G20: Some perspective on Ian Tomlinson

Police tactics over the G20 protests have been widely criticised (Photo: chickyog.net)

Imagine you shove someone in the street and they fall to the floor. By the letter of the law this is assault and you should face prosecution for your actions.

Then imagine that the same person has a heart attack over an hour later and dies. You would be incredibly unlucky, but you would not be liable for manslaughter.

As simplistic as it may sound, this simple scenario needs to be kept in mind when assessing the case of Ian Tomlinson. I am not one to pull punches when it comes to criticising the Met police and I was not in favour of the kettling techniques used during the G20 protests. But to compare Tomlinson to Jean Charles De Menezes is simply ridiculous.

I am pleased to see that the Guardian tracked down and published the footage showing the assault on Tomlinson, and as a result the incident has been reported to the IPCC. The following material has come to symbolise the frustration of the thousands of protesters caught in the kettle:

But lets not get carried away. This will not be an albatross around Sir Paul Stephenson’s neck like De Menezes was for Ian Blair. As far as the IPCC is concerned, I find myself thinking cynical thoughts: “If they didn’t take any significant action over shooting an innocent man to death, are they really going to act over a man who was shoved to the floor and died 85 minutes later?” Most likely, this investigation will drag on for months and will be resolved quietly after the public has long forgotten about it.

The media has performed a great service in bringing this evidence to public attention, as Morwenna Coniam argues, but blowing this out of proportion would be a gross disservice to the Metropolitan police, despite their many shortcomings. It seems that many are trying to use this incident as a stick to beat the police with, but it’s just not a big enough stick.

Tomlinson was an innocent man who got caught up in the action, but he is no De Menezes as the police attack cannot be clearly linked to his death and a second post-mortem will surely confirm this. Despite the advances in citizen journalism, it’s a shame that no-one has found a more relevant example to illustrate the full extent of the violence that occurred on the streets of central London last week.

 

Where Have All The Lefties Gone?

You can’t move in the journalistic world at the moment without being faced with worrying questions about the credit crunch, but no-one seems to have any definite answers. It’s particularly daunting for someone such as me, who has no formal economic education, so I readily bow to those who know their FTSEs from their Dow Jones’s.

Take to the streets!

The Times’ daily columnists have been doing a great job of making the credit crunch more comprehensible, and today the BBC chimed in with this helpful article.

But I am quite surprised that no-one has risked taking a Marxist view of the situation, even ironically. I consider myself to be a closet Lefty, fairly convinced by Marx’s ideas, but not educated or confident enough to walk down Farringdon Road waving a Red Flag, burning £10 notes.

No matter what your political stance, it must seem unusual that as the capitalist system falters majorly, there is a great dearth of left-wing criticism. Nonetheless, I found this article from the Guardian particularly interesting.

Unquantified though it may be, I think it’s wonderfully ironic that the Germans (who are stereotypically aligned with fascism) should look to their estranged son Karl for guidance during this time of severe economic turmoil. Perhaps I should look to the Guardian more often to indulge my quasi-Marxist tendencies…

Now Playing: Frank Turner – Love, Ire & Song

UPDATE 13/11/08: Don’t despair, some would argue you can even benefit from the credit crunch. David Christopher blogs that a reduction in house prices can only be good for those hoping to get on the property ladder for the first time.