Nuisance policing
While the UK police don't have US levels of militarisation they share their politicalisation. One addendum though is overuse and misuse of helicopters and drones.
One example, I have many. When Blair was summoned to the Chilcot inquiry there was a police helicopter nearby to monitor the peaceful and calm demonstration outside. Which arguably is fine, albeit overkill/overspend given the large numbers of officers on the ground. One of the speakers started reading out a long list of names of dead Iraqi civilians and dead British service personnel, which was quite moving. At that point the helicopter was ordered to hover low over the stage simply to drown out the speaker. That was both disrespectful to the dead, and needlessly dangerous to the crowd. If anything it seemed designed to inflame violence.
The Cluatha disaster in Glasgow proves the police can't be trusted with helicopters except in extremis. I'd be sanguine with small plastic cam drones that wouldn't injure you if they fell, but a Predator is just robocop bs.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
