Dunno like, the Queen had a great knack for being a bit of a cipher but she wasn't exactly a closet Republican, it seems to me that to whatever extent she did prefer less pomp it was only to avoid drawing attention to attempts to preserve The Firm's wealth, influence, and protect its black sheep.
CityCyclingEdinburgh Forum » Stuff
Operation London Bridge now Operation Unicorn
(135 posts)-
Posted 1 year ago #
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Also why would someone shouting Nonce at a certain Prince be arrested?
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm not particularly comfortable with that arrest either, but I can see how they could justify a "breach of the peace" charge given the fairly loose definition around that and especially with it being at a funeral procession. I don't think he'll have a problem finding a lawyer to argue that it was justifiably free speech though...
Posted 1 year ago # -
Well
To some degree for their own safety, some sections of the crowd were ‘physically unhappy’…
But
Why actually charged?
State in action.
This was outside Fettes HQ on Monday.
Carrington Road was even fuller - “road closed”, “tow away zone” - plus police road blocks at each end (free access to bikes with large panniers…)
For COP26, lots of police officer carriers, this time mostly cars. People seconded in from all over?
Posted 1 year ago # -
The definition around breach of the peace doesn't seem all that loose anywhere except the minds of the cops/PF and the daily mail comment section. No rational person could seriously believe their behaviour meets the test of "conduct severe enough to cause alarm to ordinary people and threaten serious disturbance to the community", and there's acres of caselaw that will ensure this nonsense is thrown out if it ever gets as far as an actual court.
This is being done for one or more of three reasons: the cops involved are monarchists who lack the ability to separate their feelings from their job, the cops involved are thugs on a power trip or are just genuine imbeciles who don't understand the law, or the cops involved have been given instructions to make arrests they know won't stick in order to have a chilling effect on further protest. Whichever it is, it's a <rule 2> affront.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I'm not sure why the young lad was arrested, but he was certainly from the video I saw was in the process of being 'removed' by members of the public.
The police officer had to pick him up off the ground to arrest him, so some 'ordinary people' had been alarmed enough to put him on the ground.
I don't know technicalities, but would it have been in Police's gift to remove him from the situation (for his own safety) without arresting him?
I'd be really surpised if he ended up in court.
Posted 1 year ago # -
So police stopped a situation getting ugly with the powers available to them? News at 10.
If they'd not detained him and he returned and got badly beaten the same people decrying his arrest would be complaining the police didn't do enough to protect him.
Posted 1 year ago # -
This^
Posted 1 year ago # -
Yep, again before the Police intervened the lad was mouthing off to those who had placed him gently on the ground.
I am of the opinion if the police hadn't intervened, less gentle persuasion to quieten him would have happened, iminnently.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Pratchet via Vimes sums it up nicely for me...
Keep the peace. That was the thing. People often failed to understand what that meant. You'd go to some life-threatening disturbance, like a couple of neighbors scrapping in the street over who owned the hedge between their properties, and they'd both be bursting with aggrieved self-righteousness, both yelling, their wives would either be having a private scrap on the side or would have adjourned to a kitchen for a shared pot of tea and a chat, and they all expected you to sort it out.And they could never understand that it wasn't your job. Sorting it out was a job for a good surveyor and a couple of lawyers, maybe. Your job was to quell the impulse to bang their stupid fat heads together, to ignore the affronted speeches of dodgy self-justification, to get them to stop shouting, and to get them off the street. Once that had been achieved, you job was over. You weren't some walking god, dispensing finely tuned natural justice. Your job was simply to bring back peace.
Night Watch
Posted 1 year ago # -
See that's funny, because if I rolled up to a situation where someone was exercising their right to protest and a bunch of people were intimidating them and even physically restraining them, it would be the thugs that had him on the ground I'd be arresting. You know, the ones committing an assault?
But that's just me.
Regardless, "moving someone along for their own safety" and "arresting and charging someone with a crime" are not synonymous. Given it's the latter the police have done, excusing their behaviour on the basis of the former seems like an odd tack to take.
Again though, that's just me.
Also, using literally-descended-from-a-famous-regicide and noted disliker-of-authority Vimes to defend the police suppressing legal anti-monarchy protest might just be one of the most ironic things I've ever seen in my life.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Cba.
Posted 1 year ago # -
The lad was learning a couple of important life lessons - well he was until the Police ended class.
Sometimes you should be seen and not heard.
Also there's a time and place for things. Many people there (probably including me (not there)) might agree with his assessment of Andrew, however voicing that at what is essentially a funeral procession is not the place to voice it.
He was also learning to show respect for the dead, or at least he would have if the police hadn't intervened.Posted 1 year ago # -
“Regardless, "moving someone along for their own safety" and "arresting and charging someone with a crime" are not synonymous.”
Think that’s the key issue here.
His action was disrespectful and unwise but almost certainly not illegal.
It might be interesting to discover if his ‘outburst’ was actually planned.
Posted 1 year ago # -
Was it a legal anti-monarchy protest? Or was it some bloke abusing a man walking behind his mother's funeral car?
I suppose it's easy to see what you want from a few seconds worth of video clip. Things probably looked very different to people on scene. Ultimately, any decision on what happened, and whether it constitutes an offence, is a matter for the courts.
Personally, I don't think the few instances of police action represent some attack on freedom of speech - but spur of the moment responses to attention seeking toddlers looking to provoke a reaction.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I don't much like the idea that police think they should arrest people who "might cause offence".
Disorder strikes me as relatively easy to identify, but offence? problematic.
Posted 1 year ago # -
@SRD - I agree. I suppose it gets tricky when someone, by intentionally seeking to cause offence, might create disorder. Should the police wait until the disorder starts, or pre-empt that by removing the person? Even the ECHR allows Governments to limit the right to freedom of expression for the purposes of public safety and for the prevention of disorder.
