Paging Mr Tom!!

All you kids who just sit and whine
You should've been there back in '79
Say we've given you a real hard time
You boys you're really breaking my heart
Tom Robinson Band

Oh glory be, oh happy day, oh joy upon all the the dim young things shambling aimlessly through their drudging youth with no enemy but the bus shelter and no friend but the White Lightning.

Of course they're sick of us old fogies with our "back when I was alive we knew who the enemy was...blah blah blah..." rubbish. Well now they've got something of their own to kick against (okay, we had it first, but let's not disillusion them already) - S.U.S. is coming back!

Yes, after all the confusion in the metropolitan Police over whether a young man with fairly brown looking skin did or didn't dress innappropriately for the weather and did or didn't vault over a ticket barrier things have been clarified magnificently. He could now be stopped whether or not police felt he had on too many layers or was looking athletically at the Oyster Card reader.

Now if you've read my slavery soliloquy you will have gathered that I'm not black. There are other clues on the site that I'm not from London either - but I was still SUS'ed, way back in 1980; mainly because my nameless comrade was carrying a golf club to the town centre on a Saturday afternoon wearing his fishtail parka and red Doc Martins. I got through the questions with deferential wit because I was bricking it but didn't want to blub and my urban-golfing enthusiast colleague got through it with a cocky gob and a greater knowledge of the law than the coppers. One of the officers did bend the golf club shaft over his knee though, which ruined my companion's drive no doubt. And maybe saved someone a headache.

Thing was, all things considered it was a reasonable pull by the police on that occasion. Most of the SUS incidents weren't though. It was black males, mainly in London, who were getting constantly pulled over: and dragged into a station if they refused to answer questions. Black Britons have come on somewhat since the early 1980s. A lot has changed, and however much we all may grumble about political correctness at times, the enforcing of race relations legislation has been the basis of much of that progression. If the law says you can't turn an applicant away because they are black then you have to interview them: and as often as not you find they're as good as the white people you interview; and by that slow evolution we get to the point where today there are lots of people in smart business clothes who happen to be black. Are we really going to go back to seeing them stopped and questioned because they are looking suspiciously affluent?

Well, no, I doubt it. Black people can, I am sure, rest easy that they will not be assumed to be up to no good because they are dressed smartly or driving through the stockbroker belt in an Audi.

Anyone looking a bit Asian or a bit Muslim though had best stay off the streets.

The police as a gang just can not be trusted with powers such as these. They will start with the Muslims, then the Asians, then anyone a bit young in groups of more than three, then anyone who dares catch their eye.

Young people of Britain. You have your fight. Use it well and one day you too will have a generation to bore with your tales of struggle.