In the light of the death of Ian Tomlinson, George Monbiot talks about his own experiences with aggressive coppers, the cozy relationship between them and the rightwing press and how this relationship has changed in recent years:
But none of this featured in the conservative press. The story was always the same: we would stagger home after our peaceful protests were attacked by uniformed skinheads to discover that we were ”Anarchist thugs on the rampage” whose attempt to destroy civilisation had been thwarted only by the calm professionalism of the police. Violent police action mutated into violent protests. The papers believed everything the police told them.
This began to change when the police foolishly attacked a Countryside Alliance march in 2004. In the spirit of impartial policing, the cops gave these reactionaries the treatment they had doled out to generations of progressives. It was grotesque, disproportionate and familiar policing, but there’s a world of difference between bloodstained hemp ponchos and bloodstained tweeds. The exposure of the lies the police then told about the killing of Jean Charles de Menezes and the shooting of Mohammed Abdul Kahar made the papers – which had reproduced the official version – feel stung.
Tomlinson’s death, as well as all the other documented police thuggery during the G-20 demo might finally have shocked the press out of its reflexive habit of trusting the police, but I wouldn’t count on it too much. It’s just too deeply ingrained.