Let's hope that the broadsheets have the courage to take this up, along with the scandalous way in which the Metropolitan police have (literally) submitted to blackmail - but I'm not expecting any comfort on this tomorrow ... or next week either come to that. More likely that the Guardian will find some sniffy take to suggest that Superintendent Peter Schofield is "seriously disturbed". That's the usual lefty line, isn't it?

The Met and the police in general seem to be caught in a trap of either being racist or appeasing ethnic minorities. But that is not the real problem in the police. Corruption of one sort or another is 'natural' in any human endeavour. What really disturbs me and most citizens, is that the police has failed to discharge its primary responsibility ie the protection of the law abiding community from the criminal and hooligan parts of the same.

In some respects it has become like the Anglican Church, pontificating about Iraq and gay bishops, while forgetting its prime responsibilty of the Christian mission to ordinary people, here in Britain and elsewhere.

It is not surprsing then that both these once respected institutions of Britain, are fast falling in the esteem that they were once held in.

how can the police protect a neutered population? Britain's gun control laws have guaranteed that the law abiding community will be prey to thugs.

Remember, even the most efficient police forces only arrive at the scene of a crime in time to chalk the outline(s) of the victim's bodies. Do you really expect that a law enforcement officer is going to be sitting around with Johna and Peg in their living room when the criminals come through the back door?

Kyle

Kyle - that's absolute twaddle. Britain managed very well without guns for many, many years.

The police can only arrest criminals after the crime happens (usually) - that's true. However, if they're good enough at arresting criminals, then the crimes won't happen. Partly through deterrence (the biggest deterrent is the belief that you'll be caught and having some kind of punishment - even a relatively lenient one, as long as it's much worse than the reward of doing the crime), and partly through what you're seeing in the US at the moment (if all the criminals are in jail, then jail riots, bullying and drug abuse are the only crimes they can really do).

Problems come if the police start being so inept that criminals are no longer caught, and therefore no longer believe they will be caught. At that stage, you have to resort to Hobbesian gun logic as in your post. Most people in Britain would rather the police were competent enough protect us instead.

The problem, Melanie, with "the only fair way" to which you quite understandably ascribe it that it would require a blindness that surpasseth human understanding. Of all British institutions, the police force in general - and the Met in particular - labours under the evidence of racial difference every day. In 2000, for example, 28% of all robbery arrests in England and Wales were of black people (57% in London). Nationally the black population is said to comprise 2% of the population. How, exactly, are the very ordinary people who are our policemen and policewomen supposed to put away all particularising thought in relation to blacks and crime?

In between the active operation of prejudice and the principled exhibition of colour blindness lies a hard take on reality based upon human bio-diversity. At present h-bd is vehemently rejected by a marxisant left and by the race relations industry, both of which deduce from poverty, lack of education and, in various ways, white racism. Meanwhile it has been found in America that black males commit all but 2% of inter-racial rape, a phenomenon that can hardly be unrelated to biology.

Because the middle way I advocate above is as yet unformed in public opinion I look to opinion-formers like yourself to take courage and do the job. Of course, it means parting with all those morally uplifting, comfortable and safely humanistic platitudes. It means, instead, arguing from the emerging truth of genetics and from the evidence "on the ground". But anyway the platitudes amount to no more than a plaintiff and failing cry against the excesses of a rampant culture war. It's high time to move on.

Bring back the "Police FORCE", I am not sure this "Police SERVICE" is much good. I never see policemen, but I do hear about race and gender issues ad nauseam. I am tired of having to decide if a policeman will help me because he might only specialise in his ethnic grouping; and I might not be his flavour.

Can I have law and order please ?

I agree with Melanie and with Peter on this. I don't live in the UK now but on a recent visit to London, I was astounded to see at a gay bar a poster asking 'have you been the victim of a hate crime? Now you can report this without visiting the police station...take one of the self-reporting packs below'...I did not read the material but can only assume that it was devised jointly by some kind of 'hate crime' unit in conjunction with some of gay group.

What is needed is an effective police force and judicial system that cracks down on crime rather than the introduction of systems based on 'hate crimes'. I am gay myself but it does no favours to gay people to be part of such counterproductive initiatives: we are all humans and all crimes against humans regardless of their race, religion, gender, sexuality etc etc should be dealt with properly by putting more manpower into dealing directly with fighting crime (ZERO Tolerance please!)

We are healthy only to the extent that our ideas are humane.