I haven’t seen any discussion on here of what has been quite a story in the UK. As some of you know, I am a former member of the august body of officers/rabble, take your pick, but I try to be balanced. I thought Mr Falter was, as the officer said, disingenuous. He was trying to make a point, and largely succeeded as both left and and right wing media worked themselves into a lather. I thought the officer was polite, respectable and logical in his response. Falter was “openly Jewish”, but this comment seems to have been regarded as an insult. I was reminded of the recent thread about the woman praying outside the abortion clinic. It is possible to be provocative without doing or saying very much.
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To be fair it was taken out of context.
I think the police officer misspoke - but only to the extent, in the very brief time available, of not fully appreciating the possibilities for media furore generated by the phrase “openly Jewish” and perhaps going for something more like “in this context your current dress could be considered provocative”.
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And behaviour as far as I could gather. I had the impression that he was out to stir up trouble by his planned course of action.
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I got quite worked up about it too. As someone who is ‘openly English’ I couldn’t see what the fuss was about but perhaps it may have been better to have said ‘obviously Jewish’ instead. However I could not believe the patience of that police officer and, although I hear this morning that Rowly has backed his actions, it is a great pity that the Met thought it a good idea to rush out not one, but two, apologies.
The bloke in question was really lucky not to get arrested, several times I saw him try to push the police officers out of the way, something you might confirm amounts to hindering the police in the execution of their duty and might well stray into the description of assault.
I don’t know if you have heard of Alfie Moore, a retired police sergeant from Scunthopre turned stand up comedian who has a another series on BBC Radio 4 at the moment taking a humourous look at policing before a live audience. Well worth a listen, funny but with the law explained at the same time.
Edit: As an aside, it’s a funny way this forum works. I answered @plod in my usual measured way making sure all the grammaticals were correct and only came back to it because I was notified of a ‘like’. But no notification of further posts and I would have missed both @billybutcher’s and @JohnH’s contributions entirely if I had not scrolled up to remind myself of what @plod had said. 
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“we live in a time where intelligent people are silenced so that stupid people won’t be offended”
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Suella Braverman got a proper telling off from Mischal Hussein for pontificating on this topic despite apparently only having watched a small (misleading) excerpt from the video of the incident.
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Unfortunately that is too true,
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This agent provocateur was lucky not to be arrested for assaulting a policemen.
The totally one sided argument put forward by an anti semitic organisation leads one to think that this stunt was part of a campaign here in UK.
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I"d give you 10 hearts for that one, Corona.
“We live in times where 1 potential idiot or lazy git in a company or an industry causes the rest of us to have 10-off 1000-page compliance, instruction and procedure manuals inflicted on us for the simplest common sense tasks”
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She’s fierce, that Mischal Hussein, and I do worry a bit when she is interviewing that she might be accused of bias. I worry because I don’t think she is, she’s fierce with everyone.
I remember that it was her that the BBC sent to interview Aung San Suu Kyi in the interim while she was PM of Burma and under arrest. After the bruising experience she was heard to mutter to an aide ‘no-one told me that I would be interviewed by a Muslim’.
She, ASSK, was a bit of a pinup of mine, I thought of her as beautiful both outside and within. But her obvious racism changed it for me.
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Context is everything. I wouldn’t think twice if in the course of a discussion someone was referred to as “openly Christian” if it was at all relevant. It is possible to refer to nationality and religion without the slightest intension of causing offence but there’s always that one who’ll take offence by proxy.
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The problem is that it is all too easy to play to the PC theme.
It was quite obvious that the jewish chappie was out to stir up trouble, and he should have been hauled in for doing so. A rational being does not put him/herself in danger without thought of the consequence.
I bet his forefathers all those years ago did not overtly try to cross a road in Munich through the middle of a Hitler youth march….
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Absolutely. Wearing his skull cap while trying to walk through a crowd of Palestinian protesters and being a prominent figure in a antisemitic organisation is no different from walking through the lions den with a juicy steak on your head.
Thanks @plod for starting the topic where others feared to tread.
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All the replies have been interesting, and broadly concur with my views. In a world where some people admire Boris Johnson or support Donald Trump, it can be comforting to hear rational opinions.
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Err, I think you’ll find he is prominent in an anti antisemitic organisation. Sorry. Just for clarity. 
BTW I never knew the name of that skull cap they wear before. I think it was called a kipper. Is that correct or is it a slur? Sounds a bit strange. 
Kippah or yarmulke.
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Oh, ok, thank you.
That’s what I said 
, BTW this is my halo not a kippah
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Classic! Love it!