Are you, or have you ever been…?

One very disturbing report today highlights a Metropolitan Police briefing that members of the public should report anyone they think harbours 'anarchist' beliefs.

We'll leave aside that fact that anarchists haven't committed any notable crimes since 1910, and that was dubious: the Siege of Sidney Street featured some politically connected men - the most notorious of whom may never have existed - but they were essentially burglars.

In fact, it strikes me that most of the political and terrorist crimes committed in the history of humanity have been in the name of organised ideologies of left or right. Despite the evasions of Melanie Phillips, Fox News and Co., the Norwegian massacre was committed by a man with an internally consistent rightwing ideology nurtured by their hysteria.

Anarchism - the concept that humanity is naturally co-operative, and therefore does not need states and governments (there are left and right versions) - might be simplistic and idealistic, but it's rarely violent. All the anarchists I've met have resorted to the method of plying me with nasty cider and bad weed, in corners of student parties. Rarely have I felt the social structure to be under threat.

It's also not illegal. Nor is fascism, communism, or extreme religious world-views. That is - or rather was - the point of freedom. You can think what you want. It's when you impose that position on others using coercive methods that you become a criminal. Obviously there are real-world limits on this: the UK is currently bombing Libya's government for being oppressive while selling weapons to Saudi Arabia to help it behave oppressively, but that's an argument for another day.

The basic idea is this: you can't legislate for thought, though you can educate. But now the police have decided that anarchists are a threat and should be investigated simply for their thoughts. Who's next? We know that environmentalists are already spied on. Socialists? Liberals? Meanwhile, Breivik and his British allies - who view violence as a cleansing, healthy thing per se - carry on bombing.

I know who I think is more fundamentally threatening to democracy: a police force, lacking responsible oversight, which arbitrarily sets limits on political thought. Perhaps that's what comes of dining too often with the News of the World.

Ironically, the sight of the cops singling out anarchists for thought-crime neatly demonstrates one anarchism's central tenets: that states always become oppressive, whatever their intentions. I don't entirely agree: only capitalist and pseudo-communist states inevitably degenerate in this way, but the Metropolitan Police are doing their best to make it certain.

Blair Peach - justice never done

Blair Peach was a young, peaceful New Zealand teacher who was murdered by the Metropolitan Police during an anti-fascist demonstration in 1979. An élite paramilitary unit, the Special Patrol Group piled out of their van, killed him with an illegal weapon, then lied about their presence. Despite a long investigation, including raids on their lockers and homes, none of the officers was prosecuted, despite 14 eye-witnesses and an internal police report - released today - which identifies the six officers, though the names are censored in today's release. They still aren't going to be charged with any of the offences committed while killing Peach and covering it up subsequently.

They haven't gone away: the SPG became the Territorial Support Group, a member of which killed Ian Tomlinson.

Peach's killer may be one of these five SPG officers, or another one I can't find a name for (with the illegal weapons found in their possession). Murray is now a lecturer in 'corporate social responsibility' at Sheffield University, ironically.

- PC "Chalkie" White: crowbar, small metal cosh (which he attempted to hide during the search), whip handle, whip, brass handle.
- PC Woodcock: US type truncheon, two knives.

- Inspector Hopkins: very large wooden truncheon.
- PC Greville Bint: Nazi regalia and memorabilia, a lead weighted cosh, bayonets    and swords.
- Inspector Alan Murray - resigned from the force in protest against the investigation.

This is an alternative list of names, printed at the time. I don't know which version is correct and the new report won't help. Freestone, Scottow, Richardson and Lake are names new to me, but White and Murray appear on both. I doubt Murray did it - he was a senior officer - but he was clearly an apologist for the tactics and attitudes of the SPG and bears the moral responsibility. 

No thanks, Coppers

The police have been roundly criticised, including by their own investigations teams, for their handling of legal protests - they've beaten, harassed and maliciously arrested innocent people. So they're on a charm offensive, and are running a slick PR campaign which claims that all those nasty male coppers wading in boots-first are going to be replaced with nice mumsy officers bearing cups of tea for thirsty sloganeers.

Climate Camp aren't impressed and have declined Plod's request for advance notice of the address of the new super-secret action base:

'ello 'ello 'ello

Last night I watched ITV! Worse than that, I watched In the Line of Fire, a fly-on-the-wall 'documentary' about CO19, the Metropolitan Police's armed squad. It was clearly part of the coppers' post-Menezes PR push, so I was curious to see how they'd deal with that episode. In the end, it was handled with kid gloves - the critical comments weren't presented by the narrator but relegated to clips from news broadcasts and pictures of newspaper hoardings - as though the narrator couldn't bring himself to utter any criticism of the police. The head of CO19 was filmed giving his position without any questions - so there was no chance to challenge him. No mention at all was made of the jury's decision to disbelieve key police claims about the circumstances of the shooting. 

The effect, therefore, was to remove any credibility: this wasn't a documentary, it was a hagiography, shading into propaganda. No doubt the circumstances of gaining access to the squad implicitly required a positive spin, but the whole exercise smacks of a concerted public relations exercise on behalf of the police, and of spineless, lazy TV programming by a media which is becoming increasingly rightwing. I was quite amused to see India 99 appear on the show - it's the police helicopter which has its own show, Sky Cops on the BBC. That's a postmodern moment. Will the In The Line Of Fire incident appear in the next series of the Jamie Theakston-narrated show? Are there any police cars without a TV crew? 

I do think that this mindless deification of the police across all channels for the sake of exciting pictures of 'goodies' v. 'baddies' is dangerous. There's never any questioning of policing methods (why are they all in cars?) Aren't they ever wrong? If anyone remembers the Guildford 4, Birmingham 6, West Midlands Serious Crime Squad, Miners' Strike or any of the peace, poll tax, anti-capitalism, anti-war or anti-racism protests, you'll know that policing is (and always has been) far more nuanced. More than that, these shows promulgate the idea that crime is a matter of 'good' working class people protecting 'us' from 'bad' working class people - devoid of social context. I don't remember any shows following the activities of the Serious Fraud Office or any of the other operations going after white-collar crime - though perhaps that's because such operations are usually failures. It's far easier to pretend that crime is all about drunk black teenagers nicking cars and claiming too much child support rather than bankers defrauding us all of billions of pounds.