Might interest you to know that the Hate Crime and Public Order (Scotland) Act 2021 created an offence of "Stirring up hatred" which, in certain defined circumstances, criminalises "insulting" behaviour. Which is getting a bit too close to criminalising causing offence for my liking.
Posted 1 year ago # -
I don't much like the idea that police think they should arrest people who "might cause offence".
In this instance I don't think there is any question the chap was causing offence.
Posted 1 year ago # -
This whole area of law is really weird. The idea that it should be a crime to cause offence, when people can choose literally anything to get offended about. It seems to me that it might have been wise for the police to move an isolated protester on (for their own good) the fact that people are being arrested and charged for e.g. shouting 'who elected him' feels very dangerous.
Posted 1 year ago # -
“
As youngsters, both the prime minister and Keir Starmer were in favour of abolishing the monarchy. They have first-hand knowledge not only of republican feeling but also of the wider ambivalence that often greets the royal family. Yet they haven’t even tried to represent this pluralism of opinion, which is one of the defining features of any democracy. Instead what we get is a grand show of state power, complete with the army, the navy and the BBC’s Nick Witchell.
“
Posted 1 year ago # -
“
Certainly, the event is bound to be more pointed than usual, with Charles’s announcement that William would become Prince of Wales – Tywysog Cymru – going down badly with many nationalists and republicans.
By Wednesday, almost 25,000 people had signed a petition calling for the title to be abolished and activists have vowed to protest at the ceremonies in the Welsh capital.
“
Posted 1 year ago # -
@morningsider don't know if you ever lurk on twitter but there was a @peatworrier thread a few days ago emphasising that the Hate Crime law was not relevant in these cases. but agree that it seems to be a similar principle.
In Canada we have a constitutional clause called "POGG" also known as the notwithstanding clause, which says that "notwithstanding" any of the human rights in the Declaration of Rights, government can abrogate them in the interests of "Peace order and Good Government.
But have no idea how they tackle offense.
Posted 1 year ago # -
A twitter thread to cheer the morning...
Robert
Posted 1 year ago # -
but apparently last night the queue was moving far more slowly than the Scottish queue, as in fewer people per hour...
Posted 1 year ago # -
Another 'non mainstream' essay.
https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/queen-death-charles-united-kingdom-scotland-union/
Posted 1 year ago # -
@Baldcyclist Wait up, aren't you Mister Follow The Law You Scallywags? Or does all that go out the window when the target of someone's illegal behaviour is someone you also dislike/disagree with. I mean, just so we're clear - deflating tyres is bad and wrong and makes you a crim wot should get the book thrown attem', but physically assaulting someone you disagree with is situationally A-OK because "they were asking for it"?
@Morningsider
Was it a legal anti-monarchy protest? Or was it some bloke abusing a man walking behind his mother's funeral car?
"A man" being Prince Andrew, noted non-sweating chum of Epstein? And the funeral car would be for HM Queen Elizabeth, noted payer of bribes to quiet down troublesome young girls accusing the previous of improprieties(in addition to a laundry list of other objectionable things, but in context the main issue seems to be her support of Andrew)?
They both sound like perfectly legitimate targets of protest to me, and as always, it's never "the time" to protest these kinds of people - when they're alive it's disrespecting UR QUEEN, when they're dead it's disrespecting their memory, and once the mourning is over it's ancient history what are you still banging on about that for get over it move on etc etc.
Personally, I don't think the few instances of police action represent some attack on freedom of speech - but spur of the moment responses to attention seeking toddlers looking to provoke a reaction.
Ah well, so long as the police are merely falsely arresting people because they're incompetents who apparently forgot all their training on de-escalation, crowd management, and what actually constitutes illegal behaviour that's all right then. Offloading the responsibility to the courts is a cop-out(aha) and surely you must know that - again, because nobody seems willing to address the point; it was entirely within the police's power to simply move these people on, there was no necessity whatsoever to arrest and charge them, and since police officers are supposedly professionals trained to exercise their discretion the fact they *chose* to do so is on them and nobody else.
And I wonder, what would you consider legitimate protest by reasonable adults - a nice petition? Maybe a firey wee letter to the EEN. Or is it just the time and place, so holding signs and shouting a bit is fine, so long as it's done nice and far away both temporally and physically from anyone or anywhere it might actually be noticed.
The Royal Family are spending a small fortune of public money in the middle of one of the worst cost of living crises in memory to have a big public two week long megafuneral where they *invite* the presence and comment of their "subjects", and since everyone is paying for it I don't see why the only people allowed to attend and make comments are the people who want to fawn over them.
Posted 1 year ago # -
On a lighter note I heard playground talk this morning where one parent was telling a group that "Sturgeon was furious that the Queen deliberately died in Scotland".
I didn't hear a lot of the rest of it but she did go on to talk a bit about Indy not happening now because of public opinion changing, and how dare the Queen etc.
The rumour mill eh!
Posted 1 year ago # -
"deliberately died"
Posted 1 year ago # -
it was entirely within the police's power to simply move these people on, there was no necessity whatsoever to arrest and charge them
Had the chap been likely to just have gone about his business after the catch and release it would have been fine. But he's already demonstrated he's angry/stupid enough to pick a fight with a crowd of thousands who don't want him there. Odds are he'd have gone down the street and started again.
The police job is to maintain the peace, the copper on the ground made the call the safest thing for all concerned was to have this guy in custody. You can second guess that all you like but you weren't there so who cares.
After that should he have been released without charge, probably. Were there extenuating circumstances, we'll probably never know.
Posted 1 year ago #
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