Robert Verkaik and Jason Bennetto (Extracted from "Shot dead by police 30. Officers convicted 0", The Independent, 21 October 2005)

"The Attorney General was accused of bowing to political pressure last night after it emerged that no police officer will be prosecuted for shooting dead a man armed with a wooden table leg."

[Ed: Looking down the list of 30 incidents that accompanied the article it seems to me that the police were faced with someone with a gun in only seven of them. The other 23 seemed to be hysterical affairs on the part of the police -- as was the last one when Jean de Menezes was killed with many bullets to the head even when he was being held down. I don't think we're heading into a police state -- as in less developed countries -- but police forces, like the armed services, the civil service, the trade unions, the established church and others, are all nation-state institutions (or byproducts) into which the more intelligent of the young decline to be recruited these days. Even MI5 and MI6, which used to recruit only the brightest via secret establishment grapevines are now scraping the barrel by having to advertise in the press and from websites!]