Spring has come to my local park in its usual way. First the magnolias, then the cherry blossom, then the little silver ampules which once held nitrous oxide scattered in the grass. On Sunday the kids appeared, not a gang exactly, more a swarm of teens, angry and unstable.
A boy of about 14 raced a moped at breakneck speed around the toddler playground. ‘Can you stop?’ said a brave father. ‘You might run over a child.’
‘Fuck you,’ said the boy. ‘And I’ll fuck your mother too.’
On the way home, another spring staple: a police helicopter hovering over the Essex Road and below it the remnants of a raid: five vans, six cars, 30-odd coppers in body armour and two BBC cameramen just packing up. Once I might have made fun of them. Do you really need the BBC to make an arrest? But after four years in London N1, an odd new feeling has crept up on me: sympathy for the police.
If you lurk about on the Essex Road, you can see their daily grind in action: the angry drunks; the volatile drug-running teens. I’ve seen the gang boys’ weapons of choice evolve in a comically awful way: first kitchen knives, then machetes, then zombie killer blades. Samurai swords were fashionable for a while.
Not so long ago society policed itself a little. Britain’s tutters and shushers, the guardians aunts of civilisation, gave disrespectful teens what for. Not anymore. Who wants a knifing? So we leave the kids to the police.
That’s not why I feel sorry for them. It’s their job, and I suppose this is what a young cop is prepared for. But what does seem to me unfair is that the men and women on this grisly frontline are so routinely undermined by the politicians who should support them.
Comments
Join the debate for just £1 a month
Be part of the conversation with other Spectator readers by getting your first three months for £3.
UNLOCK ACCESS Just £1 a monthAlready a subscriber? Log in