Was The Home Secretary Right To Continue The Ban On Boris's Water Cannons?

[anotheoldgit]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3162480/Boris-humiliated-Home-Secretary-vetoes-using-water-cannon-blew-200-000-importing-German.html

/// The Home Secretary told MPs she would not lift the ban on police using water cannon because it it was too dangerous and would damage public trust. ///

And we can't have that can we? I mean the rest of the World will think we are getting tough on crime and it's perpetrators.

[retrocop]

Far less dangerous than baton rounds which I know were ordered some years ago and never used.

[whiskeryron]

AOG, do I detect a little dissatisfaction with the workings & tactics of the glorious Tory party ?

[vulcan42]

A decision made by the minister in charge of immigration is hardly a recommendation for a well thought out plan.

[Gromit]

A scandalous waste of £200,000. He says he is keeping them, so there will be an on-going maintence cost too. He should be thrown out of office for incompetence with the publuc purse

Perhaps he could repay the money from his £1million second job earnings?

[retrocop]

Cost a lot more in damage and looting in recent city disorder.The police were powerless then as well

[Gromit]

The decision not to have water cannon is political rather than financial.

If you have them it means that you expect there to be riots. That admits a political failure, something which Government's of whatever colour, just will not do.

[ToraToraTora]

no, wrong, let them be deployed, add some soap and the great unwashed can get clean up!

[Gromit]

Most of us have not rioted. But Boris has form...

// “This is a truly shameful vignette of almost superhuman undergraduate arrogance, toffishness and twittishness,” Mr Johnson has admitted, when reminded of his exploits as part of a documentary.
“But at the time you felt it was wonderful to be going round swanking it up. Or was it? Actually I remember the dinners being incredibly drunken.”
Referring to one dinner, in which a restaurant was smashed up, he added: “The abiding memory is of deep, deep self-loathing //

[youngmafbog]

Trashing a restraunt is not rioting. Have you never been involved in drunken antics Gromit?

She is wrong, they should be deployed

[janbee]

Use the cannons and try them out first of all on MPs.

[youngmafbog]

Do our MP's riot then?

[mikey4444]

LOL Ron, at 10:23 ! A Tory Home Secretary getting something wrong ?
Well I never !

[Peter Pedant]

// Far less dangerous than baton rounds which I know were ordered some years ago and never used.//

how do they compare, I wonder, to tazers when used inappropriately ?

anway getting to more serious things

would the average reader say that Theresa May blew the idea of water cannon apart or poured cold water on it ?

[Baldric]

///and would damage public trust.///

The majority of the public are not rioters so I think they would be reassured to see the Police taking positive action against the great unwashed, it's about time these people were told in no uncertain terms that they will no longer be tolerated.

[chaptazbru2]

Who are the 'great unwashed' people on her frequently talk about ??

[ichkeria]

They ARE used in Northern Ireland SO it seems to me that they either use then across the entirety of the UK or not at all

[Gladeian]

May seems to be on course for destroying the morale of the police. Disastrous financial cuts, appointment of a non-police HM Chief Inspector of Constabulary (ex railwayman I think), direct recruitment of non police into superintending ranks and a general attitude of disdain for the service.
When push comes to shove as happened with the miners does she really think that she and the government will command the respect and dedication shown to Lady Thatcher ?

[mikey4444]

This is as much about a poke in the eye for Boris, as anything else.

[retrocop]

Gromit
The Met police purchased two Water Cannon some 25 years ago.One was kept at the Motor Driving School. Hendon for operational use in North London and training drivers/operators. The other was positioned in premises in S. London.
There was no political restraint for purchasing them then and I don't know why they were disposed of.
They were never used but many wished they had been. Likewise the permission from the Home Office to deploy baton rounds was not sought at Broadwater Farm estate much to the disgust of the collegues of PC Keith Blakelock who was hacked to death by a mob of savages.
If,as it was,one of the primary objects of a police force to protect life and property then they are sadly lacking in the means to provide that service. I remember a large Furniture Dept store going up in Flames in Croydon a couple of years back.The police were impotent against the overwhelming mob of looters who came from all over London.They failed a family business that was destroyed in a day. A large building that the Luftwaffe failed to destroy in the last war.
Got any suggestions as how police should control large violent rioting mobs?

[retrocop]

As a footnote.Should an occasion arise where water canon would prove their worth I have a feeling that Boris would sanction their use in the Metropolis and answer to the Home Secretary afterwards. I hope.