The Middle Classes and the Police. A thread.

The middle class love the *notion* of law enforcement, particularly the British style of law enforcement. But only because during normal times, it largely doesn't apply to them

They want the police to clamp down on the street gangs ruining their "up and coming areas". They want the police to stop XR protests so the can commute to work. They want the police to be able to police without having to deal with legal loopholes

They want the general public to assume that the police have powers they perhaps officially don't, because that's often what keeps society in line where our regular police are not armed.

That is, until law enforcement is applied to them. Now, under normal times, that might be being stopped drinking alcohol in a park where it isn't permitted and they will moan about "lack of common sense" i.e. look at me, I'm not a teenager or a street drinker

Where we now find ourselves, in this crisis with the widely mis-interpreted Coronavirus Act. And "all of a sudden", middle class types are being told what they can and can't have in their shopping bags, or that they can't sit in the park

And they are absolutely up in arms about it. Why? Because they are being policed in a way that other sections of society have been used to for decades and now that it applies to them, they don't like it

They call for "common sense" and for police to "act within the law" as if the way in which the country is policed has suddenly changed. It hasn't, Waitrose shoppers, it's just you're now being policed like a working class black kid

And to top it all off, the veil of respect for the police they pretend to have has fallen off. Actually they don't like being policed by people they perceive to have less intelligence and earning power than they do

Perhaps they want the police to actually exercise stop and search power on people buying a BBQ because it's "within the law". After all, they've said for years that if you've nothing to hide, then it's not a problem...

Middle classes, you just aren't special. Unfortunately it's taken a global pandemic for you to realise what I've been telling you all on twitter for years; you're just peasants like the rest of them!