A report from the SPI-B Policing and Security sub-Group of SAGE was published yesterday. This was the executive summary:
Public Disorder and Public Health: Contemporary Threats and Risks
SPI-B Policing and Security sub-Group.Executive summary
â— The threats currently facing the UK are diverse, inter-connected and dynamic.
â— Public health will be particularly adversely affected by spontaneous public assemblies, particularly if these develop into violent confrontation.
â— Local lockdown carries with it a series of threats to social cohesion and public order.
â— Some media narratives are reinforcing claims that Asian and Black people in areas of local lockdown are potentially responsible for disproportionately spreading the virus.
â— There has been a step-change in threat levels since the last sustained period of serious rioting in the UK in 2011.
â— The police are in a far weaker position in terms of capacity to deal with these threats than in 2011 and police weaknesses, when recognised, were a factor in the spread of urban disorder during those riots.
â— If upstream intervention is not taken, amplification of the conditions for serious public disorder in multiple locations is likely to develop.
â— If serious disorder does develop, it will have a detrimental impact on public health, facilitating the spread of disease, making the re-imposition of measures to control the spread of COVID-19 next to impossible and would be likely to require military support.
â— Policing has a vital role to play in preventing disorder but coordinated action is needed across Whitehall and with local authorities. This is not simply a policing issue.
What we have here is a government published report suggesting there is serious risk of social unrest in the UK, in no small part due to racial tension, part of which they blame on social division created, or fueled, by the government, and much of the rest on right wing extremists, all of which could be fuelled by insensitive local lockdowns.
I suggest that the report is worth noting. As are its recommendations:
The risks identified above could be mitigated in the following ways:
Policing
- A relationship of trust between the police and the communities they serve needs to be re-emphasised.
- Strategies need to be developed for dealing effectively and sensitively with different types of protest/assembly, whether in Bournemouth or Brixton.
- Improve data-sharing between police and local authorities(through LRFs)to enable better targeting of emerging and intersectional problems. For example, raves often take place in county border areas involving organisers and attendees form multiple force areas.
- Enhance the level of cultural competence in policing.
- Ensure that policing is seen to be impartial (explain why police are intervening or not) and wherever possible proactive. For example, some force areas have been using social media to identify rave organisers, negotiate or make pre-emptive arrests. Their experience is that this has been easier to manage than trying to disperse large crowds after raves have already begun.
- The IOPC should be agile in dealing with problems as they arise.A key factor in the development of the 2011 riots was the slow and ineffectual response of the police.
- If and where police misconduct is detected ensure the IOPC is adequately responsive with their communications.
- Improve police PR capability(vital for the above and to prevent problems from escalating).
- Ensure an effective communication strategy is in place and is properly resourced to enable rapid responses to emerging incidents.
- With regards to the opening of licenced premises ensure effective engagement of licensees, doormen and stewards through neighbourhood policing. Build a response plan based on an understanding of the opening plans of licensed premises.
- Plan management of space in the vicinity of pubs to mitigate disorder and public health risks. Consider design issues in terms of managing town centre public space (e.g. areas set aside for allowing crowds to spread out to enable distancing, consider crowd flow across town centres, consider possibilities for road closures, consider good signage)
- NPCC and College of Policing should be encouraged to examine licensing inspection and management in conjunction with mayors and government ministers.
- Maintain / increase neighbourhood officers for public order duties or ensure the skills, knowledge and networks of the NPT officers within a POPS response are properly utilised to empower de-escalation. When policing large gatherings, police experienced in de-escalation should be placed in the front- line; riot gear should normally be kept out of sight unless there is a clear and obvious requirement. Also consider the use of PLTs.
- Commanders should reflect continually on their plans and approaches (using independent, community-based advisory groups where possible).
- Clear guidance to police forces needed on enforcement of local lockdowns, together with democratic support for legitimate targeting/protection of communities.
- There should be early upstream intervention to explain how policing of localised lockdowns will be managed.
- NPoCC should have a role in maintaining oversight and consistency in the policing of major public order events.
Public health
- Government and local authorities should issue strong, clear and positive messages about responsible drinking and behaviour in and around pubs and bars. This should be reinforced on national and local media.
- The public should know what kind of restrictions to expect when they enter pubs, bars and restaurants so that expectations can be managed (thereby reducing the risk of congestion and conflict).
- The government needs to reconstruct a shared sense of responsibility for public health which accentuates its positive virtues, rather than taking a punitive approach.
- Issues of local, generational, racial, ethnic and class inequality need to be acknowledged and addressed.
- Government should take account of intelligence on community tensions and other factors that may be inflamed by the extension or imposition of local lockdowns. Public health measures are never simply scientific decisions and the consequences in terms of public order (and ultimately for public health) could be serious if lockdown imposition is ill-judged.
- Where good intelligence on community relations is not currently available, this should be sought urgently for areas in which epidemiological and other trends suggest that intervention may be required.
- Intelligence should be gathered from as many community sources as possible, as well as police. Other persons skilled in intelligence collection could assist. Relationships with local communities should be identified and developed.
I am not saying I agree with all this, although much of it makes sense.
What is worth noting is that these recommendations suggest action far removed from what happened with new, and deeply sensitive, lockdowns this week which were rushed, confused and announced at incredibly short notice on twitter.
What has to happen is clear.
What is happening is a mess.
