Pigs

And other animals

Oink! Pigs on a tank, Brixton, 1990-something.

---

This week’s ramblings were inspired by an online spat between the Police Federation and the producers of a new ITV sitcom called ‘Piglets’. A culture war skirmish as pointless as it was amusing. Set in a fictional police college, Piglets follows six unlikely recruits as they undertake basic training. Tiffany Lynch, acting chair of the Federation, thundered the title was;

Inflammatory against a landscape of rising threats and violence against officers… we should not be put at further risk for viewing numbers, our officers deserve respect, not humiliation for the job they are undertaking.

ITVs replied, presumably stifling their giggles;

The title is not intended to cause any offence, it’s a comedic and endearing play on words to emphasise the innocence and youth of our young trainees.

They might as well have added, ‘so fuck you, Pigs’ (but, I hasten to add, they didn’t). ITV also mentioned the premise of Piglets was;

The government’s stated policy of recruiting 20,000 new police officers in double quick time has not come at the cost of lowering standards. Or has it?

I couldn’t possibly comment on that one.

The trailer for Piglets is linked above. It doesn’t look particularly funny (it could be called Cop Bastards for all I care, as long as it makes me laugh). Nonetheless ruminating on the spat made me think about, variously;

1. The general culture war bullshit police increasingly concern themselves with, why it’s a waste of time and why the police can never (and should never) win.

2. The global history of being rude to, and about, the police. This includes etymology of the term ‘Pig’ and other animal-based nicknames.

3. Police haters, a breed spanning all social classes. You’ll find them among penniless recidivists, middle-class Guardianisti and retired colonels from Tunbridge Wells. And posh Members of Parliament, of course, who’ve always despised ‘Plod’ (that links, by the way, to my most-read article on Substack).

4. The subject of Resilience (you might like this article I wrote, by the way). When is verbal abuse too much verbal abuse? Who are the worst offenders?

Furthermore, I do not apologise if this piece comes across like the sort of stream-of-consciousness, serendipitous and occasionally sardonic conversation you might have in a police car at 4am on Night Duty.

Back to ‘Piglets’. Although it’s worthy of the Police Federation to stick up for the troops (although priorities - shame about the pensions, eh?), I think they chose the wrong battle. You know what they say about online arguments, don’t you?

It’s like wrestling with a pig; you just get covered in shit and the pig enjoys it.

I write as someone who prefers not to live in a society where it’s forbidden to be rude about the police, politicians or anyone else. Look at MPs, estate agents, traffic wardens and lawyers. They’re in broadly the same boat. You don’t see their staff associations whining.

And who wants to live in a country where the police are allowed to offer a collective view on what or who you’re allowed take the piss out of? They tried that in the Soviet bloc and look how that turned out. Although too many police forces seem to enjoy plucking low-hanging culture war fruit at the expense of quaintly old-fashioned pastimes like detecting burglaries, robberies, rapes etc.

The cast of ‘Piglets.’

---

The Police and the Culture War

The Federation broke the first rule of the culture war (the one that doesn’t exist, right?) which is it’s designed to be unfair. Asymmetric, as they say in military circles. If, like me, you’re in favour of free speech and sceptical of performative snow-flakery then you’re obliged to stick to your principles. This is to say, you can’t use the same tactics as those who think language is assaultive and subscribe to whatever flavour of intersectional ideology happens to be in vogue.

In this case, I very much doubt a show called ‘Piglets’ is going to make much real-world difference to anyone, anywhere. Making a fuss about it? As I often say, you might as well go and shout at bees. The same principle applies to senior police officers, spokespersons and activists-in-blue making proclamations on contested cultural issues, then bridling when they receive a non-politically correct response from members of the public. Just stay out of it. Just stop. Please.

What I’m saying is this - the Police Federation should have made a sassy, witty reply to ITV about its choice of name for its new police series, perhaps adding ‘Piglets’ looks about as funny as a fire in an orphanage on Christmas Eve.

As it was, the Federation looked thin-skinned, prudish and weak. Police officers are used to being called rude names. The vast majority of them simply get on with it. In this respect, I think the Fed represented its members poorly.

---

Pigs and other animals

Then I began thinking about the slang words used for police across the globe, as not liking cops appears to unite humanity. That’s okay, though, as regular readers will know I think policing shouldn’t be a popularity contest. In fact, senior officers who think policing should be a popularity contest are half the bloody problem in my grumpy bastard opinion.

I think when you see a police car in your rear view mirror, even if you’re completely innocent, you should get that… frisson. You probably know the one. That’s healthy.

Nowadays? I see a police car in my rear view mirror and simply feel sorry for the poor bastards inside. I’m sure others might feel contempt, bemusement or indifference. That’s not healthy.

Anyway, animals are a global theme when it comes to pejorative slang for cops. Pigs is Western, and seems to have originated in England in the 1600s (probably applied to parish constables or sheriffs - dirty bastards, snuffling around other folk’s business) before its resurrection by countercultural hepcats in the 1960s. See also Bacon and Gammon. Norway adds a feminine twist, calling their police Purken (or Sow).

In France, they call their police Poulet (chicken). I don’t know why, although I do know you’d have to be brave to call a CRS officer a chicken. In Germany, Polizei are known as Bulls. In Tunisia, officers are called Hnach, or snakes. Serbia? Kerovi, which is slang for ‘Ker’ or Dog. Dog or Bitch is used in several other eastern European countries, especially Poland. The internet also tells me how in India (Hyderabad to be precise) the locals refer to the constabulary as Khatmal, which means bed bugs. That’s low. Really low. Ouch.

