Trauma Vs Tradition

My second year as an Arsenal Season Ticket Holder draws to a close over the next few weeks, and tomorrow I will take my seat for Arsenal v Manchester United.  It is a fixture which is so rich in history and drama from unbelievable joys to paralysing heartache.  A couple of years ago I was celebrating my birthday early as Aaron Ramsey slotted home to give us victory with the only goal of the game.

Two decades earlier and a couple of days before my eleventh birthday Alan Smith scored a hat trick hours after we had clinched the league thanks to Nottingham Forest defeating Liverpool earlier that day.  Manchester United were simply blown away as the newly crowned European Cup Winners Cup victors fell to a 3-1 defeat at Highbury.  The night was also notable for Manchester United performing a “guard of honour” as our players stepped out onto the pitch. 

Their manager that night was a certain Sir Alex Ferguson, who was merely five years into a reign that continues to this very day.  I will not be a hypocrite and pretend to be Fergie’s biggest fan, but let it never be said that he does not get occasions like this right.  It was an act which was repeated when Chelsea were to visit Old Trafford as newly crowned Champions fourteen years later.

It is a custom which I fully agree with.  The Premier League is one of the most fiercely contested competitions in the world and during the season tempers will fray and emotions inevitably spill over.  But when the curtain falls and the honours are awarded, it is a time to reflect and to show a little dignity in defeat. 

For Arsenal fans it is also time to enjoy the now annual feast of St Totteringham Day which as any respectable Gooner will tell you is the day which is marked by fans of Arsenal as the moment when Tottenham can no longer catch Arsenal due to the number of games and remaining points available.  The last time the national holiday was postponed was 1995.

It’s a tradition, and as such they should be honoured and respected.  Much like the act of the “guard of honour” performed for visiting champions once a title is secured.  For all my personal irritation of the club, something further exasperated by their manager, I would have no personal issue following and respecting that act.  As a club we pride ourselves on doing things the right way something which has given rise to the phrase the “Arsenal Way.”

However something can stop me from doing that.  The potential selection of a certain player, an individual who once graced our club and who we in turn supported through some turbulent times as he struggled with repeated injuries.  A former employee who enjoyed the best period of his career in the 18 months directly leading to his departure when for the first time in his career he managed to stay injury free for longer than a few months.  Who having discovered the absolute peak of his ability after all of our years of support and faith (not to mention those pesky BUPA medical bills!) decided to leave us rather than to reward our belief in him with a commitment to stay.

Having supported Arsenal for just under three decades, I am not naïve enough to not realise that players do move on.  It’s a natural cycle of transition.  Once upon a time I didn’t know how Arsenal would go on without Ian Wright.  The same could be said for Thierry Henry, Dennis Bergkamp, Patrick Vieira, Cesc Fabregas or Robert Pires.

Players can return and be appreciated, as has been shown when Thierry returned with his Red Bulls, or Patrick with Juventus.  The norm is not to subject them to ninety minutes of the kind of venom which Ashley Cole, Emmanuel Adebayor or Samir Nasri can relate to.  In each of those examples the players concerned have secured notoriety for their conduct in the period leading up to their departure.

Personally, I don’t even see why the issue is even being discussed.  Manchester United are the champions of England and have no logical reason to bring Robin Van Persie to London tomorrow. 

Some may argue that Arsenal or their fans have no right to make any demands regarding the team selection of another side, and to a certain extent there is a valid point to be made.  But when the nature of the anger amongst Arsenal fans is so tangible and so obvious to be revealed in an ugly display of contempt for the arriving champions, it cannot simply be ignored.

On Monday Fergie will assert his position in the media and condemn Arsenal as a club without class, without humility and without dignity due to the reception which will be afforded to Robin Van Persie should he be included in the squad.  However I will counter that Fergie has deliberately orchestrated a stand off and placed dignified Arsenal fans like myself in an impossible position.  I do not want to be known as one of the 56,000+ Arsenal fans who will welcome the newly crowned winners of the Premier League with boos and jeers.  But equally I will not ignore the elephant in the room that will be the case should Robin Van Persie be anywhere near North London tomorrow.

The choice is clear: Manchester United can have their guard of honour with respect or they can have Robin Van Persie in their squad.  They cannot have both.  The line in the sand has been drawn and should Fergie wish to use this match as some kind of machismo demonstration of authority, then he will only have himself to blame when the guard of honour descends into a tunnel of shame.

