War veteran visited by police after Twitter joke about Brexit

The news story is simply the police performing a routine part of their job -- they visit hundreds of people every day. The consequence is someone having a very small part of their day briefly interrupted for a few minutes.

Look, I honestly don't mean to be funny but... are you a lefty? No Daily Mail reader would trivialise it in that way, that's what I mean.

You said it's hardly a huge deal to be visited by two coppers! I give up, what was the point then?

I said it wasn't a huge deal. That doesn't mean I believe it's a common occurrence or something which should occur regularly.

It's not a huge deal because all the police did was talk to him and leave. If the police had given him a fine or arrested him then it'd be a much bigger deal.

It's funny you mention that paper, since it's one of the worst offenders when it comes to blatant non-stories designed to rile people up over absolutely nothing; they've been getting away with it for decades, and they rely heavily on faux-outrage to sell newspapers. (Obviously not just them, other tabloids like Metro, Sun, Star, Mirror, Express all do it as well)

Hence my question and in your own terms, had someone written that on TSR and could they be exposed to a police visit? It wouldn't have been even one of the top one hundred controversial posts of the month, nobody would have batted an eyelid. However, had someone complained about it to the police and... it would be fine for them to come round and leave, end of? Once 'they'd seen who you are', that was fine? Really?

You're both to the left of the political spectrum and for that reason think nothing of stories like this, that's understandable and not in question. It's just that everybody else, those not left-leaning, think it is a sorry state of affairs on multiple counts and a worrying trend. Of course, had this guy had a swipe against Brexit and the police would have never turned up. Had they done so and you guys would be going out of your way to denounce the police state.

You're both to the left of the political spectrum and for that reason think nothing of stories like this, that's understandable and not in question. It's just that everybody else, those not left-leaning, think it is a sorry state of affairs on multiple counts and a worrying trend. Of course, had this guy had a swipe against Brexit and the police would have never turned up. Had they done so and you guys would be going out of your way to denounce the police state.

If someone on TSR made a comment and someone else on TSR made a complaint that a criminal offence has been committed, then yes, the person who made the comment could (potentially) get a police visit.

Don't get hung-up over the term 'investigate' which is a catch-all word. In this context it probably meant nothing more than checking the Twitter comment. Almost everything the police do is an 'investigation', a police officer glancing at a car's tax disc is technically an 'investigation' (in the days when discs were displayed on cars).

Wrong on all counts there I'm afraid.

It's a matter of being able to apply critical thinking to spot poor-quality journalism. The first clue is that you're looking at a story reported in a free tabloid newspaper which is well-known for trying to grab attention using stories with no substance behind them; this is hardly a new trick afterall. Not everybody gets triggered so easily by flippant use of emotionally-charged language.

There are other news outlets who never go anywhere near stories like this; they're the ones with higher standards of journalism who tend to cater towards a more inquisitive audience of people who can easily spot that kind of thing a mile off, and who aren't easily duped by empty attention-grabbing headlines. If there were any substance at all to stories like this, then they would be picked up by some of those news outlets.

Just to be clear, are you disputing any of the facts on offer?

There you go, that may come as news to some people in here and should that be the case with a single poster and it's the topic vindicated. Should someone suggest that nothing short of a military coup would enforce Brexit once and for all in a discussion on the Politics forum could potentially spark a police investigation and a knock on the door.



I get hung up to the extent of wondering what the investigation may be like, how that 'checking the Twitter comment' business pans out. In fact, I suppose it must be a bit awkward for the investigators to justify their presence beyond the technical legality that delivered them on the doorstep. More like social-work, really.

Imagine if this had happened in North Korea or Iran or Syria or Russia etc. our media would be all over it using it as an example of the draconian, authoritative nature of those "regimes!", but when it happens here, it hardly gets a mention.

We are slowly starting to learn that we live in societies that are just as draconian and authoritative in their way as any of the worst. If you dare not conform, even slightly, you will wind up paying a price...

Don't conform and you will have the police pay you a visit.

Don't conform and you might get banned from public forums and platforms.

Don't conform and you might loose your job and your career.

Don't conform and you might wind up in prison.

Don't conform and you might wind up hanging from a tree in the middle of a forest in the middle of nowhere (David Kelly *cough* *cough*).

Don't conform and you might wind up dead, locked inside a bag in your bathtub, because you like Houdini...

...etc. etc. etc.

Hell, you don't even need to not conform. You just need to wake up on the wrong side of bed one day and run into the wrong person, a person with a gun, in a position of authority and you will wind up dead, with six bullets in your head, and your pictures plastered all over the news, edited to make you look darker, with no recourse for justice for your family because all the evidence proving your victimisers guilty, miraculously went missing...(Jean Charles De Menezes *cough* * cough*).

etc. etc. etc.

Hell, you don't even need to not conform. You just need to wake up on the wrong side of bed one day and run into the wrong person, a person with a gun, in a position of authority and you will wind up dead, with six bullets inside your head, and your pictures plastered all over the news, edited to make you look darker, with no recourse for justice for your family because all the evidence substantiating your innocence and the guild of your victimisers, miraculously went missing...(Jean Charles De Menezes *cough* * cough*).

One of those that some people find so natural, the police thought he might be a terrorist but checked him out and he wasn't, nothing here to see. Officer in charge swiftly promoted, having had so much political capital invested in her by all the right institutions pushing her up to the top.

In relation to Jean Charles De Menezes, that was a terrible terrible mistake and tragedy. But, you have to look at the circumstances at the time.

The circumstances at the time are of no use to JCM anymore and to make it a 'nobody's fault' case and then go on to promote the officer in charge is taking the ****, that's the way we'd feel had we been at the end of it. Give the family a lot of public money and get on with it as if these things are perfectly natural, case closed. How so many people have been made to accept all these things as nothing worth of attention is a sad indictment of the state of public alienation that also sees it as the most natural of things for the police to go round knocking on doors to check on people's thoughts. Luckily, it is confined to a particular political quadrant.

That's very easy to say when your a keyboard warrior with no actual responsibility for anything. If there is blame, then blame the intelligence services for their poor intelligence.