[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8213564.stm][... held over alcohol crimes[/color][/url]
A total of 529 people have been arrested in Greater Manchester in a major police operation targeting alcohol-related violent crime. [NOTE: Another 140 were arrested today.]Greater Manchester Police (GMP) said about 3,000 officers and police staff are involved in Operation Admiral.
Police arrested 447 people on Friday, on top of a further 82 who have been held over the past few days. [...]
Officers are also visiting pubs, bars and clubs to make sure they are keeping to licensing agreements.
The raids have been co-ordinated with the CPS and courts, the force said, as some of those arrested were already wanted on warrants.
The crackdown is in response to a survey by the government revealing that one in three people in north-west England perceive drunk or rowdy behaviour as a big or fairly big problem, the force said.
Sounds more like a War on Drunken Criminal Assholes than a war on booze.
If the violence is bad now, wait until they sober up and realize they're in Manchester.
They'll need a fleet of double decker buses to accommodate the overflow if they start patrolling around soccer stadiums.
Something told me I should have opened this in babble banter...
Theyve since figured out that more bobbies on the scene tends to provoke them even moreso, like a matador's red cape presentation to the bull. Anyway, it's not my local. I think I'd tend to wanna go to the working mens club anyway. Theyve got some nice ones at the common near where me ma grew up in Yorkshire.
Congrats, Tommy, you made the [url=http://rabble.ca/comment/1052598/After-I-reported]Hall of Fame[/url]. Slumberjack was a close second.
I had an unfair advantage.
I've been to Manchester.
But, but, I've been to a soccer stadium...
I've been to see footie in Sheffield and motorcycle races at Donington. What do I win?
I believe all 3 of you were among the 670.
More news from the front:
[url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/8525873.stm]Police arrest 395 in Greater Manchester alcohol blitz[/url]
This is just a precursor to, and largely indistinguishable from, the coming "War on Trans Fats and Processed Foods"...
Not to be confused with the highly successful libertarian assault on reason
Actually, I take a very reasonable -- and consistent -- position: Let people be free to eat, drink, smoke, and shoot whatever they want into their bodies, whether it's sugar, pot, trans fats, alcohol, meth, tobacco, or whatever else people want to put into their bodies.
How is that position an "assault on reason"?