The Angry Exile: Police, Camera, Industrial Action

The Hangman

Into our town the Hangman came,
Smelling of gold and blood and flame.
And he paced our bricks with a diffident air,
And built his frame in the courthouse square.
The scaffold stood by the courthouse side,
Only as wide as the door was wide;
A frame as tall, or little more,
Than the capping sill of the courthouse door.
And we wondered, whenever we had the time,
Who the criminal, what the crime
That the Hangman judged with the yellow twist
of knotted hemp in his busy fist.
And innocent though we were, with dread,
We passed those eyes of buckshot lead --
Till one cried: "Hangman, who is he
For whom you raised the gallows-tree?"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
And he gave us a riddle instead of reply:
"He who serves me best," said he,
"Shall earn the rope of the gallows-tree."
And he stepped down, and laid his hand
On a man who came from another land.
And we breathed again, for another's grief
At the Hangman's hand was our relief
And the gallows-frame on the courthouse lawn
By tomorrow's sun would be struck and gone.
So we gave him way, and no one spoke,
Out of respect for his Hangman's cloak.
The next day's sun looked mildly down
On roof and street in our quiet town,
And stark and black in the morning air
Was the gallows-tree in the courthouse square.
And the Hangman stood at his usual stand
With the yellow hemp in his busy hand;
With his buckshot eye and his jaw like a pike
And his air so knowing and business-like.
And we cried, "Hangman, have you not done
Yesterday, with the foreign one?"
Then we fell silent, and stood amazed,
"Oh, not for him was the gallows raised."
He laughed a laugh as he looked at us:
"Did you think I'd gone to all this fuss
To hang one man? That's a thing I do
To stretch a rope when the rope is new."
Then one cried "Murder!" and one cried "Shame!"
And into our midst the Hangman came
To that man's place. "Do you hold," said he,
"with him that was meant for the gallows-tree?"
And he laid his hand on that one's arm.
And we shrank back in quick alarm!
And we gave him way, and no one spoke
Out of fear of his Hangman's cloak.
That night we saw with dread surprise
The Hangman's scaffold had grown in size.
Fed by the blood beneath the chute,
The gallows-tree had taken root;
Now as wide, or a little more,
Than the steps that led to the courthouse door,
As tall as the writing, or nearly as tall,
Halfway up on the courthouse wall.
The third he took -- we had all heard tell --
Was a usurer, and an infidel.
"What," said the Hangman "have you to do
With the gallows-bound, and he a Jew?"
And we cried out, "Is this one he
Who has served you well and faithfully?"
The Hangman smiled: "It's a clever scheme
to try the strength of the gallows-beam."
The fourth man's dark, accusing song
Had scratched our comfort hard and long;
"And what concern," he gave us back.
"Have you for the doomed -- the doomed and Black?"
The fifth. The sixth. And we cried again,
"Hangman, Hangman, is this the man?"
"It's a trick," he said. "that we hangmen know
For easing the trap when the trap springs slow."
And so we ceased, and asked no more,
As the Hangman tallied his bloody score.
And sun by sun, and night by night,
The gallows grew to monstrous height.
The wings of the scaffold opened wide
Till they covered the square from side to side;
And the monster cross-beam, looking down,
Cast its shadow across the town.
Then through the town the Hangman came,
Through the empty streets, and called my name --
And I looked at the gallows soaring tall,
And thought, "There is no one left at all
For hanging, and so he calls to me
To help pull down the gallows-tree."
So I went out with right good hope
To the Hangman's tree and the Hangman's rope.
He smiled at me as I came down
To the courthouse square through the silent town.
And supple and stretched in his busy hand
Was the yellow twist of the hempen strand.
And he whistled his tune as he tried the trap,
And it sprang down with a ready snap --
And then with a smile of awful command
He laid his hand upon my hand.
"You tricked me. Hangman!," I shouted then,
"That your scaffold was built for other men...
And I no henchman of yours," I cried,
"You lied to me, Hangman. Foully lied!"
Then a twinkle grew in the buckshot eye,
"Lied to you? Tricked you?" he said. "Not I.
For I answered straight and I told you true --
The scaffold was raised for none but you.
For who has served me more faithfully
Then you with your coward's hope?" said he,
"And where are the others who might have stood
Side by your side in the common good?"
"Dead," I whispered. And amiably
"Murdered," the Hangman corrected me:
"First the foreigner, then the Jew...
I did no more than you let me do."
Beneath the beam that blocked the sky
None had stood so alone as I.
The Hangman noosed me, and no voice there
Cried "Stop!" for me in the empty square.

