Category Archives: Sussex Police

Yesterday, I concluded my interviews with the main candidates in the forthcoming elections for Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner, by questioning the UKIP candidate, Tony Armstrong. Having already interviewed the evangelical Ian Chisnall (plus my post confirming Chisnall doesn’t disagree with the published version of the interview), the Conservative Katy Bourne and the Labour candidate, Godfrey Daniel, I don’t mind admitting that I was strongly tempted to cancel the interview and instead go to a Brighton Photo Biennial talk by some Urban Explorers in the Caroline of Brunswick pub instead. The trouble was, he had asked me to interview him so very nicely. That’s me being ironic. Making an arrangement to interview Mr Armstrong was a real palaver.

First I tweeted him an offer of an interview. He replied in a comment on one of my blog posts, suggesting that I telephone him and leaving a number. I asked him again to contact me via twitter. He replied with another comment, asking me to email him but warning, “I cannot guarantee that the email will work, as I have to set up this end, and every time I start I get diverted to something else…” I replied again, asking him to contact me via twitter. A week ago I woke up to discover that he had tweeted me, at 3:36 in the morning! Here’s his tweet:

UKIP Sussex Police and Crime Commissioner candidate Tony Armstrong reads rival interviews in the middle of the night. Click to enlarge.

I replied immediately, asking him to make the arrangements via twitter’s private direct messaging system. Here’s my reply and his reply to that:

Tony Armstrong doesn’t know how to use twitter (or grammar). Click to enlarge.

Of course everyone cuts corners when faced with twitter’s 140 character constraint but Mr Armstrong hasn’t got anywhere near that territory with this truncated message. Despite me asking him once for an interview via twitter, twice via my blog with requests that he use twitter to contact me, and now a fourth time on twitter itself again, he still wants to telephone me. Is this a man who can fit in with modern communication systems? Is this a man who would prefer all communications to be unrecorded? What’s his problem with twitter? Why doesn’t he just sort himself out and then reply as requested? Whatever it is, he clearly cannot manage to use the network without help. The exchange continued, with me unfortunately losing a grip on my own grammar, at the point of sheer exasperation with this fellow’s basic incompetence:

Scrapper Duncan deploys lmgtfy.com – click to enlarge.

I very rarely deploy Let Me Google That For You. It performs the bluntest of hints. Normally, its deployment is sufficient to warn off the requester from making further contact. If you haven’t seen it in action before, here’s it answering the question asked by Tony Armstrong. Before he got that last tweet, he sent me another public tweet. If you don’t tweet yourself, it’s worth knowing that every single one of the tweets so far could be read by the entire online world, whether or not the reader has a twitter account. It is difficult to think of a more public medium. Nevertheless, Mr Armstrong chipped back in with the incredibly misinformed:

Tony Armstrong asks if the most public space in the world is private? Click to enlarge.

At this point I should have withdrawn the interview request. Being this unable to work out the basics of digital communication must surely act as a bar to being taken seriously as a candidate for such an important job as running all of Sussex Police? So there I am, yesterday evening, sitting in my usual seat by the fireplace in the Battle of Trafalgar pub, Guildford Road, Brighton and who should rush in, looking flustered and somewhat out of breath? Yes, Mr Armstrong. To be fair, he was on time. He said he had driven to Brighton for the interview but hadn’t realised how to navigate the one way system to the pub (I guess he doesn’t have SatNav?) and then (of course) had to negotiate the tricky business of finding somewhere to park. He told me that lives in Burgess Hill. Why didn’t he just travel down by train? He screwed up his eyes at that suggestion, as if I was asking him why didn’t he move to the moon? The pub we were in is less than a two minute walk from Brighton station. He could easily have parked near Burgess Hill station, caught the train directly to Brighton and walked to the pub. That would have been by far and away the easiest way to travel to meet me.

Once he had a pint of coke in his hand and was settled in a chair opposite, I started the interview. Before meeting him, I’d looked over his own statement of policies and UKIP’s Manifesto for these elections. Lest they get changed from how they were presented to me, here they are. First up is Mr Armstrong’s declared policies:

Tony Armstrong’s policies, as of 24th October 2012. Click to enlarge.

