At the meeting, I raised the issue of Boris’ requisition of Water Cannons for the Metropolitan Police. There’s not enough noise about this, but there’s now a twitter hashtag, #watercannon. Nina Power comments in the Guardian, an article called “Boris Johnson’s call for water cannon shows a contempt for the people”. As is pointed out on twitter,
#BorisJohnson prefers to spend on weapons to attack residents than spend on firefighters to protect residents. #watercannon
— Paul Dunn (@VotingRed) January 9, 2014Given a choice between firehoses and watercannon, he’s making the wrong choice, and at the meeting yesterday, it was pointed out that the ‘need’ for water cannons may have been provoked by the cuts in numbers, so given the choice between police numbers and water cannons, he gets it wrong as well.
You’d think he learn that the best defence against riots is a concerned citizenry, it’s the clean up we should remember, but then he wasn’t in London that summer.
Perhaps it’s the hostile reaction he got from Londoners on his return that has led him to ask for water cannons.
ooOOOoo
The featured picture shows London’s Police at the G20 by Avid Hills @flickr CC BY. It shows what they can do without cannon. It’s flickr URL is http://is.gd/HX7LGu