A Thankless Job..

Edinburgh is at the centre of a lot of media intrest lately with the G8 about to land on our doorstep.

The press have descended in droves and police presence in the city is high. The powers that be are on alert for and expecting trouble as various protest groups make their way to the city to make their various points known. Previous G8 summits have seen violence and confrontation and this one is not expected to be any different.

There will be many people involved with the summit and the hue and cry surrounding it, from civil servants and road workers to judges and the military. Many will carry out their normal tasks, some will be doing extra duties, many will recieve praise and fat cat bonuses for their roles, most will not and for one lot of workers their role will prove thankless. These workers are the Police.

They will have a fairly huge role to play in all of this. As well as dealing with security issues at Gleneagles itself they are also dealing with large numbers of protesters in and around the area as well as the Live 8 events taking place.

Already we are hearing them criticised for their handling of yesterday's demonstation in Edinburgh. How many more times I wonder will we hear this in the next week.

No matter what they did it would be wrong...if they were too lenient and trouble erupted and damage was caused they'd be shot down...if they are heavy handed to prevent trouble they are shot down.

There is a fine line between friendly protest and troublesome protest and I know this first hand having been on a few myself. It doesn't help of course when many are on the street not to demonstate at all but only to goad the police into a reaction anyway.

As for the narrow minded few who resent their right to overtime payments...why the hell not! We all expect to be paid for the hours we work don't we?

I once considered a career in the Police force but I knew I would not be able to shut my face while some idiot stood calling me names or telling me to fuck off. I'm not sure many of us could.

I wish them every sucess with their thankless job over the next week or so.

Jenny xx