The Sunday Times Joins the Innocence Gang

In an article for today's Sunday Times' entitled 'SAS trainers denounce ‘gung ho’ armed police', Robert Winnett writes,

"TWO senior SAS soldiers who trained many of the firearms teams now serving in Britain’s police forces have warned of their concerns about the officers’ skills and psychological suitability for the job.

The two SAS officers, who have left active service, claim the police they trained had not been subjected to adequate psychological and physical tests to establish whether or not they were suitable to use firearms. The police officers were often “gung ho” and unfit.

The soldiers believe members of the Metropolitan police team that shot dead Jean Charles de Menezes, the innocent Brazilian, on the London Underground in July would have been among those they trained, although they are not certain. "

Ways of life cannot be preserved in amber. The dangers of the times we live in, which re themselves the consequence of unmandated political decisions, will mean that one day the United Kingdom's police services will all probably have to be fully armed. When that day unfortunately comes, one would certainly hope that all officers will not only be trained how to use firearms but also to have a proper respect for their lethality.

Any incident where a police service uses lethal force against anyone must be properly investigated - the rule of law demands it.

But if anyone has been 'gung ho' in the run up to the death of Jean Charles de Menezes, it has been Tony Blair, who started his gung-ho abolition of the UK's borders by eliminating embarkation controls within a year of his election; a process which continues to this day, a crisis in demography which he and his associates have manufactured and which may yet lead to native citizens and loyal, law-abiding immigrants being forced to compensate the family of a man who lived here for his own advantage, and who deliberately spurned our laws.