Politically Correct Babel on the Thames

On July 20th 2015 a new mandatory requirement for employment by the London Metropolitan Police was introduced: applicants must be fluent in a second language other than English. That police force, ‘The Met’, is understandably the UK’s largest.

The list’s inclusions and exclusions are mind-boggling, if the purpose of the mandatory requirement is to catch and assist in the prosecution of criminals in London; hopefully at least a consideration in police recruitment practices. The languages (as they appear in the very odd order on the Met’s website) are:

Yoruba (Nigeria)
Hebrew
Arabic
Hindi
Punjabi
Italian
German
Turkish
Greek
Spanish
Polish
Portuguese
Sinhali (Sri Lanka)
Bengali
(snip)
"...why aren’t Russian and Albanian on the Met’s list? Are the stories about the presence of the Russian mafia in Europe all apocryphal? London is a popular place for Russians who have made their money in shady — to put it at its most benign — ways. It is estimated that more than half, at the very minimum, of London’s brothels are controlled by Albanian gangsters — as they are in Switzerland, France and many other European countries — and a good proportion of the heroin trade is, too. I’m not going to provide a source: just Google “Albanian organized crime” and be stunned at the extent to which, according to Swiss police intelligence, they dominate and control so many market segments of crime committed in Switzerland. Liam Neeson’s “Taken” trilogy is not fanciful in terms of the culprits’ ethnicity. Any European police force seriously needs Albanian speakers to do its job. In fact, without Albanian speakers the Met is fatally weakening its capacity to enforce a wide range of the criminal laws. And Albanian isn’t a terribly popular ‘A-levels’ language, so it’s not likely that any recruits called Harris, Edmondson or Murphy are going to be able to speak it."
Read the whole thing at the GatesofVienna

Old Sarge wrote: "Notice the absence of Cockney, Welsh and Gaelic..."

Duly noted in the comments at the link by "The Baron's" co-blogger/host, "Dymphna".

FWIW, author, Diana Gabaldon's series "Outlander" has been interpretted as a dramatic series about time travel through the gorgeous Scottish highlands presented on/by the STARZ, cable network & has triggered an increase in the desire to resurrect certain Gaelic dialects:

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