You thought the Government were bad...

[eek]

Isn't the Met owned by Sadiq Khan, and always has been?

Nope - because the Met is a national service the Home Office have some say over things as well.

[northernladuk]

I was best mates with a police officer in Yorkshire through most of our 20's and 30's and thinking back, when I was a daft lad, much of what they did was just standard ladish behaviour, even females. No different to any group of lads, like rugby or football guys, army lads etc. Makes my hair curl thinking back to what went on back in the day. I hope to god it's nothing like it was but still, bunch of blokes, all bravado and the big I am. I think they call it toxic masculinity now. Particularly when they are on shift together 12 hours a day this is gonna happen to some. Go on to a building site and get all the phones off the guys then I'd expect nothing different.

I think it's totally as Owlhoot says, doesn't matter what uniform you put on or job you do lads will be lads and anyone reading it all will find it disgusting and out of order but lads have been doing this since the dawn of time and will continue to do so. Gotta admit they should be held to a higher standard being officers but I'm not surprised.

I'm not saying all this to defend them, but it's what (some) lads do so can't pretend they don't. Some push it too far, some don't. Even the mild stuff is gonna look bad to most decent/older people. It's a macho male environment so kinda breeds this in some people. To be fair the female officers weren't much better.

So you saying that all 43K of it's officers are like this?

No. I reckon it will be a mix of the younger ones, the proper laaaaads and possibly some from not so good backgrounds. You don't need formal qualifications to enter so will have a proper mix of people. I do bet the older ones have stories as well but they've matured and made the job a career. They may act horrified but they were these lads once.

Always gonna be bad apples taking it too far so a tough one this. No excuse when they get caught though.

[jamesbrown]

So you saying that all 43K of it's officers are like this? Really! Can you imagine the shame of the majority of decent coppers having to be tarred with this. Even a couple of hundred like this can look like an avalanche. The trouble is dealing with them. As described those who speak out are side-lined. The same thing happens in the services. All these organisations take people from general society so of course there's some scum.

You seem to want to be treated like a child, so I'm going to pat you on the head and say "yes, darling".

But speaking to you as an adult, then obviously I don't think everyone in the Met is a massive cretin. An institution can be corrupt and contain many good individuals, obviously. The problem is that there are too many corrupt individuals in the Met, including some within positions of authority/power (and certainly including Cressida Dick - just look at her history FFS, she should've been booted out after she led the operation that resulted in the killing of JC De Menezes) and that has been the case for too long.

[d000hg]

I believe many young people generally joke about rapes and knives these days

They do? I thought they were far too PC. Is this akin to how we used to call people gay and suchlike as a go-to insult to the point it was basically meaningless?

[vetran]

To be fair life was different back then inappropriate behaviour was common even in large organisations I heard my fair share of lewd and misogynist jokes in large offices in the 90s. However the last 30 years its slowly become obvious in proper organisations that such behaviour is unacceptable. Even if this is young guys it would be obvious in any modern organisation that the behaviour is not on.

[TwoWolves]

We should be worrying about the corrupt officers and the institutional "blind-eye" shown to some forms of crime. This is just trivial in comparison.

[PCTNN]

and I believe many young people generally joke about rapes and knives these days.

And do you find this acceptable?

I'd be mortified and would feel like a failure if my kids did that.

[d000hg]

Convenient timing this comes out just as the Met are in the public eye over #10.

[vetran]

We should be worrying about the corrupt officers and the institutional "blind-eye" shown to some forms of crime. This is just trivial in comparison.

A good organisation should stop both. This sort of misbehaviour is obviously endemic

[darmstadt]

Isn't the Met owned by Sadiq Khan, and always has been?

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...t-police-chief