To summarise them, he wants value for money, no cuts in front line policing, evidence based preventative measures, targeting known prolific criminals, increased Neighbourhood Policing Teams, increased Special Constables and Police volunteers and greater deployment of Road Policing Officers. In other words, there’s no real difference between what he wants and what all the other candidates want. His actual list of policies is numbered but not in any coherent manner. For example, paragraph 5 adds nothing of substance and is, therefore, little more than padding. Now, let’s look at UKIP’s Manifesto for these elections. It’s a bit more wordy but I’m posting an image of their relevant web page as of the date of the interview, lest they change it too:

UKIP’s Manifesto for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections 2012, as of 24th October 2012. Click to enlarge.

Now, call me old fashioned but I can’t see the point of an interview which simply repeats huge chunks of already published election material. Yet that seemed to be precisely what Mr Armstrong wanted to do. Despite his initial claim that he had only “skim read” his own party’s manifesto, the answers he gave to my questions were peppered with phrases directly lifted from either of the web pages above, as if he had read it over and over again and, whether accidentally or deliberately, memorised them. Several times, I stepped in to remind him that he was simply repeating what I had read online only a few hours before.

On Mr Armstrong’s own website (in his Q&A page), it says, “… before I became the official UKIP candidate, I made no secret that if UKIP policies clashed with what was best for Sussex, I would do what was best for Sussex. I repeated the same promise from the stage at my first public meeting at Lancing on 11th October, in the presence of the Leader of UKIP, Nigel Farage.” With this statement in mind I asked him if he agreed with all of UKIP’s manifesto? “I’ve only skim read it.” Later on he told me that it was only published five days earlier, after he had been declared as a UKIP candidate. He was keen to claim that he “wasn’t a politician” but did conceded that since he was an official representative of a political party that did make him a politician. He said a career politician was “someone who had spent their life in politics” and cited one of his rivals, Godfrey Daniel, the Labour candidate as an example of that. He went on, “I don’t want to be thought of as a politician.“

I pressed him, was there any part of the UKIP manifesto which disagreed with? “No.” With that agreement established, my questions followed the statements in UKIP’s manifesto. It’s worth noting that this is their manifesto specifically tailored these elections for Police and Crime Commissioner. UKIP’s manifesto says it believes “in sentences that mean what they say” but Mr Armstrong accepted that the police had no power over criminal sentencing whatsoever. The manifesto says Mr Armstrong wants “More Police Officers on our streets” but when I asked him how many more police officers he would recruit, he couldn’t give a precise answer. It says Mr Armstrong wants “More Special Constables…“, so I asked him how many more would he recruit? “It depends…” On what did it depend? “On how many volunteer and are suitable.” How much did each one cost? “I don’t know.” How much would it cost to recruit them? “I’ll deal with that later. We’ll recruit them first and work out the budget after.” Really? Surely he would have to work out the budget before he could recruit anyone? “No, the recruitment will be before the budgeting decision.” I wanted to ask whether he thought there was a single organisation in the world that could operate on that basis but, for some reason I didn’t. Perhaps it was because he volunteered some more information: “I have no background in finance.” Didn’t the elected Police and Crime Commissioner need to understand finance? “No, I can hire people in to deal with that.” How much money would he spend on hiring in people who would do his job for him? “Dealing with financial stuff is not part of the job.” Didn’t the job include making decisions about the allocation of resources? “Yes.” Wasn’t any decision about how to allocate resources, a financial decision? “Yes but there will be a team to help me.” What was the cost of hiring the team he needed to help him perform this aspect of the job? “I don’t know but I will get whatever needs to be done.” He collected himself and said that the “existing team” would probably do most of the work but if they “couldn’t function” he would hire new people to help him.

How many more police stations would there be? “I don’t know.” Where would they be created? “I can’t give you a precise answer.”

