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Thread: Jeremy Clarkson

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    Jeremy Clarkson

    The 'Marmite' of journalists and motoring correspondents, i.e. love or hate. I enjoy his irreverence and none PC attitude in a multitude of subjects, for which I'm happy to pay my subscription to The Times for his weekly column on a whole host of subjects. His knack of bringing humour to what are sometimes quite serious subjects do not have any equal that I've read. Here is his offering for today's ST:

    A report in The Sunday Times last week revealed that in England and Wales only 4% of robberies and a mere 3% of burglaries are solved by the nation’s policemen and policemen women. Things aren’t much better when it comes to knife attacks, sexual assault and moped-related thefts. And Plod still hasn’t found the man who nicked my television, even though I published a pin-sharp photograph of him leaving my flat in The Sun.

    Naturally, every commentator in the land spent all of last week trying to work out why the figures are so lamentable, with many blaming the parents. I’m not sure this is relevant, though, as the man who nicked my television was in his thirties, and with someone that age, his mum and dad aren’t really responsible for his whereabouts. It’s the same story with the kid riding round on a small motorcycle with a large knife in his coat pocket. Chances are his parents are not around.
    If you’ve just arrived in Britain, it doesn’t take long to work out that you can make a safe and pretty decent living here by breaking into people’s houses and stealing their things.

    You know that the police are busy closing motorways and checking on foxes and ensuring school-run mums are not smoking in their cars, and that after the homeowners report the burglary, they will be given the offer of some counselling, and that will be the end of that.

    You know, therefore, that there’s a 97% chance you’ll get away scot-free and that even if you’re caught red-handed by the homeowner and hit over the head with a pickaxe handle, he’ll be arrested and Jeremy Corbyn will bring you flowers in the free hospital.

    And if you are one of the unlucky 3% who are caught after the event, the arresting officers will make sure you don’t bang your head when you get into the police car and will give you some nice soup at the station while they wait for a translator to turn up. Maybe a chicken sandwich as well.

    If you are subsequently convicted, you will be given a short spell in a prison that is better than most of the hotels in the country from which you came. And while you’re in there, a hand-wringing member of the shadow cabinet will make lots of speeches about you and how you were driven to crime by bankers and members of the Conservative Party.

    All of this makes us — you and me — cross. So when we are apprehended by the police for doing 24mph, we tend to say things such as: “Have you caught the man who stole my television yet?” This always makes Plod cross, but the truth is, it’s a good question.

    So the vast majority of law-abiding people have no respect for the police because we only ever encounter them when they are being pedantic and because they don’t do anything about our stolen televisions. And they treat us like Fred West when we dip momentarily into a bus lane.

    And then you have criminals who actually quite like the police because they’re so much kinder than the forces of law and order back home.
    And this is where I think the politicians can make a difference. If you are caught breaking the law in the more benighted countries of the world, you will be taken into a cell and kicked repeatedly in the testes.

    That’s what we need here, really, if we are to deal with the knife crime and burglary issues: extreme police brutality.

    Obviously this would cause those of a criminal persuasion to think twice before climbing onto the moped that night. They’d know that there was only a slim chance they’d be caught, but that if they were, they would be attached to the mains through holes in their nipples until a week next Tuesday. Many, if they knew this, would get straight off their mopeds and start up a small business instead.

    There’s another advantage too. We, the good guys, would know that if the police caught the man who had stolen our television, he would not be given a sandwich and then sent home with an ankle bracelet. He’d be taken to where they keep the police dogs and treated as food.

    Many of us would prefer that. I know I would. We’ve had to fill in insurance forms and deal with assessors, and then we’ve had to go online and buy another television and then wait for the delivery driver to stick a note through the letterbox saying: “While you were in, I tiptoed up to your door and posted this because it’s easier for me if you come to the depot and pick up the television yourself.”

    It’d be satisfying to think that bits of the man or woman who caused all this nuisance were in a dog. Certainly, it would help restore our faith in the police if, when we popped round to the station to see if they’d found the man who stole our phone last night, the desk sergeant asked for a moment of silence so we could better hear the culprit trying to pull the fluorescent light tube out of his bottom without breaking it.

    Also, we might be a little more understanding if, when we were pulled over for checking text messages while sitting in a traffic jam, we knew that the man who stabbed our son last month was not playing ping pong while deciding what TV dinner he’d like but was in an unheated, damp cell, trying to suck moisture and nutrients from the moss on the walls.None of this would improve the clear-up rate. But it would dramatically cut the number of people who wake up in the morning and think: “Hmmm. I’m going to be a burglar.”


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    Thailand Expat Airportwo's Avatar
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    Good read, I was reading an article earlier this week stating that London had no more Plod to help prevent knife crime, the same article stated they had 900 plod investigating "crimes of hate!" Priorities indeed......

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    This is the nightmare if you ever consider returning to ol Blighty. My last visit (about 4 years ago), was a shock, since everyone I met in the shops seemed to be speaking Albanian, as opposed to Bangladeshi some years previously. (I don't mean the Banglas had learnt to speak Albanian, although that might not be a bad thing, since it seems to be the majority language in the country now...)
    Groping women when you're old is fine - everyone thinks you're senile

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    ^ most common 2nd language by borough.


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    ^ ... and to think cabbies wouldn’t go south of the river after 10 pm. Haha

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    ^^That's a map of Cambodia...

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    Was watching a program about "refugees" being marooned in Bosnia because the borders have been tightened up. There were some angry 20-something guys who were demanding to be let into Italy/Germany et al and complaining their route was blocked. Another interviewee was saying there have already been some knife fights in the makeshift camp and...

    Such a good quality of refugee Europe is getting. No wonder UK voted leave!
    Better to think inside the pub, than outside the box?
    I apologize if any offence was caused. unless it was intended.
    You people, you think I know feck nothing; I tell you: I know feck all
    Those who cannot change their mind, cannot change anything.

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