In an interview on Policing Public Disorder

Last book: Liberty and Order: Public Order Policing in a Capital City.

Liberty and Order is written by a namesake of mine, Peter Waddington (whose nickname, I’m sure he won’t mind me saying, is ‘Tank’). Tank is an ex-police officer who has a reputation for speaking up on behalf of the police and the difficult job that they do with regard to public order. Despite the fact that I am an acknowledged rival of Tank’s, I think it’s a very good book – not least because it outlines the fruits of a two-year study when he accompanied public order patrols throughout London in the early 1990s. It gives a very good insight into how police negotiate ‘backstage’ with protest organisers and use various interactional ploys and the specialist knowledge they’ve got to hand to ensure that demonstrations proceed, as near as damn it, when, where and how the police would prefer them to. Tank refers to the police use of ‘professional guile’, which he defends on the grounds that, in essence, it’s merely what business people get up to on an everyday basis. Liberty and Order provides a very valuable backstage insight.

What insights does he bring into the police perspective on events?

Tank shows that it’s not a piece of cake being a police officer on a picket line, or outside a football stadium. The fear factor is significant, and events can be confusing. This is enhanced by the equipment the police wear: steamed-up, scratched helmets with visors down, which are very uncomfortable. They are invariably dealing with people who would rather the police weren’t there and are sometimes prepared to let them know it! It’s a very tense situation, the difficulty of which we shouldn’t under-appreciate; although of course this doesn’t absolve the police of their responsibility to respect and, better still, facilitate the right to protest.