Nero famously fiddled while Rome burned.
The story is apocryphal, actually–a metaphor rather than a historical reality, since fiddles didn’t even exist back then–but the point is not. There are leaders who, when faced with a crisis, look away and pretend that everything is just fine.
We have seen more than a hint of this in the Western world lately.
As the UK crime crisis continues apace, the police in Surrey are laser-focused on…cat-callers.
Police in the UK spend time and energy arresting catcallers but can’t be bothered to imprison gang rapists in Rotheram.
This is what fiddling while Rome burns looks like. It’s far easier to prosecute rinky dink offenses than serious crimes. https://t.co/2AwcXpEE9r
— Boo (@IzaBooboo) August 13, 2025
The ostensible reason for the jogging patrols is to discourage violence against women–a goal with which we can all agree. Violence, particularly sexual violence, is a huge problem in Britain these days. The country has the highest incidence of rape in the Western World, now exceeding Sweden’s.
Gee, I wonder why Sweden and the UK have such high rates of sexual violence. It’s a mystery.
However, the actual goal appears to be discouraging men from catcalling and hitting on attractive women — essentially, being rude.
From catcalls to the doghouse.
Female cops in England went undercover as joggers, wearing tight-fitting clothes in a bid to elicit catcalls — and then arrested some of the men who hit on them, according to a report.
The Surrey Police Department created a trial task force, which lasted about a month, and led to 18 arrests for offenses like sexual assault, harassment, and theft, the Telegraph reported.
Officer Abby Hayward and another Surrey Police Department officer who went undercover as civilian joggers in a bid to catch sexual harassers were catcalled within their first 10 minutes.
The female officers were sent during rush hour to “hot spots” where open sexual harassment of women is commonplace and pretended to be joggers, the report stated.
Obviously, sexual assault and theft should lead to arrests, but the police officers seemed especially offended when drivers took note of their shapely bodies.
“One of our officers was honked at within 10 minutes — then another vehicle slowed down, beeping and making gestures just 30 seconds later — that’s how frequent it is,” Inspector Jon Vale of SPD told the outlet.
One of the officers in the group said the harassment she faced during the trial period reflects her everyday experience in Surrey.
“We get catcalled. We get honked at. People slow down just to stare — or lean out the window to shout something. It’s so common, but it’s harassment and it needs to be recognized as such,” Officer Abby Hayward told the Telegraph.
The British police failed to address the “Grooming Gang” (actually rape gang) crisis for DECADES, and are still doing their damndest to cover up the problem and sweep it under the rug, but they are laser-focused on men catcalling police officers. They are literally trolling for offenders so they can tell them how rude they are.
But grooming gangs are ignored. https://t.co/8k1bx94urj
— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) August 13, 2025
Leaders often shift their focus to small problems when the big problems seem unmanageable. Have a rape crisis? Let’s focus on catcalls. They are easy to target, the offenders aren’t dangerous to deal with, and you can call it “violence prevention.” Everybody wants sexual violence to be reduced, and you can say you are doing something.
In 2020, as American cities burned, mayors focused on making statements and painting sidewalks.
It’s striking how proud the Surrey police are of their program. They trot out the officers who jogged to induce catcalling, as if their undercover work was particularly dangerous, traumatic, and vital. They invite TV cameras in to feature the heroic officers, all the while ignoring the fact that British women are raped at a rate more than 50 times that of Slovakian women, or 11 times the rate of the Swiss.
And the disparity is not just an artifact of how countries keep the statistics. There has been a massive increase in the number of rapes in the past decade. Again, I wonder why…
UK women, though, can rest assured that the number of catcalls with be reduced. They’ve got that going for them.
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