NOBODY should have to endure the humiliation dished out to Professor Chris Whitty.
Yet in one way or another, we all do
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We are victims of a devastating break-down in public order — with the hi-vis compliance of a police force in abject surrender to the mob.
Mr Whitty, Britain’s top doctor who has led the fight against Covid, was held round the neck while walking in London’s St James’s Park on Sunday.
Twenty-four hours earlier an apparently drunken mob of anti-lockdown idiots had gathered outside his central London home screaming “murderer”.
In these days of routine street knifings, it must have been absolutely terrifying.
Prof Whitty this week refused to press charges against the hooligans in the park.
But that should not have been his decision to make.
MIDDLE-CLASS EXTREMISTS
Police were nearby.
They did nothing beyond having a word with his attackers, taking their names and sending them on their way.
It was shamefully inadequate.
So is the suggestion that Britain’s Chief Medical Officer should have a round-the-clock personal bodyguard — at huge taxpayers’ expense.
In 21st-century Britain, he — and indeed all of us — should be safe to walk the streets alone and unguarded.
We are not. Protesters have seized control from the forces of law and order.
The crime fighters who are supposed to protect us have capitulated.
Violent crime stalks every suburb.
Drug gangs, who are trading up from knives to guns, run rampant on sprawling housing estates where police fear to tread.
This catastrophic breakdown in routine law and order accelerated three years ago as anarchist Extinction Rebellion protesters were given free rein to paralyse London and other major cities.
Police abandoned their authority and allowed middle-class extremists to block roads and disrupt the lives and livelihoods of innocent citizens.
As gridlocked streets were brought to a halt, uniformed officers of the law were filmed laughing and taking selfies or skateboarding with the protesters.
Since then, XR demonstrators — at it again last weekend — have been allowed with near impunity to shut down news-paper presses, smash windows and smear paint over the Bank of England.
At other protests, police chiefs ordered patrols to wear rainbow tributes to LGBTQ marches.
BLM campaigners were permitted to break Covid rules and scream in the face of police ranks, who then turned tail as they were chased up Whitehall.
This abject surrender did not go unnoticed.
Within weeks, we witnessed the toppling of historic statues and the harassment of public figures such as Prof Whitty
Even the Press who try to report this are under attack.
BBC political editor Laura Kuenssberg was forced to accept police protection from pro-Corbyn louts at a Labour Party conference.
And just last week, mild-mannered BBC Newsnight political editor Nick Watt was chased by a jeering mob into the sanctuary of Downing Street — in front of uniformed ranks of police who watched and did nothing.
The disturbing truth is that the Metropolitan Police, and other right-on constabularies, have given up the ghost, and in some cases actively conspired, with the mob.
Ordinary bobbies are innocent of blame.
They form the Thin Blue Line who endure spittle in their faces and bottles and sticks hurled at them by vicious, politically motivated aggressors.
They are lions led by politically correct donkeys who are terrified of putting a foot wrong with increasingly violent political activists on both the Left and the Right.
Nor is there any secret which side the police are on.
Right-wingers are promptly rounded up, carted off to the cop shop and charged — just as they should be.
Meanwhile, the Left has morphed into a police-free zone, above the law and indeed a law unto themselves.
Wave an English flag and you are instantly stopped in your tracks.
RESPECT IS FAST DIMINISHING
Put up a Palestinian flag or shout about climate change, gender or pro-immigration and you become exempt from Met Police action.
The British bobby has a long, proud tradition as “citizens in uniform”.
They have enjoyed centuries of unconditional respect from those they are supposed to protect.
That respect is fast diminishing.
It is being replaced by a growing contempt for a police and political class whose hand-wringing impotence has destroyed faith in the forces of law and order.
We might blame London’s useless Mayor Sadiq Khan, who spends millions on polishing his public-relations image while doing little to curb violent crime.
But the buck stops in Whitehall and Westminster — with Home Secretary Priti Patel and with Prime Minister Boris Johnson, both of whom were quick to condemn the abuse meted out to Whitty.
The police are paid to guard our freedom.
As ever, the question is: Who guards the guards?
