"In an environment of cuts across the wider public sector, we face a period where disaffection, social and industrial tensions may well rise... We will require a strong, confident, properly trained and equipped police service... that believes it is valued by the government... (when) there is widespread disorder on our streets, it will not be police community support officers, or special constables or non-warranted police staff, journalists or politicians [who will be needed] to restore order. It will be our police officers and we must be sufficiently resilient to enable us to respond properly, professionally and safely with the minimum of force."
I don't know. It reminds me of this Monty Python sketch. ''Nice civil society you got here, guvnor. Shame if someone broke it. Shame if someone wasn't sufficiently resilient to respond with a minimum of force.'
People outside the UK might not understand a sinister bit of subtext in the speech.
"From the massacre in 1819, that took place not so many miles away from here... history teaches us that there will always be widespread threats to the public peace."
This is a clear reference to the Peterloo Massacre where Northern pro-democracy protesters were hacked down by law-enforcement (this was before the police as they currently exist were established). 15 killed, about 500 injured. Why does he reference this very famous event? What threat to the peace was there at Peterloo? It wasn't the protesters.
Shelley wrote The Masque of Anarchy about this massacre ('I met murder on the way/ He had a face like Castlereagh'). That's worth a read.