We can behave ourselves tomorrow and we can observe the traditions of English football and extend further the aura of the “Arsenal Way.”  Tomorrow can be about everything that is wonderful about English football, or it can be a classic example of why Sir Alex Ferguson will never be respected or adored in the same style as Shankly or Clough. 

Tomorrow is more than just a fixture between two old rivals.  It can go a long way towards formulating the lasting legacy of a manager who is in the twilight of his career.  Or it can remind everyone why he is the first to demand respect, despite showing so little himself to anyone else throughout his career.

Dirty Tricks? Nobody Does It Better!

This post formed part of a larger article which was published on March 14 and can be found here

The Falklanders are heading to the polls for a referendum to decide on the future of their islands.  The outcome is not in doubt at all.  A huge majority will vote in favour of retaining the existing arrangement and remaining under British rule. 

Chagossian supporters have been quick to point out that another group of British subjects, the Chagossian community, have been denied this right repeatedly.  Many argue that the only difference between the two sets of populations is the colour of the skin of those involved.  The Falklanders are white while the Chagossians are black. 

But the British government will point out that the Chagossians have already been consulted and that an election administered by the Electoral Reform Services has already been conducted. Technically they are right, but as is often the case with the Foreign Office, there is more to this than meets the eye.  When it comes to dirty tricks, nobody does it better.

Last December the legal battles reached a pivotal stage when the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg finally ruled on the islanders’ case.  The court decided that the action was inadmissible due to compensation being granted to some Chagossians in 1982.  The Foreign Office’s official response to the ruling was that it would “take stock” of the ruling and meet with Chagossians in due course.  This was welcomed by the community, a sign that perhaps the government may be ready to engage with the islanders. 

Sadly as has been common since the 1960s, nothing which originates from the Foreign Office regarding this issue can ever be regarded as sincere.

The overwhelming majority of Chagossians fight on a platform for a right of return and an end to British rule on the islands.  However there is one small faction, which offers a contrasting perspective.  The Diego Garcia Society (DGS) are led by Allen Vincatassin and where they differ from other Chagossian groups is that they want the islands to remain British.  This difference is best illustrated in their adoption of the official British Indian Ocean Territories (BIOT) flag as their own, as opposed to every other Chagossian group which adopts the more widely recognised Chagossian flag as the symbol of their struggle for justice.

There is nothing wrong with Vincatassin and the DGS offering an alternative view on the future of the Chagos Islands.  Their arguments should be welcomed as much as anyone else’s.  It is just that their input should be viewed in the context of which it is made: as a marginalised fringe faction which does not represent the majority of the will of the Chagossian community.  Like an extremist wing within mainstream politics.  They add to the debate, and their views should be registered, but assessed on the basis that they are the smallest of the groups.  They have a voice, but are not THE voice.

Of course the British government is never one to miss a trick.  They identified very quickly that Vincatassin represented a trophy to bolster their own agenda.  Here was a group of Chagossians who wanted to maintain the status quo.  For the Foreign Office this was a gift from the heavens.

Vincatassin was invited by the Foreign Office to conduct an election overseen by the Electoral Reform Services and was only open to members of the DGS.  There are over 2,000 Chagossians based in the UK.  Vincatassin secured just 122 votes.  That’s around 6% of UK based Chagossians, which in a British election normally usually means you breathe a sigh of relief as you have saved the deposit by posting over 5%! 

But Vincatassin got far more than his deposit back.

He was awarded the title of “provisional President of Diego Garcia and the Chagos Islands”.  It was more than simply a meaningless honour.  It provided him with unrivalled access to people at the very heart of the Foreign Office and the British government.  Meetings with the then Foreign Secretary David Miliband were to be a regular feature of the elevation of Vincatassin from a marginalised fringe faction leader to the leader in waiting of the Chagossian community as a whole.

When the British government wanted to make good its promise of “taking stock” and meeting with the Chagossian community, they had a willing and able partner to legitimise their charade.  Vincatassin was only too happy to meet with Mark Simmonds from the Foreign Office to discuss the implications of the Strasbourg ruling.  Simmonds and the Foreign Office knew Vincatassin would merrily dance to their music and in doing so enabled the Foreign Office to respond to critics that they are indeed meeting and interacting with Chagossians.

