UK people should be happy; it looks like police might be seeing reality again.
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Public fed up with ‘virtue-signalling’ police officers, new Manchester chief constable says
John Simpson, Crime Correspondent
Monday June 14 2021, 12.00pm BST, The Times
The public are fed up with “virtue-signalling” police officers and would rather they were catching burglars, one of Britain’s most senior police officers has said.
Rainbow shoelaces, taking the knee and “florid social media accounts” will be discouraged at Greater Manchester police under new chief constable Stephen Watson.
Watson, 53, said that “woke” policing needed to be reevaluated and raised concerns that some actions damaged impartiality by “making common cause” with campaign groups officers may have to police or arrest.
When asked if he would take the knee while in uniform, he said: “No, I absolutely would not. I would probably kneel before the Queen, God and Mrs Watson, that’s it.”
“Impartiality is in danger of being upset in our urge and desire to demonstrate that we would like to make common cause from time to time with people whose agenda is very difficult to disagree with,” he told
The Daily Telegraph.
“I do not think that things like taking the knee, demonstrating that you have a commonality of view with the protesters that you’re policing is compatible with the standards of service that people require of their police.”
There was controversy last year when Alan Pughsley, the chief constable of Kent police, was filmed kneeling in solidarity with anti-racism campaigners in June as protests swept the globe following the murder of George Floyd in Minnesota.
Several officers at forces across the country were also photographed making the gesture, which was started by NFL athlete Colin Kaepernick in response to racial inequality in the US and police killings of black Americans, but has come to represent opposition to all forms of racism.
Britain’s top police officer Dame Cressida Dick, the Met police commissioner, told officers not to take the knee at protests for safety
reasons.
Watson said: “Officers could put themselves in a difficult place because if you demonstrate you’re not impartial, and you then have to make an arrest, how on earth do you assist the courts to come to just judgment as to you having executed your powers of arrest in an appropriately impartial professional manner?”
Adding that he does not use social media, he said: “I really don’t think the public care what I had for my breakfast, and the idea that I’m some sort of wannabe celebrity.”
He said that although he wanted the force to embrace and engage Manchester’s LGBT community, he could not support “police officers putting rainbows on their epaulettes and wearing rainbow shoelaces”.
“Whether it be through adulterating the uniform with pins and tabs and badges or whatever, and having all manner of florid social media accounts. These are all things which I think leave the public cold, and I just personally don’t think they have a place in policing,” he added.
“I think we’re past the high watermark. The public are getting a little bit fed up of virtue-signalling police officers when they’d really rather we just locked up burglars.”