Are the police still impartial?

The only silver lining of Churchill’s encasement is that he didn’t have to suffer the indignity of seeing thugs perform Nazi salutes in front of him. It’s a toss up whether this was more grotesque than the hoodies of the week before who threw bikes and bottles at police. Rightly, there was the proper police presence over the weekend to prevent widespread crime and disorder. But why did police surrender to one mob and not the other? 

The job of police is to uphold the law. But is that always still the case? When officers failed to prevent the toppling of Edward Colston’s statue in Bristol they ignored Robert Peel’s fifth principle of policing: 

‘To seek and preserve public favour, not by pandering to public opinion; but by constantly demonstrating absolutely impartial service to law, in complete independence of policy, and without regard to the justice or injustice of the substance of individual laws.’