At the time of writing, the leader of the largest Chagossian group Olivier Bancoult has still to be invited for talks. The same applies for anyone else from his organisation, the Chagos Refugee Group.  That this should be the case merely supports the theory that the British government will only engage with Chagossians who reinforce its own hideous agenda.  Chagossians who support British government policy are rewarded with contentious titles and access to the corridors of power which will ultimately decide on the future of the islands.

Those who oppose the British government’s policy are ostracised, excluded and alienated.  That they happen to represent the overwhelming majority of Chagossian opinion is completely unacceptable.  The Foreign Office cannot pick and choose who they will work with based on this subjective test.

Vincatassin has a role to play in the future of the Chagos Islands.  But the role he must fulfil must be aligned to the position he occupies: as the leader of the smallest group of Chagossians.  To suddenly distort the marginalised voice as being representative of the wider community is manipulation of the highest order and must not be tolerated.

The Gloves Are Coming Off

Sabrina Jean, Chair of the UK branch of the Chagos Refugees Group (CRG), reminded me last week that it had been a year since the 2012 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of the UK Chagos Support Association (UKChSA).  A significant milestone because it marked the start of the process that saw me elected to the committee in order to become the new editor of the monthly newsletter.  It was another chapter of my involvement with the UKChSA which begun in autumn 2004- just another person transformed from the broadcast of THAT documentary.

When I took on the role, I made a promise to another supporter.  I explained how the death of Lisette Talatte had made me realise that supporters needed to act with more urgency.  It was the catalyst that made me look at my own contribution to the battle for justice and in doing so “raise my game”. 

I think the realisation that someone as recognisable as Lisette should leave us was a stark reminder that the first generation of Chagossians was elderly and dying out.  Soon like the Dodo, they would be just a footnote in history.

So here was an opportunity to walk the walk.  A chance to take on a role in the UK which some supporters have referred to as being one of the most important positions within the UKChSA.  The newsletter is the main source of information for people interested in the cause and also serves as a signpost for future forthcoming events or matters of importance. It summarises recent news developments while also shaping the agenda for the month ahead and can serve to influence supporters to navigate their efforts in a particular direction.

I came into the role with my own ideas.  While not in anyway diminishing the sterling efforts of my predecessor (Celia Whittaker), there was a growing feeling which I shared that the overall age of people within our support network was too old and required an urgent injection of younger faces.  Fresh ideas were needed to steer the association onto a more radical path.  This was maintaining the buzz word for 2012: urgency.  Almost immediately I was pulled up by Celia who rightly explained that while it was not impossible to promote my own ideas from within, it would have to be a gradual process. To deviate from the “tried and tested” way of doing things would alienate too many supporters during a delicate period of transition.

A supporter remarked to me a month ago (still at a time when the disappointment of Strasbourg was fresh in the memory) that he felt there was a change in the mood of the British government towards the Chagossian community.  Something identified before the initial responses of the Foreign Office to the Strasbourg ruling, so clearly not a result of events just before Christmas.  He went on to suggest that Chagossians should be seen as loyal subjects of the Queen who were disappointed but grateful to those in Parliament who are trying to help.

I’m not sure Sabrina would entirely concur with those sentiments and I think she has her finger on the pulse of both the Mauritian and UK based communities more than most.  Yet the broader point was ultimately true: there is indeed a change of mood. 

When the Argentinean President brought the Falkland Islands issue back into the news last month which drew a robust response from the British government, there was no need to highlight the inconsistencies between the Falklands and the Chagos Islands.  Coming so soon after Strasbourg, the double standards and hypocrisy were plain for all to see.  For the first time commentators were lining up to point out the differences.

This is significant.  It means that our voice has been heard, and for the first time we can hear the echo of our arguments being relayed by others.  There have been times when working on this cause has resembled the futile action of banging one’s head against a brick wall.  We knew there was an injustice, and that the time to rectify this was long overdue.  But our voices were being systematically ignored, and we looked on enviously as the Gurkhas successfully integrated a celebrity into their campaign which almost overnight transformed their fortunes.

I have likened the recent declaration of support from the former deputy Prime Minister John Prescott as being our “Joanna Lumley” moment.  With the greatest of respect to Ben Fogle and Philippa Gregory (joint patrons of the UKChSA) the kind of pulling power that somebody like Prescott can bring to our cause is astronomical.  On one level, his political connections are invaluable.  Here is somebody who was at the very top of government for a decade.  Yet his political clout only tells part of the story.  Here is an instantly recognisable figure, irrespective of whether you share an interest in politics.