In direct contradiction to his party’s manifesto, he accepted that the police did not have the power to “Axe the Crown Prosecution Service and return to police prosecutions“, could not “Build the prisons…” and had no function of law making (the manifesto says UKIP’s candidates want “More severe penalties for serial re-offenders“). These three claims alone destroy the idea that UKIP has got the slightest grip on the point of these elections. Who wrote this crap? What’s the point of claiming to the public that your candidate will be “dedicated to” these objectives, if you have no power whatsoever to make any progress on any of them?

The manifesto also says that UKIP wants, “More rehabilitation to turn offenders away from crime.” This is possible under the remit of the Police and Crime Commissioner because s/he will be able to allocate resources towards rehabilitation schemes. If they wanted to, they could use their funds to help start entirely new rehabilitation schemes, either in partnership with other community organisations or without them. I slipped my question about this in with my questions about the three manifesto claims above: did he agree that the police had no power to create rehabilitation schemes? “We can help with them but we can’t create them.” Here’s a fellow who has realised that he has contradicted the manifesto he wants to support, an interviewee who has realised that several questions in a row have only one logical answer and a careless listener. Either he doesn’t know what the powers of the Police and Crime Commissioner will be or he found it difficult to concentrate when being asked questions in quick succession and leapt at the easy answers, the ones that agreed with an apparently well informed interviewer. Here’s a man who will be easy meat for a Chief Constable.

Crucially, Mr Armstrong accepted that he would be obliged to follow the judgments from the European Court of Human Rights. He wasn’t keen on that question at all. I had to press him three times for a clear answer on that.

UKIP’s manifesto says it wants to, “Focus the Police on solving serious crimes, rather than concentrating on thought crime, political/diversity issues, gathering statistics and ‘soft targets’. For instance, speed cameras should be sited only where the community wants them – not where they’ll make the most money..” There’s a lot going on in that paragraph, so I broke the questions down. How much ‘thought crime’ was committed in Sussex? “Who knows?” Fair enough, it’s a good answer. Not exactly on message with his party manifesto though. “What does it mean?” I reminded him that it had come from his manifesto and suggested that since it was me who was interviewing him, he should tell me what it meant? “No idea. I would like to know what they mean by that. It’s not my turf.” Then he suggested that it could perhaps include “that B&B couple“. Was he talking about the Christian B&B owners who had turned away a gay couple? “Yes.” Didn’t he realise that whatever they were accused of, it was an action and not a thought? “Yes.” Surely he knew that they had not been prosecuted as criminals but had been subject to a claim made by way of civil litigation, which had nothing to do with crime? “What’s the difference?” Didn’t he know that many court actions were civil matters resolving disputes between citizens who had not been involved in any crime? “Yes, I see what you mean.“

Did he agree that gathering statistics could help prevent racist behaviour by the police? “No, it’s a waste of time. If it shows an imbalance, then the problem has already occurred.” Didn’t he think that being able to audit such imbalances would act as a deterrent to certain police officers who tended to pick on members of ethnic minorities? “No.” He went to speak fondly of the “good old days“, when he said police officers could be expected to be “fair by everyone“. When I pointed out that we had since discovered all manner of police malpractice back in the days when nothing was monitored he simply shrugged his shoulders and insisted that they were all upstanding people who tried to do the right thing. I wondered whether this character paid any attention to the news at all? He joined the police in the 1960s. There have been so many instances of misbehaviour, malicious prosecutions and cover ups since then it is difficult to know when to start and where to end a list of them. An exercise like that wouldn’t just require a whole post, it would need a whole blog! Mr Armstrong told me that he didn’t want the police gathering statistical data because “that could be done by civilian staff back at the station“. Okay, I said, I’m out late at night and a couple of coppers stop me, question me, then rough me up a little but they don’t arrest me; didn’t that mean that I would never get entered in any data gathering exercise under his way of doing things? “No, erm… I think I have muddled up the words ‘gather’ and ‘collate’.” Nice try, I thought. I’ll ask again. Did he agree that gathering statistics could help prevent racist behaviour by the police, because it could prove that certain types of people were being disroportionately targeted? His answer was shocking: “there is a school of thought that if you’re black, you’re more likely to commit crime.” Really? What’s the evidence for that? “That’s why more black people get arrested in Brixton.“