Maurice Ogden

Thursday 11 August 2011

Police, Camera, Industrial Action

A few months ago I had a short comment conversation with Lex Feranda, The Thinking Policeman, about the British police and industrial action.

Angry Exile said...
How far are you barred from taking industrial action? I mean we all know you're not allowed to strike (and I'd agree that having no right to withdraw your labour is unreasonable and immoral, although you did all sign up to it when you joined). But surely you can take other forms of action. For example, can you refuse to work overtime? I can't see how anything can prevent a work to rule, although it sounds like you lot are tied down by so many rules already that people might not notice...
[...]

Lex Ferenda said...
The police in this country are legally barred from taking ANY industrial action and to encourage or incite another to do so is a criminal offence, so you cannot even suggest it.

If you are required to work overtime you have to. If you are required to work on a day off, you have to. To refuse would amount to gross misconduct and possible dismissal.

You don't often get me expressing sympathy for the police, but that simply sucks balls. Yes, I know they signed up for it but Christ, if any other employer in any other line of work imposed conditions that allowed them to discipline people for wanting to have their days off or actually go home at the end of the shift instead of working overtime... well, I was going to say there'd be demands to have laws made against it, but of course there already are. Not for the poor rozzers though.

As a libertarian I feel that everyone should be free to withhold their labour in a dispute, which is basically all the 'right to strike' is.* So of course I think this restriction on British police is immoral and, because I bet some of the compulsory overtime is unpaid, is distinguished from slavery mainly by the fact they do get a base salary and they are allowed to quit (admittedly quite a big distinction, but you get the picture). Whether the ban on any kind of industrial action is, as a practical matter, a good thing for the rest of the public has always had me sitting on the fence. When the thin blue line is all that protects citizens then not letting them take industrial action is understandable, but as I hinted at in the last post I'm far from convinced the thin blue line is far too thin when the chips are down anyway. On top of that in recent years politicians have had that thin blue line turn on citizens in one way and another, criminalising people for technical offences and victimless crimes. And of course one that gets up the noses of Mr and Mrs Middle England on a fairly regular basis is being done for motoring offences, especially speeding, because it's pretty obvious that there's a vast gulf between being a few km/h over the limit and driving like a weapons grade knob. But the pollies like clear up rates and the police can get easy results with speed traps. Just as an example, does anyone want to bet that when the dust settles in the areas of those UK forces that have had riots there will have been more looters arrested than speeding tickets issued for the same period? Or do we think the automated cameras and civilian operated camera vans will have pinged far more for speeding, virtually none of whom will have crashed as a result, than the police will eventually charge with walking down the road with a looted flatscreen TV.

So keep that in mind when I show you what can happen where police are able to take industrial action.

VICTORIA'S water police have plonked a boat between oncoming traffic and a speed camera operator as officers upped the ante in a pay dispute.
The police and the state government are locked in a stalemate over the police union's claim for a 4.5 per cent increase. The government is offering 2.5 per cent.
Leading Senior Constable Matthew Blythe, of Williamstown police, said the water police parked their boat in front of a speed camera to do checks, the first ones conducted inland at a busy intersection.

''Currently, we've got protected actions in place, and one of those actions is to pull up and do a welfare check.''
This, he said, would let the public know that there was a speed camera there.
''Now, the speed cameras are designed to reduce traffic speed, so us being there still has that effect.
''Potentially, if the motoring public see a police vehicle - this time it will be a police boat with its lights on and a police vehicle towing it - logically, if you see any emergency vehicle with its lights activated, it would slow you down.
''So, in theory, people will slow down and not get booked.''
Water police may repeat the procedure in Werribee and Geelong.

Makes me think there's something to be said for letting the cops take industrial action after all, especially as for many police it's very much a vocational line of work and I highly doubt they wouldn't still show for real emergencies.

* Of course the freedom to withhold one's labour does not necessarily mean an automatic right to keep the job.