[inopinatus]

Doesn't work from Australia either, so apparently the Commonwealth can get fucked. I imagine some middle-ranking civil servants at the FCO will, in a not-too-distant-future, be expressing a measure of dismay to their Home Office counterparts. Before which time, hopefully, the gov.uk folks will figure out how to selectively block access to live reporting channels, not the entire police service, in response to vexatious abuse.

Prank emergency calls from children have been a hassle since time immemorial, and I see these circumstances as entirely corresponding, merely at scale; I'd even express surprise if this is a first for online British police channels.

[ethbr1]

>> You can email the site owner to let them know you were blocked. Please include what you were doing when this page came up and the Cloudflare Ray ID found at the bottom of this page.

This is almost certainly an IT admin not bothering to read Cloudflare's documentation and leaving something on the wrong setting.

Number of customers who read documentation << number of customers, although it seems especially endemic in infosec.

[OJFord]

I'm not saying it makes complete sense, but I'm not sure I understand why it bothers you that much? I'm not sure how many times I've visited police.uk in my (British) life, probably a few, but I'm pretty sure it's zero for police.au or whatever it is.

[inopinatus]

I've had reason to correspond with British police forces on several occasions. There are many transnational matters of diplomacy, law enforcement, citizenship, sport, tourism, hiring, migration, security, and trade for which police clearance and input may be (sometimes must be) sought, or notification given, and this disrupts all of them: websites are a starting point for interaction, documentation, and communication, and it's a massive burden if you're forced back to calling up folks at your UK offices (or worse, the high commission) just to start a conversation each time, let alone work through a process.

[protosam]

> immemorial

This word just got added to my vocabulary for future use. Thanks stranger.

[gerdesj]

There's a good chance that instead of "fuck you Aussies", what we have is a firewall that has been battered to the point of banning most of the world.

The UK is under some form of attack at the moment (probably mostly internally generated - no need to invoke bogeymen). We have seen quite a lot of anti racist activity recently and it is likely the nasty lot have been contained (hopefully).

The Commonwealth is always welcome here - that's why our mutual Queen (EIIR) created it. She got to grips with us proles rather well from around 1995 onwards when the Royal Family realised they have to engage with us lot.

Personally speaking, I've always thought of AU and NZ (SA etc) as mates. We might disagree about a few things and rugby and cricket and that. However we have more in common than not.

I have no doubt that the mood in AU and NZ is largely stirred with anti British sentiment (we see it here from Scotland, even though "modern Britain" was invented by a Scottish king - James 1 or VI).

NZ have often moved towards a silver fern on black flag. I say: why not - if that is your idea of your identity then crack on (it does look rather cool). Also, perhaps AU should rethink their flag - you go all in on gold and green. Ditch the blue thingie with the southern cross and the union flag in the top left - it doesn't suit you. ... or keep it because you can and proudly do whatever floats your boat. AU needs to sit down and take a really hard look at its flag and do what is best for AU.

The world is a messy place but let's keep it civil (and real).

[protosam]

I think the EU is affected as well by this. If there was any foreign region that needs access to the police services of the UK, I would bet the neighboring EU countries would be at the top of the list.