver’s seat. [Skip to 1:06 minutes in.]

Footage captured on a police dashboard camera shows one officer striking the driver’s seat window with a baton up to 15 times and another officer jumping on the bonnet of the car and kicking the windscreen in an apparent attempt to crack it.

It's time that the police were made accountable to the people that they serve: no, not the government—us.

It's time that every policeman had the Peelian Principles beaten into them throughout their training. And, in this case, there are definitely a few that should be highlighted to the thugs involved in this incident.

1. The basic mission for which the police exist is to prevent crime and disorder.


2. The ability of the police to perform their duties is dependent upon the public approval of police actions.


3. Police must secure the willing co-operation of the public in voluntary observation of the law to be able to secure and maintain the respect of the public.


4. The degree of co-operation of the public that can be secured diminishes proportionately to the necessity of the use of physical force.


5. Police seek and preserve public favour not by catering to public opinion, but by constantly demonstrating absolute impartial service to the law.


6. Police use physical force to the extent necessary to secure observance of the law or to restore order only when the exercise of persuasion, advice, and warning is found to be insufficient.


7. Police, at all times, should maintain a relationship with the public that gives reality to the historic tradition that the police are the public and the public are the police; the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent upon every citizen in the interests of community welfare and existence.


8. Police should always direct their action strictly towards their functions, and never appear to usurp the powers of the judiciary.


9. The test of police efficiency is the absence of crime and disorder, not the visible evidence of police action in dealing with it.

It's time for elected police chiefs and long, long prison sentences for any policemen who overstep the mark.