Policing of the G20 protests report: yada ..inadequate policing…yada yada

There should be a national overhaul of the policing of protests that reasserts the state’s obligation to allow lawful demonstrations, a scathing report into how the Metropolitan police handled the G20 protests recommended today.

Advocating major reforms in the way such marches are handled, Denis O’Connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, said national tactics for policing protest were “inadequate” and belonged to a “different era”.

“What the review [of policing protest] identifies is that the world is changing and the police need to think about changing their approach to protest,” O’Connor said.

So says Denis O’connor, the chief inspector of constabulary, in his report on the policing of the G20 protests.

Furthermore: Commanders appeared not to properly understand basic human rights laws or the legal requirements surrounding the use of kettling, the report said. However, O’Connor said this was the case for only some senior officers, and refused to identify those at fault.

Human rights? Legal requirements? I bet this is causing tensions and punch-ups within the elite of the police force.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jul/07/police-protests-g20-review

Torchwood…

Captain Jack Harkness is rather like Rasputin (as in the historical accurate lyrics of Boney M), you shoot him, shoot him again, and again, and again….. but he keeps on gettin’ up….

So for a different method of assassination blow him up. And that’s how it was left last night…. Gwen sprinting away like her life depended on it, which it did along with Ianto who has just got used to being in a couple with Jack.

I think the 5 episodes will be shown over 5 nights (a bit of a swizz really as I suppose with the credit crunch the series length has been reduced).

Anyways, quick briefing about the plot.. Some, as always is happening in Cardiff, alien force has gripped the child population where they stand still, scream and chant, ‘we are coming’ in unison. Bit like Edvard Munch’s The Scream meets Invasion of the Body Snatchers (either film) meets Wyndham’s Midwich Cuckoos… All strange, spooky and something…

And that something as we move on swiftly to the Big Smoke where Malcolm Tucker …  slip of the keyboard there…  I meant, civil servant John Frobisher (Peter Capaldi sans imaginative sweary ‘In the Loop’ persona…. Darnit!!). There’s something happening regarding the 456… (nah, it aint a bus route) and some bloke in a psychiatric hospital who claimed he was abducted by aliens so is experiencing the loony bin trip (great storyline… Russell) and has a brilliant sense of smell… Lassie meets Hannibal Lecter but without the cannibalism,  fava beans and chianti.

Anyways, Ianto got the car nicked, Jack was shot a few times but was resurrected and Gwen found out she was pregnant. Thre final minutes teetered on a knife edge between calmness and calamity. Final shot is kabooooom……….

So….outstanding issues that will surely be cleared up… Who wants to assassinate the Torchwood posse and why? How does Lois, the new ‘puter techie, fit in to the storyline…will she save our Torchwood heroes..?

Oh, and I suppose it is all to do with the rift in the space time continuum thingy thing….