The Wiltshire police explained that all they were doing was making an assessment of community tensions for the purpose of stamping them out. That’s all. Kindly meant. No harm done. Clear off out of it.
Wiltshire Police has now confirmed that an officer did visit a local shop in Corsham to request the names of those who had purchased the copies of the magazine and issued an apology “to the members of the public who may be affected by this”.
A Wiltshire Police spokesman said: “Following the terrorism incident in Paris, France on 7 January 2015, Wiltshire Police undertook an assessment of community tensions across the county.
Ah yes, that’ll be the problem. When British Authority undertakes an assessment of community tensions, it always does so with an eye to telling everyone to shut entirely up about Islam and its prophet. That seems to be all it can think of to do. If Hitler came back they’d tell everyone to shut up about Nazism, so they would.
“As part of this work, local sector policing teams were asked to be mindful of business premises, in particular newsagents who may be distributing the Charlie Hebdo magazine and to consider that these shops may be vulnerable.
“There was no specific threat nationally and nothing to suggest newsagents in particular would be vulnerable.
“A police officer visited a local shop and post office in Corsham to make an assessment of community tensions and, if appropriate, encourage the newsagent’s owner to be vigilant.
“During this conversation the officer requested information about subscribers to the Charlie Hebdo magazine.”
For what possible purpose other than harassing them in some way?
“Wiltshire Police would like to apologise to the members of public who may be affected by this. Information relating to this specific incident has been permanently and securely disposed of.
“Wiltshire Police are confident that the police officer’s intention was purely around enhancing public safety and ensuring that the newsagent was advised appropriately.”
Right, enhancing public safety by telling everyone to forget all about Charlie Hebdo. There’s no other reason to ask about it.
What a shower.
Updating to share Gnu atheism’s commentary –
“Wiltshire Police are confident that the police officer’s intention was purely around enhancing public safety and ensuring that the newsagent was advised appropriately.”
…and then behaved, “appropriately”, i.e. assume the Dhimmi position.
Jeeeeez! that is just plain sinister, then what else could we expect from the police force that allowed the Rotherham atrocity to occur.
Eh wot? Rotherham is in Yorks, not Wilts – different police force altogether. Mind you they do seem to have all had the same lesson in “community cohesion.”
https://www.facebook.com/144310995587370/photos/a.271728576178944.71555.144310995587370/933385013346627/?l=041657d5c1
@2 Ophelia,
“different police force altogether. Mind you they do seem to have all had the same lesson in “community cohesion.”
I’m making an assumption that there’s no significant difference since they’re all part of the English police force and ultimately, subject to a single administration. I doubt that there’s any similarity with state police forces in federal systems, such as here in Australia, that could be under politically quite different administrations. So in my opinion, the ‘community cohesion’ regime is probably more or less universal in the UK, perhaps someone living in England could correct me if I’m wrong.
Thanks for update 🙂
Such an innocuous question, one might think, but if selectively applied to the people who buy one magazine and not to those who, oh, for argument’s sake, buy another “holy” book… which is arguably far more inflammatory…
Hmmm, I don’t think so, RJW – I think the police are locally governed in the UK. It’s not one big national police force, I know that. Except for Scotland Yard, which is like the FBI in the US.
But the community cohesion meme does seem to be pervasive.
I just read about this. If there’s one thing the UK police love, it’s a list of suspects for crimes that haven’t been committed.
On a somewhat related note, I also read today that the government are concerned that people who have just passed their driving test might be a danger due to the fact that our driving test is a joke. Rather than dealing with this by, say, improving the test, requiring a certain number of driving hours be logged including driving on motorways and at night, they’ve decided instead to “focus on technological solutions”. This means putting black boxes in people’s cars to monitor their driving. How this is supposed to prevent inexperienced drivers from having accidents is beyond me, but from a privacy perspective, it’s terrifying. They just can’t help themselves.
As for how police forces are organised here, Ophelia is right that it’s a number of separate forces operating more or less independently. Scotland Yard is really just the HQ for the Metropolitan Police (London). We don’t really have anything like the FBI, but we have CID, which consists of plain clothed ‘detective’ officers who investigate serious crimes. But CID departments are branches of individual forces.
But even though the forces are governed – for the most part – locally, there’s a sinister mindset that seems pervasive across all the forces and is getting worse. The Wilts incident doesn’t surprise me at all. As I said, the police here seem to love nothing better than a list of suspects for crimes that haven’t been committed. Or as they presumably think of it, haven’t committed…..yet. It doesn’t help that the current government – even more than the last one – is obsessed with collecting data about everyone and everything in case it comes in handy later. Absolutely the wrong reason to be collecting data and one that makes a lot of people very uncomfortable. In my opinion, not nearly enough people and they’re not nearly uncomfortable enough.
Oh thanks latsot. I was guessing about Scotland Yard and guessed wrong. I thought they sent people out into the provinces for especially tough cases, but no doubt I got that from tv or P D James or some such.
@7 iatsot,
Thanks for the info, I’d assumed that there was a “Police” Minister in Westminister who is ultimately responsible for the admin of the police in England and Wales.
And so they have — a not insignificant number of UK movers and shakers were active supporters of Hitler in the thirties, but a whole lot more were concern-trolling the heck out of anti-fascists. They believed that they could, y’know, just stay on Hitler’s good side if they were careful not to hurt feelings.
But the folks who really got a lot of grief were the ones who were vocally upset about, or, worse yet, wanted to fight the fascists in Spain. In the UK, Canada, and the US, such people were considered communists and watched carefully. The delicious term the governments used to describe them was “premature anti-fascist”. Because really, now, why make waves about a little fascism taking over a country, a few atrocities? Settle down.
I kid you not. So watch your backs, fellow premature anti-fascists!
RJW:
Of course there is government oversight. There are policies, guidelines, targets and so on all coming from Westminster. But forces have a certain amount of autonomy within that framework.
That was part of my earlier point: the institutional racism, sexism and fascism seem to come from both the top down and the bottom up.
Above the CID we would have the National Crime Agency (formerly SOCA) often descibed as the British FBI http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Crime_Agency
@psanity:
As an aside, the Small Change series of books by Jo Walton are set in an alternate universe where Britain made an uneasy peace with Hitler. The overall theme is that Britain gradually becomes more and more similar to Hitler’s Europe because of the pressure of politics and the changing sympathies of the British. I’ve only read the first book so far. It’s largely about how Jews are becoming increasingly persecuted and about the resentment of Jews and Europeans about Britain’s abandonment of them. The alternate world aspect is played down. It’s just a murder/political story that happens to take place in that world
@13 latsot,
“…an alternate universe where Britain made an uneasy peace with Hitler.”
If Hitler had delayed the invasion of the Soviet Union, that would have been the likely outcome. America, between the World Wars, was rather isolationist and might not have entered WW2 at all without the Japanese attack on Dec 7.
Whether crypto-fascist or not, Britain’s political elite would have probably made peace overtures to Hitler.
ooo, counter factual history novels!
Fatherland by Robert Harris
During the run up to the Fuhrers 80th birthday celebrations, a german police detective investigates the murder of a high ranking Reich’s commander and finds that it is linked to a two decades past conference in Wannsee. Could it have something to do with the previous residents of the apartment he has been allocated, that the older residents are so tight lipped about?
Britain is portrayed as an independent though pliant nation and the U.S led by President Kennedy, Joseph P , an economic competitor though generally friendly.
Oh! Scotland yard detectives are invited into other constabularies on cases where their metropolitan expertise can bring more insight, they cant just crash the party so to speak.
1st and 2nd Series of The Fall anyone?