My only hope was to get up a sidestreet to the Common at the top of the hill, across which I reckoned I could beat him through the traffic to the safety of the woods or the railway line. My daily commute is 10 miles in each direction, I don't smoke and I am pretty fit for my age. I rated my chances.It obviously took him a few seconds to realise that I hadn't timidly dismounted and held out my wrist for a ritual slap But he was quick enough to see where I'd turned off. Once again, I had blue flashing lights in my mirror as I pumped furiously up the hill Now the sirens were screaming too.I almost made it Just at the brow he headed me off.
He overtook me, and I saw that he was sensible enough to block my path by slewing tightly across the road between the parked cars. I stopped and watched, as with big smug grins he and his two colleagues got out of the car to give me what for.I observed that they were all extremely fat. I observed that their car was effectively just as wedged in as they had been, until recently, in their comfortable seats. So I swung the bike around, sped off down the hill and left them clutching just a cheerful expletive.The next bit was easy. I turned up another side road, obstructed by a pedestrian barrier, parked behind a house, removed my distinctive helmet and coat and put them in my bag. I then tootled off home at my own speed, happily seeing a sweating officer trying to perform a rapid nine-point turn in too narrow a gap.You may say that I was childish not to face the music, and that I added to the danger of high-speed chases by fleeing.
You may also say that I had broken the law and should pay the price for doing so I don't really disagree. But I say that this was a comically absurd abuse of police power. I also say that it isn't really surprising that the force's crime-solving rate has, as is reported, dropped below 25 per cent if this is a representative sample of their officers.And, most of all, I say that if the police succeed in alienating people like me, the professional middle classes (among whom they count themselves), then they really are lost The rule of law can only operate by consent Consent is not obtained by contempt, or by force. As Napoleon said, there are many things you can do with a bayonet, but you can't sit on it.A longer version of this article appears in the current 'Spectator'. "Never go back" was a piece of paternalistic advice once offered to me in the late 1970s by an old drinking friend known to me as "John the gangster". The "back" he had in mind consisted of certain louche Mediterranean resorts, swish hotels, dangerous women, and of course prison, elements that had shaped his life as a jewel thief. "Never go back" was a piece of paternalistic advice once offered to me in the late 1970s by an old drinking friend known to me as "John the gangster".