The next UKChSA AGM will take place next month, and there are a number of areas which Sabrina and I are currently exploring which we believe will enable us to work more effectively as an organisation.  Both the flagship website and official social network accounts are woefully undermanaged, in many cases updated several days after a major development occurs.  The work of supporters on such sites is invaluable and must be built upon, but the flagship bearers must be seen to be leading the way, effectively setting the agenda.  At the time of writing this post, the newsletter was published seven days ago and yet still is not on our website. 

That this has not been the case is not so much disappointing but an embarrassment to our organisation as a whole.  It demonstrates a complete lack of understanding of how such tools should be utilised.  To continue in its current format is unacceptable and cannot be tolerated for much longer.  As a matter of urgency this needs to be addressed.

Personally speaking 2012 was a learning experience, a time to understand where the boundaries laid and where they could be extended.  2013 is very much a case of focussing on the latter and working to move the organisation forward. 

The honeymoon is over and the gloves are coming off.  

Twitter Vs Facebook

I like to think of myself as something of a Twitter pioneer. 

I found the site before anyone I knew back in January 2009.  Admittedly it was to be a full 18 months from that first incarnation to evolve from the single tweet I had posted at that point.  As any user knows, there comes a time when you suddenly experience that moment which resembles an epiphany as everything just falls into place.  For me personally the platform represented an ideal resource for promoting the Chagos cause I work on, as well as sharing my renewed desire for writing.

Facebook on the other hand is something I really struggled with.  I guess my main failure was using the social network almost as I would use Twitter.  That was to try and engage people on the site with issues I felt strongly about.  Political campaigns, Chagos petitions, articles, documentaries, news reports and the rest.

A short while after experiencing that moment of truth on Twitter, I remember someone posting a tweet which to this day is the expression I have continued to quote since: 

"Twitter makes you want to have a drink with people you don’t know while Facebook makes you want to throw a drink over people you do know."

In the last twelve months I have become more and more disillusioned with the entire Facebook experience.  I struggled to understand where it could have a role to play in the changing world we inhibited, even more so as our use of the internet was geared towards mobile technology.

Yet a recent experience gave me an opportunity to analyse something which some of us are unfortunate to go through.  And if you’re like me, you get to ride the rollercoaster not twice but three times in eight years. 

Ten days ago my friend was shot dead in his own car.  Coupled with the events of September 2004 and December 2006 it was to be the third time that someone I knew was to be taken violently.  A second victim to gun crime alone.  The trouble with experiencing that much grief in such a short space of time is that when the next train pulls into the station, you can still see the lights from the departing carriage which hasn’t quite pulled away yet.  The result is that emotionally you are effectively crushed between the trains.

Given the fact that I had not been anything like into social networking as I had been in 2004 and 2006 as I was in 2012, it provided an opening for an interesting experiment to see how the platforms vary in terms of their usefulness when dealing with grief.  And it really didn’t take long to recognise the contrasting qualities as well.

Twitter doesn’t do personal or emotions.  It’s very clinical.  It doesn’t care that my friend left a four week old child behind, or that I had been with him two days before his death.  It doesn’t care who mourns him, the devastated family and friends who have even more questions to pose, none of which will be answered adequately.

Facebook is all about emotions; it cares about not just what is being felt, but by whom.  It provides the support structure to work through the initial trauma and shock all the way to the hope that is needed to overcome the despair.  It provides a forum for friends to come together to recall happier times, to reinforce the pleasant memories which seem so distant in the dark days after such an event.

It is here that we understand where the platforms help in different ways.  Facebook will provide a lot of the immediate assistance needed in the days that follow such a tragedy.  Twitter is incapable of providing anything like this in the aftermath of such disruption, but will provide the stage for the long term questions which will arise once the initial dust has settled.

Twitter will be the platform which will answer the broader questions such as why gun crime is once again rising in Nottingham after almost a decade of continual decline.  It will analyse the social impacts of the event, in much wider terms.  It will offer long term solutions to the conundrums which will prevent another family going through the grief of burying their son or daughter.

Facebook cannot replicate this; such discussions are largely ignored or even bypassed by members of our network for fear of evoking controversial confrontations with people we otherwise get on with.  (Or you could be like my aunt and just fire the equivalent of a nuclear missile anyway!)

And herein lies the key difference: we reserve total and complete jurisdiction over who we wish to follow on Twitter, while on Facebook we are largely confined to people we are related to, once worked with or went to school with.  The reality is we rarely find ourselves falling out with members of our Twitter network because they have been handpicked to reinforce our own views, usually politically.

