Uploaded May 2024 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Britain’s police, Dalrymple notes, today are as far away from Peel, with his concept of citizens in uniform, as it is possible to go. Increasingly they resemble a fascist paramilitary militia, with all the paraphernalia of repression dangling about them (which fortunately many of them are too fat to use). These are words from the Book of Common Prayer: ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’ Britain’s police have taken this not as a confession but as a blueprint. They are being expected to become totalitarian. The procedures of the police today are comical in their byzantine complexity. If there were any justice in the world, many of Britain’s police, especially senior police officers, would be arrested for wasting police time. The police protect our feelings but not our property. They are shepherds to us all, but are indifferent to wolves.
Britain’s police, Dalrymple notes, today are as far away from Peel, with his concept of citizens in uniform, as it is possible to go. Increasingly they resemble a fascist paramilitary militia, with all the paraphernalia of repression dangling about them (which fortunately many of them are too fat to use). These are words from the Book of Common Prayer: ‘We have left undone those things which we ought to have done, and we have done those things which we ought not to have done.’ Britain’s police have taken this not as a confession but as a blueprint. They are being expected to become totalitarian. The procedures of the police today are comical in their byzantine complexity. If there were any justice in the world, many of Britain’s police, especially senior police officers, would be arrested for wasting police time. The police protect our feelings but not our property. They are shepherds to us all, but are indifferent to wolves.
