Small Soldiers

The Metropolitan Police have been doing their bit for our alienated youth by stopping and searching children under "terrorism powers designed to fight al-Qaida"; or, in Standard English, powers designed in such a way that they can be used to fight just about anybody except (a) the principal causes of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq and (b) the Metropolitan Police. Ten girls and forty-eight boys under the age of ten, and over two thousand children aged fifteen or under, were stopped and searched last year. The Guardian's report tactfully refrains from noting how many of the children searched were of the dusky-epidermis persuasion, and how many were of superior Britishness. In any case, it is a sad indication of the Met's plummeting morale that not a single one was shot, even though none were found to be involved in terrorism.