It would appear that Facebook does have a role to play in the future of social networking.  There are some things that Twitter just cannot do.  As someone who probably holds the record for account deactivations in the last twelve months, I would probably say that is something positive to take away from the experience.  But going forwards, Twitter still represents the platform I will continue to utilise more, if only because with the past ten days aside, I am more concerned with the quest for justice for the Chagossians than how Jack and Jill are feeling today.

I was in a long term relationship during the episodes of 2004 and 2006, so even as someone who should know this bumpy road all too well, it was still a new journey for me to travel this time around.  A young lady provided a level of support and maturity which belied the fact that she was eight years younger than me.  Words will never begin to describe the debt of gratitude I owe, and this post is dedicated to her as well as Germaine, Duane and Natasha.

Cunning Chelsea Conspiracy Can't Catch Me Out

“Then put your little hand in mine, there ain’t no hill or mountain we can’t climb.  Babe.  I got you babe.”  The unmistakable melody of “I Got You Babe”, a track which became the background music to the 1993 Hollywood blockbuster “Groundhog Day” starring Bill Murray.

Visitors to my blog will start to feel like they are living out the nightmare of Phil from the movie, an unmistakable feeling of déjà vu that somehow we have been down this road before.  And we most certainly have.  As a matter of fact in the 22 months since I started this blog, the subject of race has cropped up no fewer than six times, which equates to just shy of a quarter of my posts.

This month alone I could have written about the ridiculous arguments which followed the decisions of Rio Ferdinand, Jason Roberts and several other players to refuse to wear “Kick It Out” T-Shirts as part of the “week of action”.  Indeed in some ways this is an extension of that debate.

As I have addressed previously, I am passionate about the subject of racism in football.  I love the sport but sadly I have been exposed to the unpleasant side of the beautiful game.  Granted, it was an experience at a young age, but one that nonetheless was to have a profound impact on my views in later life.

So I understand that some will struggle to comprehend my views today regarding the recent events involving controversial referee Mark Clattenburg and Chelsea’s Jon Obi Mikel and Juan Mata.  I am of the opinion that the story has been conceived in the Chelsea dressing room and is nothing more than a hideous attempt to amplify the sense of retribution against a referee who admittedly had a bad game. 

Ok that is wrong.  He didn’t have a bad game, he had an awful one.

The idea of referees favouring Manchester United is not a revolutionary theory.  It is one borne out of years of controversial “rubs of the green” which have been in favour of the club.  As an Arsenal fan we have not forgiven nor forgotten the highly contentious decisions which coincided with our visit to Old Trafford eight years ago this month.  A match which ended our record breaking forty-nine match unbeaten run.  The very name of Mike Riley is enough to turn even the most mild mannered of Arsenal fans into a mood of rage bordering on psychopathic tendencies.   Yes I do include myself in that assessment.

Riley made some dreadful decisions that day, many of which undermined the very integrity of referees as a whole.  In more recent times this has been replicated by referees such as Howard Webb and indeed Clattenburg.  Yet even in my wildest anger, I would never have suggested that the source of such decisions were ever based on racism.  It was unashamed favouritism without a shadow of a doubt, though never racism.

Last weekend Chelsea Football Club made two very serious allegations about the conduct of Mark Clattenburg.  They centre around the idea that he racially abused Mikel and used inappropriate language against Mata.  If this allegation had been made by the vast majority of other clubs, I would probably take it a little more seriously.

That it is being pursued by Chelsea makes the matter for me a lot easier to judge.  This is the club that allowed its player, Ashley Cole, to enter a court of law and lie under oath in order to ensure that its captain, John Terry, was acquitted of racially abusing Queens Park Rangers defender Anton Ferdinand.  This is the club that refused to sack Terry as captain, despite being found guilty by the Football Association of the same offence.

That’s right Chelsea.  The same Chelsea who sacked two players in the last decade over drugs and attempted to take the moral high ground by stating that they were a family club.  That’s right; this was all about morality and not a convenient opportunity to offload two out of favour players minus a lucrative pay off to terminate their contract.  Interesting then that their moral compass was nowhere to be seen when they failed to sack Terry, or Cole for that matter.

