I think the UK police have got it wrong

Mum normally reads the UK newspapers on the Internet because over here in France the UK newspapers cost a lot of plastic. I don’t know why she reads them, because she always ends up in a bad mood. Today she was in a very bad mood.

Let me explain something about mum – she doesn’t like the police in the UK. She calls them ‘jokers’. I don’t know if that’s because they are funny or silly. I think perhaps they’re silly. Anyway, after she read the paper today she was stomping up and down the kitchen ranting to Uncle Hugh about ‘thestateofthenation’ – then she shouted a bit more and started telling him about something she’d read. When mum gets mad, she talks REALLY fast and all the words are joined up so I don’t always understand. What I think she was telling him was that now, in the UK, in a place called ‘Lestersher’ if you’re a black man with a farm and you’re harvesting your own food (which is what I thought farmers do) lots and lots of police will come in lots and lots of police cars and ask you why you’re doing it and accuse you of stealing. They’ll do that at least three times. However, if you’re an old lady being mugged or if your house is being burgled by a drug-crazed maniac (mum’s words), or if someone is being stabbed to death, then the police won’t come, because they’re too busy. Perhaps they’re too busy stopping farmers from harvesting their crops?

I don’t get it. In France, the police protect nice people (including farmers) from nasty people and nobody calls them ‘jokers’. In France, the police carry these firing sticks in a belt around their waist, and in our area they have road blocks once a week to try and find nasty people doing nasty things. In the UK, people laugh at the police. In France, they wouldn’t dare, and they wouldn't want to because they respect them. I reckon that the police in the UK should come over here and see how they do it. Then perhaps they’d organise it so that they have the time to help little old ladies being mugged instead of stopping farmers from harvesting their crops.