Kiron Reid

PC Pleb will arrest you on sight

Because you do not have the right

To put up a chair

In Parliament Square:

It gives the MPs such a fright. *

I find, to my utter disgrace,

That this is not wholly the case:

It's certainly true,

Citing Gallastegui,

That a ban is de facto in place.

Nicholas Willmott, * 5 October 2012; & 26 April 2013.

I thought I had corrected all contact details to up to date ones, last year. In fact one email link was out of date. My apologies to anyone who tried to contact me or to give feedback on any posts and has not been able to. Kiron Reid.

In Liberator magazine. This is aimed at Liberal political readers but hopefully makes some points relevant to those interested in the Police and Crime Commissioner elections and police accountability in general.

http://www.liberator.org.uk/article.asp?id=262504235 (.pdf format)

Issue 357 - February 2013, pp. 18 - 19.

My latest academic article may be of interest for those concerned with civil liberties and the right of peaceful protest. http://www.pbs.plymouth.ac.uk/solon/hjournal2013Vol3.html

Policing priorities.

http://www.merseysidepcc.info/Take-Part/Your-views-on-policing-priorities.aspx

I've written directly to 4 key organisations and about 20 of the individual campaigners (out of approximately 400 who got in touch with me during the PCC election) but I don't have the time or resources to contact everyone. Those of you who read this can help spread the word.

I was really impressed by Leveson when he started work with such a clear but broad agenda and a wide grasp of critical and relevant issues. The pace and volume was quite impressive. For me Leveson was a disappointment because he has let the politicians off the hook. He set out broad themes clearly showing the links between the actions and bad behaviour of the press, politicians and the police. Module 1 The relationship between the press and the public. Module 2 The relationships between the press and police. Module 3 The relationship between press and politicians. While the first part was largely about phone hacking the enquiry was quite correctly much wider than this in what it actually covered. I wrote submissions about the ethos of the police (re. Module 2) and the media and political behaviour (re. Module 3). What was disappointing is that when Leveson reported he returned to the narrow issues of any direct wrongdoing, except in relation to the behaviour of journalists themselves in unprofessional relationships with police officers or politicians. He completely ignored the fact that New Labour's obsession with public relations and the media, their leaking and the bad behaviour by politicians and activists across political parties, but particularly at the top of the Labour and Conservative Parties, contributed to the lack of standards. What the Inquiry basically said and concluded was right, but it was much narrower than their initial coverage appeared to be.

I think this is relevant for our culture and history, our communities and our policing. While the Liverpool Echo was following the Trinity Mirror political line and publishing propaganda in support of the Labour candidate in the PCC election they didn't publish my letter. I think they have missed an opportunity to help promote an important dialogue in our city (as well as passing on our congratulations to Derry). I have also raised this issue with my Trades Union (the UCU). The UCU failed to promote the Police Commissioner election at all (I thought University lecturers would be interested in that) but hopefully they will pick this up.

I made a brief submission to the Leveson Inquiry based on my observations as a former member of Police Authority, an academic who works on police accountability, and as a political activist. I'd been waiting for my submission to be recorded on the Inquiry site before publishing it myself but it never has been. That is curious because the last thing I heard (an acknowledgment on 24 January) was that "All submissions are read and considered by a member of the Inquiry Team, yours has been passed onto the Solicitors Team." I do "appreciate that [they] have received a [very] large amount of evidence".