Of course it is possible that the allegations regarding Mikel and Mata are true, and that Clattenburg did indeed take the scourge of racism in football to another dimension.  In the months and years to follow this will look like a very ill-judged piece.  But I will argue that for someone like myself to draw such conclusions shows how far the reputation of Chelsea has been dragged through the gutter recently.  To the extent that the club has lodged a very serious complaint and I along with others have dismissed the idea out of hand as being a conspiracy dreamt up amidst the bitterness of a first defeat of the season.

Heard It All Before (Had To Shut You Down)

Trust is an unusual attribute.  It can take an eternity to earn and be lost in the blink of an eye.  Once someone or something’s credibility is eroded, it is gone and the notion of trust is lost.  We see this everywhere in daily life from marriage breakdowns to chapters of employment drawing to a premature conclusion.  It is something we all accept, a common social norm, cardinal to the rules which define the society we live in.

So why is it then that the vast majority of people in this country still reject these social rules when it comes to dealing with the police? 

Certain police forces resemble the serial adulterers at times (you know the ones I mean).  The one who breaks their partner’s heart a thousand times or more, and yet they are taken back time and time again.  We all look at the downtrodden partner with bemusement, many with pity. But we are in no doubt that they are foolish and should stop placing their unwavering faith in this untrustworthy person who deserves their loyalty no more.

And I must at this stage make the distinction because unfortunately one can make lazy sweeping generalisations which place everything together and it is wrong.  For example I have lived in the East Midlands for eleven years now, ten of those in Nottingham.  Reflecting on that period, I do not hold the dossier of stories which I have previously highlighted.

In some ways Nottinghamshire Police are very different from their London counterparts.  I do not remember seeing Nottingham officers on duty for the carnival performing an embarrassing “wiggle” which looks like your uncle at one of those 90s family reunions.  Like the boring images that are so cliché of Notting Hill Carnival for example.  I can be tedious and highlight Nottinghamshire’s failure to apprehend James Brodie, but one can forgive such a blemish when remembering that there is little concrete evidence to support the theory that Brodie is even still alive.

The way in which Nottingham has been rehabilitated from the lawless wild west of less than a decade ago is an achievement which they must also take credit for.  Not solely.  But they deserve to be commended all the same.

No.  This is not about Nottinghamshire Police.  This is specifically about two police forces, one of which I have written about twice in the past.  The other is a force who I hold in the same contempt as the Thatcher government for their role in the miners’ dispute of the mid 1980s.

The reasons why I hold the views have been addressed previously so will avoid going over old ground again.  Instead I wish to focus on recent news, and how related to the context of those historical events, the time has come to approach the issue of our relationship with these two forces in a more enterprising and contemporary way.

The release of the Hillsborough files have confirmed what people who relate to views outlined in my previous posts have long since suspected.  That South Yorkshire Police deflected attention from their own failures in the disaster by slandering the reputations of Liverpool fans in the form of doctored evidence and downright lies.  Actions which took place 23 years ago granted, but which were as good as repeated during Sir Norman Bettison’s initial reaction to the report last week with the following response:

"Fans' behaviour, to the extent that it was relevant at all, made the job of the police, in the crush outside Leppings Lane turnstiles, harder than it needed to be.”

The obvious suggestion will be to throw Sir Norman out of the force, despite his subsequent apology, which naturally should be welcomed.  But how on earth does this solve the wider problem which led to the culture of corruption that didn’t just affect a police officer here or there, but practically everyone who was involved with the investigation into the Hillsborough disaster.  And what about those who helped to conceal all of this?  We are no longer talking about purging a few bad eggs, we are looking at an entire force decayed to its roots.

This, coupled with conduct during the mid 1980s at the time of the miners’ dispute, poses severe questions as to whether this force has the confidence of the public it is supposed to serve.  The scars of these episodes will serve as reminders for years to come, anytime an issue arises questioning the integrity of this force; people will question whether they are being furnished with the full story.  This break down in trust will not be repaired.  It will be borne into the collective DNA of anybody in that part of the country, and indeed anyone else who for one or reason or another will have dealings with this force in the future.  It will haunt them like the scar of Cain from the biblical tale for generations to come.  The term South York’s police will become a paraphrase in modern popular culture which will be defined as corruption, dishonesty and serial abuses of authority.

