The Professionals (TV Series)

Old Dog with New Tricks (1978)

Gordon Jackson: George Cowley

Quotes 

• [Cowley is addressing new recruits, all dressed in police or military uniforms] 

  [He has written on the blackboard "C. I. 5" with some explanations and other names for them below] 

  George Cowley : CI5, Criminal Intelligence, The Action Squad, The Big A, The Squad. All right, so we may have half a dozen names but only one job. To see that no-one messes on our doorstep. And that means preventive detection, preventive action.

  [reads] 

  George Cowley : "To detect, determine, prevent and/or take suitable action or actions against those transgressors against the law outside the norm of criminal activity. To contain and render ineffective such by whatever means necessary." That's our official brief, "by any means necessary". And that's our loophole. Now I'll tell you my interpretation. I'll tell you what it's really gonna to be like. You'll be paired off and from then on you'all be the Bisto kids. The slightest whiff of anything and you move in. Shake 'em down, crush 'em before they even start to grow like an alley fight. And that's what this is, an alley fight. So kick HIM in the goolies first. Do unto others now what they're still thinking about. Oh, there'll be squeals and once in a while you'll turn a law abiding citizen into an authority hating anarchist. There'll be squeals and letters to MPs. But that's the price they have and we have to pay to keep this island clean and smelling - even if ever so faintly of roses and lavender. You make a mistake like that and I'll back you to the hilt. But make the other kind of mistake, the kind that ends up with innocent people bleeding all over the high street, and the only backing is with my boot and right out of this organisation. Right, see you all back here after lunch.