And that has risk attached to it.
It's wise to note that.
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Again in this report the issue of public spending raises its head. It seems to me that if you had to identify what the British Disease is it would be the misplaced belief that the economy self-equilibrates purely through the efforts of the private sector. From this flows the idea that government spending doesn’t play a role in helping that self-equilibration indeed undermines it. All of this of course, despite Keynes’s 1936 “General Theory …” book and MMT proponents subsequent development of his ideas, is yet another 85 years of obduracy fuelled by ignorant and/or corrupt politicians and mainstream media!
But surely we have the 20,000 new police officers that Boris promised us, no?
(In case there is any doubt, the answer is of course “no”. Apparently, they have recruited 4,000 candidates since the election in December, and they’ll all take about a year to train. And when all 20,000 are working, in about three years time, and assuming no one else leaves, we’ll be back where we were in 2010 in terms of absolute numbers of police, but in the meantime the population has increased by 6%, so we’d need another 7,000 on top to reach the same number of police per person.)
Point well made
I blame neoliberalism
And (I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with ‘and’ but..) the food riots post 31/12/2020 should also be factored into this. I can’t help thinking the government know full well what could happen and have some kind of a ‘plan’, some greater scheme that is beyond our imagination.
Remember they won a whopping majority when the leader hid in fridges, refused to be interviewed, the behaviour was way beyond normal civilised conventions and had a well-known propensity for lying. Yet here we are, half the country love him or so it seems from surveys while he aggravates his core support group (the over 50s) as if they don’t matter. Just think that through, voters don’t matter.
On the other hand, all they say and do is directed at their ‘cult’, the ideas like removing citizenship from the so-called ISIS bride, come straight out of the Telegraph comments section. You can many more seeds of government policy in there. So no ‘coming together’, those of us on the other side of the debate are at best ignored.
There seems to be no solution other than to make plans based on what we can see. I researched what will happen when no-deal Brexit finally hits us and medicine supplies are disrupted. Hancock says that no need to stockpile etc etc. But with his (and the rest of them) known outrageous lies and incompetency on a daily basis, what would you believe?
I don’t believe them
What did they actually say about ‘right wing extremism?
You can read it….
it didn’t feature in the Executive Summary, so can’t have been that important, yet you bothered to make the comment?
Why not read it?
Hint: the report is only nine pages, and the extreme right wing (XRW) appear from the third page.
Hi Tom. In psychological theory there is an idea called ulterior communication. In ulterior communication, such as questions, there is a “social” level, the ostensible request for information, and a “psychological” level (the ulterior), which reveals the real purpose of the questioner, and who the questioner is. For instance, the question, “are you going to eat all those chips?” sounds like a request to find out how many chips will be eaten, but the ulterior is “I don’t want you to eat all those chips”. In this way your question hides an ulterior. You aren’t really interested in what the report “actually” says about right wing extremism. What your question reveals is:
1. Your inherent fear of communicating clearly.
2. That you are right wing, possibly very right wing.
3. You believe that it is you bring criticised, but were fearful of saying this clearly.
The reason I use the word fear is that it is the feeling that can lead us to avoid direct challenge, when it is also coupled with a negative self-view. Combined these lead to what’s called passivity, of which ulterior communication styles are an example. In other words, avoidant fear is linked to shame. What your question reveals is that you dislike yourself to a considerable degree. It also reveals that your way of dealing with your dislike of yourself is to imagine it comes from outside of you (projection). In other words, your self-hate has led you to become a hater (a defence) The right wing is the true home of the self-loathing hater. Your question shows that this is where you feel you belong, but are too afraid to openly state this. It is noteworthy that those on the hard right will often deny the fact. This could be called cowardice.
Thanks
And so well put
Ouch!
Spot on.
First mentioned on page three of the report.
Right wing extremism is for real and so is left wing extremism particularly those with the agenda is to “bring down the system”. Good the BLM genuine cause has seen through those from the hard left who hijacked the cause.
You mean the right are not seeking to bring down the system?
You know the Revolutionary Communist Party is in charge at No. 10 don’t you?
“You know the Revolutionary Communist Party is in charge at No. 10 don’t you?”
If you say so..
I wish I wasn’t making it up…..
Have just glanced at the full report. The detailed risks it describes alarm me, and I’m not of a nervous disposition. I recommend reading it.
People need the current local data about the new infections re covid19.
It is not available to tracing and local communities.
People are smart enough to react quickly.
Stop giving Londinium orders.
I wonder who is on this SAGe sub-committee? Interesting report and perhaps useful but scientific?
Just search it – easy to find
Tories fking it up as usual. They love the vacuum of space, money to be made and nobody can hear you scream…
I downloaded the report, as highlighted at the top of this article.
WHAT CREDENCE can be given to it when it appears with minimal author cited, and worse still, no date of publication in the body of the report? Who or what is this ‘sub-group’? I don’t know the reason, but it is utterly unacceptable to publish so-called reports without this critical data attached.
If you just learned how to use Google…..instead of getting angry you’d be so much more credible
Nothing to do with Google (which I’ve been using for decades). If someone prints that report out as presented via your page, there is no date attached to it. This is a basic requirements for any printed document. One should not have to grub about ‘behind the scenes’ looking for the date – it should be visible as part of the document.
I tend to agree – but that was nit all you said, and was nit the real issue I was addressing