My absolute favourite, though, hails from Vietnam. Their traffic police wear yellowish uniforms which are said to resemble the Pokémon character Pikachu. Awww. That’s cute.

Pikachu.

---

Dogs, Pigs, Snakes, bedbugs… there’s a theme developing here. Which is people who should dislike the police actually do dislike the police. I think it’s a performance indicator. I don’t want scummy workaday robbers and burglars calling me nice names. If they were, I’d think I was doing something wrong.

But that’s just me.

Which brings me onto my third point, which is non-criminal police haters.

Haters Gonna Hate

As I’ve said previously, the definition of a liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested. Law-abiding, small ‘c’ conservative members of the public tend to be broadly supportive of the police, until they break the law or get accused of something. Then they find themselves caught in the bureaucratic hellscape of the criminal justice system. Some of this is the fault of the police, some of it isn’t, but as the forward-facing service Old Bill tends to take the flak.

This one experience will be enough for a select few to spend the rest of their lives fulminating about the utter hopelessness / untrustworthiness / mendacity of the police. I have met many over the years at dinner parties, drinks and indeed in custody suites. Some will go on to become campaigners, reformers, haters, online polemicists, ACAB activists or IOPC investigators.

Again, some of this is understandable given the impact police intervention can have on people’s lives. Some of it, though, smacks of political opportunism, spite or simply an enjoyable and slightly edgy hobby for folk with little else to do. As I’ve written before, to the political Left the police are class traitors, psychopaths and running dogs. To the Right, they’re ineffectual, thick, politically-correct drips who were probably bullied at school. To the Gen ‘Z’ camera zombies who’ve yet to develop any ideological views, the police are TikTok worthy figures of fun, aunt Sallies to be mocked for likes on social media.

Then unarmed police tackle a nutter with a samurai sword… and for ten brief minutes they’re the good guys again.

As a police officer, I’ve experienced intense hatred from other so-called humans. Bug-eyed, foaming at the mouth, primal loathing (demonstrations, football matches and pub kicking out time featured heavily). Interestingly, though, there was a subset of people who seldom behaved like that.

Guess who?

Proper Villains.

Now, I’m not going to get all dewy-eyed about the Halcyon days of Ronnie and Reggie. Quite the opposite, as I wrote here. However, on the occasions I’ve dealt with accomplished criminals - people fully committed to living ‘The Life’ - they’ve often been sanguine about police officers and policing. I seldom encountered genuine antipathy, even if some of them would probably shoot you (‘nothing personal’). I think mutual respect is pushing it a bit far, but if you’ve been caught red-handed, doing something Very Naughty Indeed, by police using properly sneaky tactics? There remain a select few criminals who’ll say ‘that’s a fair cop.’ Some, I think, secretly enjoyed the prestige of being taken out by a ‘big numbers’ squad who’d clearly spent a fortune catching them.

I remember, as a young copper, being part of an operation to catch a team of professional warehouse burglars. The job was well-organised, with observation posts, arrest teams, dogs and excellent intelligence. When the main suspect was intercepted leaving a warehouse, carrying a holdall full of computer components, he surrendered immediately (his mate didn’t, threatened police with a broken bottle and suffered the wrath of a land shark). When he was put in the van, the sensible burglar grinned. “Fair play lads,” he said. “That was mustard.”

He was what I would call ‘a proper villain.’

Everything’s cooler when the villain is Bobby de Niro

---

Resilience

Earlier, I commented on snow-flakery. Coppers have to be resilient. The Job is all about telling people to do things they don’t want to do. It’s about persuasion, cajoling and coercion. And, yes, sometimes it’s about fighting. After a while, you feel like everyone loathes you, especially the reptiles sitting pretty in the command suite at HQ.

Criminals have boasted of how they planned to anally rape my mother. They’ve told me they hoped my kids die of cancer. They’ve used profanities even I was genuinely impressed by. After a while, it’s like static. Blah, blah, blah.

Yet we’re only human. There are limits. What is the drip-drip-drip, water-torture style effect of being hated, day in and day out, for years? Well, many coppers become embittered, cynical bastards with a bleak sense of humour and a suite of unhealthy coping strategies. Back in the days before camera phones, we could also give as good as we got (I’ve enjoyed a few epic trash-talking battles on the street with scrotes). Very cathartic it was, too.

Not now.

So the pressure comes from all angles, like swarms of hornets. And some of the worst things a copper will ever hear, some of the most genuinely insulting and insensitive shit, will come from bosses issuing bone-headed diktats and instructions. There are no canteens to decompress in. Dark humour is verboten, lest someone be offended. Mental health support is a tick-box affair, a sticking plaster on a deep, generational wound.

Then, I suppose, some people finally crack. They get upset about a TV programme being called ‘Piglets’. They lose all sense of perspective.

As usual, the answer lies beyond policing. What do the public want? What sort of public order laws are reasonable? What of the magistrates who find that ‘police officers cannot be offended?’ (unless, of course, someone steps over the intersectional line, whereupon they magically can be). What of the morale vampire police bosses, long retired from confrontation, who’ve created a woke-place culture of puritanical misery?

I don’t have the answer.

I do know, if you can’t take a joke, you shouldn’t have joined.

And if you’re still serving, I send my warmest regards. My advice? Look after your team. Keep your eyes about. Don’t trust the bosses. Stay safe and write everything down.

---

Love and Peace,

Dom