It is a lot like the Metropolitan Police in London, although they are a bit further down the road.  They have already had their “Hillsborough report moment” in the form of the Macpherson Report.  But we have the benefit of being a decade down the road to realise that this force is just as loathed as it was then, if not perhaps more so, if that was even possible.  Names of victims of their disgraceful conduct when attempting to conceal their mistakes are so imprinted on our minds that a collection of terms require no further explanation: Sylvestor, De Menezes, Duggan, Tomlinson, Hackgate.  All of which took place after the force was supposed to be improving, when the mistakes of the past were supposed to have been addressed.

Recently Andrew Mitchell has found himself caught up in an almighty row over a bicycle and a Downing Street gate.  It is alleged that he swore at a police officer who was supervising the entrance gates.  It has all boiled down to a politician’s word against that of a police officer.  Politicians don’t exactly have the best reputation but it is still interesting to see how the public immediately takes the police officer’s account of events at face value, as if it is inconceivable that a police officer would lie. 

I mean why on earth would a police officer lie?

We then hear the reaction of the Police Federation and all of a sudden there is a fishy smell of manipulation in the air.  The same kind of stench that was billowing out across the country last summer during social unrest as politicians lined up to denounce the cuts against the police.

So what do we do?

The solution is staring us in the face.  When institutions have become discredited, they cannot be saved.  To return to the theme of an unscrupulous lover who lets us down: we need a divorce- a full and final settlement.  We can’t go on pretending that they will change their ways when history shows us that they never will.  The names and victims will change, but the similarities are frightful.

Now before anybody wonders, I am not proposing we abolish the police as an institution and live in a society which resembles the scene from Robocop 2 when law and order breaks down.  A vacuum from the absence of a police force would lead to social mutiny and cannot be tolerated in any modern society.  Not one that would be expecting to function with accepted social rules anyway.

However the time has come to have an informed debate about adopting examples set in Northern Ireland and assessing the merits of a long term solution to the issue of credibility.  This is the territory which had a police force, the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), who sometimes appeared to be an extension of the Unionist movement and were not considered to be meeting the needs of the Catholic community.  By the end of the 20^th century they lacked the authority to perform their roles.  The proposal to disband the RUC was met with derision at the time but over a decade on the replacement force, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), doesn’t possess the same historical baggage.  It is allowed to perform its day to day duties without the shadows of human rights abuses against children for example.

Were all of the RUC dishonourable?  That’s a difficult one to answer with any degree of certainty.  I prefer instead to use the fruit bowl analogy, and I repeat it a lot when I talk about institutions like the Metropolitan Police.  The theory goes that good, honest and honourable people go into the Metropolitan Police with the best of intentions: to uphold the law.  Sadly they are exposed to unethical, usually illegal, behaviour within a culture of corruption.  The end result is that they too eventually become part of the landscape.  Just like a fresh healthy selection of fruit, placed in a bowl of rotten produce long past their best, which should have been hurled into the garbage many moons ago.  We hope that the new fruit will bring healthy life back to the rotten flesh, that in time it may indeed become edible again.  But it’s not.  The result is that the entire bowl becomes contaminated and inedible.  Do we throw the bowl away?  We should.  But instead we go back to the shop and purchase even more fresh fruit under this misguided philosophy that somehow we can reverse the laws of nature. 

We cannot make rotten fruit good no more than we can hope that a bad police force can be turned around.  We have to finally reach the point where we say enough is enough and draw a line and start again.

It will be expensive, disruptive and will upset a lot of people.  But it is a short term pain to ensure that we find a long term remedy. To carry on, in the vain and deluded hope that “this time they will change” is not just silly but pathetic.  We have to face the truth and shut down the police forces which no longer retain the faith of the public.  To not do so is living in denial and resembling the gullible partner who takes their philandering partner back “one last time” despite accepting that the final chance had long since been spurned. 

I am not hearing this anymore.  It is like white noise to me.  Because as Sunshine Anderson once said so eloquently, I really have heard it all before.

Vulgar Vultures

Channel 4 Television approaches its thirtieth year of broadcasting this November.  They have rightly earned plaudits for their readiness to push the boundaries of what otherwise may be found from the stables of other broadcasters.  This can be traced back to their approaches to soap operas, in the form of Brookside, to their commitment to American Football, long before the sport had a fanbase here.

Channel 4 was created two years before the first Olympics to generate a profit, the games of Los Angeles 1984.  That it should happen just 8 years after the loss making debacle of Montreal was remarkable, an Olympiad which became a byword in later years for irresponsible financial planning. 