There is a school of thought which thinks that ~ it’s called racism. There really isn’t any other way of dressing this up. There’s no evidence whatsoever that people of any one ethnicity are more likely to commit crime than any other. This so-called ‘school of thought’ is a bigoted opinion based on fear and hatred but not on facts. This wasn’t a chat down the pub with one of his friends. This was him being interviewed by me in the full knowledge that I would publish what he said. Why would he mention this? Does he subscribe to this racist belief? If he doesn’t, what on earth was the point of introducing it into the conversation? In the context of the questions being asked, he appears to be using it as a defence to UKIP’s policy against gathering statistics. He’s saying that there’s no need to gather statistics to monitor how the police treat ethnic minorities, because ‘black people commit more crimes anyway’.

This is an outrageous statement. Mr Armstrong has been a member of UKIP since 2006. He’s met Nigel Farage, appeared on a platform with him and has declared that he completely agrees with their manifesto. At his first opportunity in this interview to distinguish his party from other, less savoury racist organisations, he jumps straight in with both feet and stamps on his chance. Does Mr Farage also think black people commit more crimes? Doubtless someone will ask him shortly.

I pointed out that speed cameras tend to be set up by local authorities. Didn’t that mean that UKIP’s claim that they should only be sited where the community wanted them put was already met, since the local authority was democratically elected? “I don’t know whether they are a police decision or not.” The manifesto declared that there would be, “No soft treatment of Police misdemeanours.” What was the most common police misdemeanour in Sussex? “No idea.” What sort of police misdemeanours did he have experience of? “I don’t know. None.” This was his party’s manifesto. The claim had to be based on something. He’d been a serving police officer for many years. Couldn’t he give an example of a police misdemeanour? “Lying was probably amongst the most common.” Great. Here’s an ex-police officer, whose eyes glaze over with a warm and rosy look when he recalls ‘the good old days’, when the police were not properly monitored and committed all sorts of outrages (from the Birmingham Six to the Hillsborough Ninety-Six and countless cases in between), who readily tells the public that lying is likely to be the most common fault in the force.

Towards the end of the interview, Mr Armstrong was keen to distance himself from the UKIP manifesto. “I’m not committing myself to anything,” he said and repeated that he had only read the manifesto in a hurry. It took me five minutes to read. I am a fast reader. Perhaps it took him ten. Perhaps fifteen. “I have no specific policies.” That’s an odd claim to make, considering he has been widely advertising his own website, which contains the page entitled “POLICIES.” Yet again he tried to insist that he had strongly considered being an independent candidate. He told me that originally his website contained a sentence explaining a now abandoned desire to be an independent candidate but he had been asked to remove it. By whom? “The powers that be.” Which powers were those? “UKIP.” Why had they told him to remove it? “Probably to achieve conformity with the other UKIP candidates.“

He had some definite plans for Burgess Hill, where he lives. He wants to increase the work done by Road Police Officers. He used to be one of those. Here’s a man whose political vision is limited by his own experience. He doesn’t appear to grasp even the basics of political dialogue. “You do ask a lot of questions!” Yes, I said, this is what happens in a political interview. The interviewer asks questions. Did he agree that UKIP’s project intended to frustrate the Tories from winning some seats and thereby wring from them a concession over Europe which would be more carved in stone and written in blood? “No. UKIP’s project is to win power, to win freedom from European shackles.“

At the very end of the interview, I threw in a quick question which was specifically designed to give him an opportunity to say that he needed more information. I asked him about his view of funding research into surveillance inside Jabber OTR channels. Instead of asking what Jabber was, he waffled a little about how important proper investigations were. What was Jabber? “I don’t know.” What was the question I just asked you? “I don’t know.” I gave a brief explanation and then he suddenly “did know“. Grinning, he told me that he had access to “secret knowledge“. What sort of ‘secret knowledge’? “I can’t tell you what secret knowledge I have or might have.” I’ve spent a lot of time in my previous career questioning people. Some of those people were liars. Others were merely bullshitters and, if I’m honest, the vast majority were just confused. This last stab at something special left Mr Armstrong looking like a liar. Whether he’s a liar or a bullshitter I cannot tell but he’s definitely racist.