They’ve got enough muscle in uniform to stop anyone they want in London.

It could have been the old style tail but these 80s/90s tactics have hardly been a roaring success in stopping London’s drugs trade..

These days cops in London and Home Counties have started doing more of the deep cover stuff again – but in a more “politically correct” way (they work with lawyers to get round stuff like entrapment / human rights laws).

Todays cop is less likely to be the knuckle dragging thug of yesteryear or a “Life on Mars” stereotype – people do degrees, serve as a bobby for a couple of years and then go to CID (usually in a different area to where they have lived/studied) – some cops are quite brainy these days, and have more of a “do-gooder” mentality than the “Life on Mars” type attitudes..

Often they aren’t that bothered about arresting small timers but just want to a feel for the area and what the drugs culture is like (i.e whether people are bold enough to deal or use on the street) – and how to deal with it / frighten away dealers.

seemingly pointless things like this are often a way of training rookie detectives with low-risk subjects – as they expect neither Jonny nor the other lad (assuming he was just a dealer)) would be likely to be violent…

Cops these days increasingly also work with NHS, social workers, teachers/college staff, all kinds of “social professionals” and its a linked surveillance / monitoring operation which starts off low-key and culminates in heavier responses depending how stubborn / blatant the dealers etc are.

its no “conspiracy”, just those in power working together to enforce laws. In areas that follow Met practices but are “calmer” like Essex/Suffolk it has been very successful in removing street dealers, prostitutes etc…

I know the sort of areas Jonnyquest lived in as I used to live there myself. The “normal” public are extremely fucked off with the gang/drugs culture there, they live under constant fear of crime (whether its real or imagined) and many will support the cops doing whatever they can to try and “make the streets safer”.

I saw this happen myself in Dec 2006/Early 2007 in my town. We got literally flooded with cops due to the various murder investigations – uniformed and detectives – crime plummeted and the public said “why can’t it be like that all the time?”