ANOTHER VOICE
How we should deal with the animal activists in our midst
AUBERON WAUGH
Even this petulant, teenage rubbish car- ries within it one tiny grain of truth. The police, who arrested only two people one of whom deliberately obstructed the road with a locked car, the other an over- elated bystander who abused the protesters, calling them 'mad vegetarians' — were, indeed, rather heavily represent- ed. About a hundred policemen faced slightly under a hundred demonstrators, by most accounts. In addition, there were 400 police standing by — out of sight, and out of the action, but presumably being paid for it and most of them, if experience is anything to go by, at overtime rates.
As for the rest of Clark's babyish Marxist tirade, the police were indeed usefully employed against a very real threat to the nation's agricultural economy. It was the livelihood of farmers which was threatened in the first instance, Jong before the marginal profits of the incredibly brave and spirited hauliers who refused to be intimi- dated. It would be no joke to run over some crazed spinster with nothing better to do than make a nuisance of herself on a Friday afternoon.
But Clark undoubtedly had a point, that too many policemen were involved, and this seems a regular feature of police tac- tics. Their preferred way of discouraging criminals of this sort is to turn up in enor- mous numbers, link arms and refuse to be pushed. Even while Clark was abusing them for this in Dover, four policemen were being treated for burns after paint was thrown into their eyes by animal activists at Brightlingsea. Perhaps Clark, from his effete mercantile background, feels safe in sneering at the nation's farmers, but I am surprised he thinks he can safely sneer at the police. Who does he think will protect his Poussins and other pansy foreign artefacts when the crazed sisterhood of Guardian-reading spinsters and vegetarians gets round to demanding them? Clark may see himself as an animal activist, vegetarian and sexual athlete and hope to be loved — or at any rate admired — in these roles, but his allies have other agenda. And now he has gratu- itously alienated the police.
The time is long since past when the con- stabulary automatically deferred to Etonian millionaires and former Conservative min- . isters. Nearly all of them read the Sun and have learned not to be impressed by toffs. Few of them seem much impressed by the monarchy or by the law as presently admin- istered. In fact, it might be hard to find any- thing which impresses them very much.
Even so, it was rash of Alan Clark to launch his great attack on the police in the same week that a young policeman was killed on duty in such poignant circum- stances as attended the death of PC Phillip Walters, a 28-year-old probationary officer in Ilford. True, a Blackpool policeman was charged with raping a 15-year-old girl in his car in the same week, but it will be many months before that comes to court. It is an occupational risk of criticising the police that one of them will die heroically in the performance of his duty between the writ- ing and the publishing of the criticism, and the risk serves as a .useful reminder that, whatever we may find to criticise, the police do form a thin blue line between society and all the forces of malevolence and depravity seeking to destroy it. This does not mean that the police are above criticism, but that the business of criticising the police should be approached with circumspection. So confident was Alan Clark that everybody hates the 'foul and repellent trade' in livestock and supports the animal activists in their attempts to dis- rupt it that he did not look to left or to right before launching his intemperate attack on the police. In the event, he was `No calls, Ms Pemberton, I'm crayoning.' completely upstaged by photographs of PC Walters's former girlfriend, Helen Rossiter, 34, putting flowers on the spot where the policeman had died. `Tears of shot PC's.
sweetheart,' yelled the Sun on its front page. 'Even the dark glasses cannot hide the terrible grief of murdefed PC Phillip Walter's girlfriend, Helen Rossiter.'
What chance did A. Clark have, striding around in his white trousers and gumboots along the seafront at Dover, even though he was quite right to criticise the police for excessive turn-oup The point is that we simply can't afford this kind of display nowadays, just as we can't afford legal aid, we can't afford to keep people in mental hospitals, we can't even afford to imprison all the people we would like to keep in prison. The money which ought to go on these services is soaked up by the vast armies of overpaid public employees. This Government has shown itself completely incapable of curbing the public employees, and police are among the worst offenders.
What other government department would call out a helicopter to chase four teenagers over a 69p meat pasty? Or employ 30 officers and a helicopter to raid a suspected cockfight? Or, when its own helicopter was being serviced, hire a Sea King from the RAF at £5,000 an hour for three hours to look for a 27-year-old patient who had discharged himself from hospital? Or • would charge anything between £350 and £1,200 to keep a prisoner in a police cell overnight? Police scandals on overtime, sickness leave, and pensions are exposed again and again, but the Gov- ernment dares do nothing about them. A stock response to all criticism is for the police to demand further funding, further manpower. The tragedy of PC Walters's death gave rise to further discussion of the ludicrous proposal that all policemen on routine patrolling duties should wear bul- let-proof armour.
A sense of proportion has to be reintro- duced somewhere. Next time Alan Clark and his animal activists emerge to make a nuisance of themselves, let us forget about outnumbering them five to one with police- men on overtime. An efficient riot squad of 40 men could disperse a crowd of 2,000 in 20 minutes with a whiff of CS gas here, a hose there, a couple of snatch squads, some thunderflashes and stun grenades and rub- ber bullet rounds in between. It is all a question of what we can afford.
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