Channel 4 held no broadcasting rights to the 1984 Olympics.  4 years later, in conjunction with ITV, the fledgling broadcaster covered its first Olympic games.  The BBC, as always, provided round the clock coverage supplemented by their daytime recorded coverage.  ITV and Channel 4 shared the rights, with the former providing daytime recorded coverage from overnight events while Channel 4 broadcasted live through the night.  ITV was the senior partner in the relationship, mainly due to their history of covering several previous Olympic games.

Channel 4 and ITV never covered an Olympics again due to the fact that they were not considered commercially viable.  An example of this is best illustrated by the struggle for advertisers which Channel 4 attempted to fulfil resulting in the broadcaster often being forced to fill designated slots of adverts with musical montages due to the absence of commercials.  ITV as the daytime Olympic broadcaster did not suffer the same embarrassment which meant it was a case of Channel 4 sustaining heavy losses for their one and only foray into the Olympics.

The BBC held the rights to the 2012 London Olympics, and thanks to an extension to the deal earlier this year, will be exclusively hosting the games until at least 2020.  Apparently there was no possibility of any commercial broadcaster hijacking the glittering potential of an event which would only occur once in our lifetime.  It represented an Aladdin’s cave of revenue for any commercial broadcaster and yet somehow Channel 4 is creaming off the benefits.

Just how was this possible?

In the summer of 2010 Channel 4 were awarded the rights to the 2011 and 2013 editions of the IAAF World Athletics Championships, an event which had been broadcast solely by the BBC since it made its bow in 1983.  The capture was significant because these World Championships would take place either side of the London 2012 Olympics.  A hugely significant window coinciding with a period when commercial interest in Athletics would peak in the UK.

The move raised eyebrows within media circles and followed on the back of events six months earlier in 2010, when the rights for the 2012 London Paralympics were surprisingly awarded to Channel 4 Television.   Critically the broadcaster pledged more money accompanied by more hours of broadcasting on their flagship channel. 

The BBC had broadcast every Paralympics since 1980 and would have been seen as a long term “safe pair of hands” to continue to invest in Disability sports beyond the peak of 2012.  They had won several awards for their coverage of not just the Paralympics, but many other sports including wheelchair tennis as part of their Wimbledon output.

Channel 4 defended their sudden, albeit incredibly convenient, interest in both Athletics and Disability sport with claims that they wanted to provide an innovative approach to broadcasting these sports.  It was a credible assertion at the time, given their history of covering minority sports. 

But upon closer inspection this is nothing of the sort.  The 2011 World Athletics Championships were heavily criticised in terms of UK TV coverage thanks to the organisation.  This is further reinforced by the fact that the 2012 Paralympics TV coverage is fronted by a team hired from the BBC.  Jonathan Edwards and Claire Balding are amongst the names that have been leased by Channel 4 Television for the duration of the games.  A host of other commentators and analysts also make up the contingent. Far from offering something new and innovative, the BBC team has simply been temporarily outsourced to a commercial organisation. 

Channel 4 has no long term interest in Athletics, a fact demonstrated when the BBC won back the rights to the 2015 and 2017 World Athletics Championships.  The rights to the 2016 Paralympic games in Rio will be awarded in two years time, but it doesn’t take Nostradamus to predict that the Paralympics will be returning to the BBC.

How can one be so sure?  Well the Olympics will be airing at hours that are commercially undesirable for Channel 4 and they will once again promote commercial needs above and beyond their duties as a public service broadcaster, as has been seen in the period since 1988.  Already Channel 4 have shown in the first 24 hours how their commercial needs take precedence.  The high volume of commercial breaks has upset some and the coverage being shunted off to an obscure sister station to make way for commercially valuable Channel 4 programming such as Deal or No Deal probably won’t have impressed games organisers LOCOG either. 

Therefore the notion that Channel 4 is trying to promote minority sports is invalid.  They are capitalising on a unique commercial opportunity to serve their own agendas.  A dubious honour at the best of times, but when you consider that what is being exploited are minority sports, then it makes the whole episode all the more vulgar.

Exploiting a minority is not why Channel 4 was established.  It goes against the very grain of the identity and fabric this organisation was intended to be.  If the broadcaster is serious about committing to minority sports then it should do so long term rather than its current ruthless strategy of opportunistic “cherry picking”.

Channel 4 needs to remember why it was created and the function it is intended to perform.  At present it resembles a vulture, reaping the rewards of everyone else’s years of investment, all in the name of a lucrative pay off to probably off-set the loss of that perennial money spinner Big Brother.