Less Than Total Policing

Patriotic gluttons for punishment may find their digestion slightly soured at the declaration by the new chief inspector of constabulary that our boys in blue are not a thought police. Since thought in Her Majesty's Government has evolved from a slightly suspect pastime to an act of cerebrospinal treason, the restriction of policing to the merely physical will certainly save time. Nevertheless, to an uncharitable ear the chief inspector's words might be construed as contradicting the Home Secretary's formal reinstatement of the principle that ethnics can be stopped and searched for making an officer nervous. He even stated outright that there is a clear distinction between what is and is not a crime: a principle which runs blatantly counter to long-established Government practice and sounds dangerously close to the ideological bias of certain lefty lawyers.