Armed police are vital to keep us safe – they need cast-iron legal protection to operate effectively
Protect cops
ARMED police are brave men and women whose expertise is vital to keep us safe. They need cast-iron legal protection to operate effectively.
We make no comment on Chris Kaba nor the officer charged with his murder.
But we have every sympathy for gun cops who fear the highly dangerous roles for which they volunteer are being made impossible by the threat of prosecution or investigations lasting years.
Of course they must not have a licence to kill recklessly. Nor, obviously, are they asking for one.
Indeed they are far from trigger happy . . . the percentage of callouts during which weapons are fired is tiny. But they DO need crystal clarity on their rights.
Our armed forces have been plagued by legal claims over split-second decisions taken in the white heat of battle.
Cops, similarly, must not have to fear the sack or worse over life-and-death calls they make in good faith.
So we welcome the review ordered by the Home Office.
It must address Met chief Mark Rowley’s request for a rethink on the threshold for any probes by the Independent Office for Police Conduct — plus time limits both on those and CPS decisions to prosecute.
It is blatantly unfair for innocent cops to endure years under the shadow of investigations which often come to nothing.
Bunk on boats
IT has always been absurd to pretend illegal migrants crossing the Channel by the boatload are refugees.
They have passed through and ignored safe countries, choosing Britain instead.
That is known as “asylum shopping”.
Home Secretary Suella Braverman is right to demand UN rules be changed to recognise that these mainly young men — smartphone-equipped and paying thousands in fares — are not refugees.
And to stress we cannot take in every single woman or gay person who claims they are persecuted back home either.
These are common-sense positions the facile Left likes to call “fascism”.
But it is THEIR hand-wringing feebleness which helps create the pull factor.
When, if ever, will they wake up?
Libs’ Ed ache
IT is tempting to ignore the spineless Lib-Dems . . . except they could yet prop up a minority Labour Government.
They are now mainly hard-left Remoaner cranks who advance conflicting policies in different places depending who they are trying to dupe.
Their only true beliefs are a tragic nostalgia for the 2016-era EU they haven’t noticed is no more, and a desire to help NIMBY voters stop anything being built.
But we congratulate the “Young Liberals” who, on the latter, gave their own leader a bloody nose at his conference.
Their generation needs new homes, even if Ed Davey is too dim or cynical to see it.