Policing the Coronation

I’m one of many who hasn’t been following the coronation closely, but I’m not in the least surprised to hear that it was insensitively and incompetently policed, with recent punitive laws encouraging various officers to be heavy handed in restricting the movements and actions of law-abiding citizens.

It’s a while since you’d expect members of government to be interested in such concerns, but a number of public figures and various pundits have pointed out what went wrong, and why we need to be alert in defending freedoms which could very easily be signed away.

Predictably, Labour said nothing. Very anxious to avoid being tarred by the tabloids as anti-royalist, so the smart move is to say nothing and wait for it all to go away. My worry is that this will become a reflex, and that if they do eventually come to power it will be on the understanding that principles are a risky kind of luggage to be carrying around. Strikers and protesters are embarrassing company, and while recent election successes might well show recruits from the red wall, they also show diminishing enthusiasm from young people and Blacks. Is the great victory for which Starmer works at risk from the disillusion experienced by many of his natural supporters?