Inspectorgadget is a blog written anonymously by a police inspector. Read it with your brain switched on and he reveals a lot of what is wrong with policing in Britain today. And he was at the riots last night after which he has written a very interesting blog article. Here is a quote from it:

At the briefing, many of my officers wanted cast-iron guarantees from Silver Command that no individual officers would be suspended and prosecuted if we use force and a rioter became seriously injured.

This was not forthcoming. There are at least 12 County forces here now, ‘Remember Tomlinson’ was being whispered everywhere at the FCP.

Many people are becoming very angry that we refuse to move our lines and baton charge the rioters. I have run around like a blue arsed fly trying to understand why we are being ordered to stay static; the only explanation I can find is that Gold Command are concerned about the sensitivity of the target group.

So now you know why the police were just standing there watching whilst huge numbers of crimes were being committed right in front of them. The answer seems to be that they were making a political point. It looks like they were throwing their toys out of the pram because a police officer is being held accountable for killing Ian Tomlinson.

Just how petty and stupid can you get? They should be delighted that a policeman is being charged with killing Ian Tomlinson. It is only by being accountable that the police can expect to have respect from the public who pay their wages and without the co-operation of whom they would be unable to do their jobs.

And you would think that experienced policemen would be able to tell the difference between a totally innocent middle aged man just trying to get home from work and a gang of kids in hoodies blatantly trashing whole neighbourhoods just for the fun of it. Let’s hope that David Cameron tells them to do their job properly tonight and that they do what they are told.