Dick of the Year: Paul Stephenson
This is a nomination for Bright Green Dick of the Year from Matthew Parsons. To submit your own nomination email adamramsay @ gmail before midday on the 31st.
Sir Paul Stephenson, Commissioner of London’s Metropolitan Police Service.
Since Ian Blair was forced out from his position as Commissioner of the Met by the newly anointed Mayor, Boris Johnson, police tactics and attitudes towards political demonstration have clearly shifted towards a new model of intolerant militaristic control. The legally ambiguous tactic of kettling is not engaged in for the purpose of maintaining peace, or minimising disturbance, but as an insidious, self-reinforcing tool for extending the powers of the police.
We knew that Paul Stephenson – unlike his predecessor – was a craven yes man for Boris Johnson and the Tories. However, it was in the aftermath of the student protests in December, that he was also fully exposed as an officious, aggressive commander, with very little compassion for civilians who ‘step out of line’ by protesting.
His comments on the Today programme on Radio 4 on December 10th were particularly vile. His branding of protestors as “thugs”, and his statement that armed officers “acted with great restraint” in not discharging their weapons, mark him out as a man not suitable for the job of protecting the inhabitants and visitors of our capital city, London.
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