The Best Lack All Conviction....

...while the worst are certainly full of passionate intensity.

Went to get the paper this morning and every tabloid front page is running the story of the 78 year old pension who killed a burglar in self-defence of his home and his disabled wife, with a subtext of 'why the hell are the ever-useless police going to town on him?'.

Yet what are the online broadsheets worried about? Well, of course, it's rights for those who don't care about the right of others, and the safety of the bad and the mad, plus the need to support the feckless.

Meanwhile, over on Twitter, the prevailing mood is of disgust at the topsy-turvey way crime is dealt with in this country:

This should worry the authorities, because the prevailing mood has usually been 'Oh, well, they have a job to do and they know what they're doing...', but increasingly, even law-abiding people are starting to look at the police as 'the enemy', to be avoided at all costs unless absolutely necessary.

Of course, we were here just yesterday, weren't we? And in comments, blogger DumbJon makes a salient point:

"Yep, and no six months on police bail, homes being turned over or being stuck with five figure legal bills either.

Surely the real mystery is how the police intend to investigate without arresting these people? After all, we've been assured that only alternatives are to either immediately write off the death as one of those things, or to arrest everyone within a country mile.

It's almost like the 'Arrest Everyone' policy was an example of lawless thuggery serving no legitimate investigatory purpose whatsoever."

The thugs in uniform with badges, or the thugs in balaclavas with screwdrivers? Increasingly, there seems very little difference. Encounters with both will fuck up your life, and your taxes go towards supporting both...