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Richmond upon Thames Liberal Democrats:Covering the constituencies of Twickenham and Richmond Park |
The Saturday Guardian interview: Brian Paddick
August 14, 2011 10:32 AM
• [Aug 13] Patrick Barkham writes: BRIAN Paddick [has] been [a] slightly wistful spectator this week . . It would be hard to find a better-qualified candidate to sort out the looting and policing crisis than the former inner-city commander who helped revive relations between public and police in Brixton after the 1981 riots . . Paddick . . most controversially, believes plastic bullets would quickly stop the rioting looters. "These are people who, if you say 'Boo' to them loudly enough, will run away. If you've got a crowd intent on looting and someone levels a plastic baton-round gun at them, they'll run a mile. That is upping the ante to a level where they don't want to play any more," he says.
Does he have concerns about the 17 deaths from plastic bullets in Northern Ireland? "Sure," he nods. "Every tactic, as we saw with Tomlinson, carries a risk of people getting hurt." Plastic bullets, Paddick explains, can only be used with the Met commissioner's approval in situations where police are overwhelmed. Their deployment must follow oral and written warnings on banners "and then people can absent themselves" . .
Yesterday was the deadline for applications to be the new Met commissioner. Paddick's will not have been on the home secretary's doormat. Instead, he wants to become the Lib Dem's London mayoral candidate. He was a little overawed when he ran last time. "I went straight from being in the police to running for mayor. Obviously I knew who Ken Livingstone and Boris Johnson were. They were billed as political giants and I was a complete novice, and therefore the thought of going up against them was a daunting one." The more the campaign went on, the more fallibly human he realised they were. "By the end I wasn't frightened of them at all."
This time he has more experience and is standing because he wants to serve London, and thinks he can do better than his Lib Dem rivals, who include Lembit Opik and Lib Dem London Assembly member Mike Tuffrey . .
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