The politics of police cuts

Neil Turner

I like Boris, but can we trust him ?

I think it was Emerson who said "your actions are so loud that I cannot hear what you are saying".

This is so true for 95% of todays politicians

PayDirt

Pity BoJo did not say that before the riots. He's a reactionary through and through. It was obvious that the public does not go along with cuts to the Police force before all this.

Simon

But we only had 3000 officers when the first riots hit... We had 16000 available last night. Seems like for day to day policing we have a massive over capacity.

How about more specials for these specific occasions ? Just like the army have the TA.

les

When I saw "Wow that was a howitzer of a performance" I thought you were talking about Cameron.
Johnson has lost it IMO Cameron has won it (just).

It is NOT about how MANY police you have but it is about what you DO with what you have.!!!!!

and I'll go to bed at noon

Seems pretty clear to me that Boris is just waiting for a by-election to take place in a safe Tory seat, at which point he will stand down as mayor, re-enter parliament and challenge Cameron for the leadership. He might leave this until the Tories are back out of power, but it will happen.

Amazing how recently the idea of Boris for PM was seen as intrinsically risible, particularly in his days as a Have I Got News For You mainstay. Now he's one of the most powerful elected figures in the country.

normanc

As the right wing fanatics / loons / nutcases / etc. have been saying the principal job of government is to protect private property and provide a legal and equitable system for trade amongst the citizenry.

Cameroons place such things as not allowing the climate to change, foreign aid, EU programmes and other assorted miscellanies no one wants to take priority.

No.10 can't complain when people start complaining because the government has failed in its primary duty.

Paul Hughes

I used to quite like Boris but his constant and calculated disloyalty, which can only be connected to a vastly over-inflated sense of his own potential and worth, have irritated me for too long. Is there no way to get rid of him as Mayor?

Molly

I've seen nothing in the last few days suggesting that a lack of Police Officers or money spent on them is the cause of the looting etc. We have witnessed incompetent leadership of the Police, manifested in a failure to tackle crime firmly and quickly. It would be madness to reward this incompetence with extra £.

There are scores of back office jobs and inefficiencies in the Police service to more than make the required cuts AND put extra bobbies back into front line service. The present problems should be used as an opportunity to make the changes to the Police service AND our legal processes which are urgently required. For instance: Less form filling; speedier justice processes, less attention to the rights of criminals, more to the rights of victims; bigger constabularies; maybe a national Police force.

It would be a terrible mistake to throw more money at a failing police service rather than fixing it.

PayDirt

Strengthening the Police is the immediate need, whether this is numbers or a more draconian use of their existing powers is one thing. But to answer the real problem, a massive shake-up of State education is required and the sooner the better.

Forget about those sacred Human Rights for misbehaving adolescents. Some of them need to be taken to one side for as long as it takes, in some sort of secure unit with Army style discipline, to teach them the basics of living in the UK and being responsible citizens.

Either that or we slide into anarchy along the lines of Somalia.

If Boris gets off his arse and pushes for something like this, then I might consider voting for the joker.

Publius

This has nothing to do with marginal changes to police funding.

More flash-mob thinking.

Fex Urbis

Will mending our broken society address the poor quality of our elected officials, do something about the bent coppers who have wrecked the Met and perhaps do something to tackle the obscene rampant greed of the likes of Bob Diamond and Humpty Dumpty Hester? Time to start at the top.

Fatbloke on tour

PH

Interesting stuff but surely you can even see the difference between a

12% Cut - Labour
20% Cut - ConDemNation

These were the proposed cuts in real terms.
As was noted at the time Dave the Rave and Sniffy were cutting too far and too fast.

Finally any thoughts on Dave the Raves Riot Rant?

Rights and responsibilities?

How will he deal with - Restaurant Trashers - ?
How hard will the law come down on them.

I really do believe he is too stupid to spot the irony.
When the gilded youth of the Bullingdon Club get done then I will take notice of his shrill rants. Until then he is just another upper middle class establishment figure playing to the Tory press gallery.

Sky Blue Peter

From the BBC website: "BBC reporter at Highbury Magistrates Court John Brain tells BBC 5 live the first person who appeared in the dock this morning was a 31-year-old teacher called Alexis Bailey. She pleaded guilty to being part of the looting of the Richer Sounds store in Croydon."
So not exactly a deprived downtrodden member of the underclass. Can someone at the Speccie find out where she taught, and confirm that she's been sacked? Or point out which local authority is happy to employ morally bankrupt chancers to mentor our children?

John Steed

Yes he can talk the hind legs off a donkey, but what does he actually achieve?

alexsandr

-We need to know why the mot didnt go in hard on saturday evening. They should have had the landrovers that were used to good effect in lavender hill as soon as it kicked off.

And they need to change the recruiting rules so policemen need to have some decent stature. 5'0" plod are no use at all - you need six footer brick shithouses.

AAE

And how much of the £170billion Quango budget has Cameron cut so far? As others on this thread have pointed out, he needs to rearrange his priorities, and while he's engaged in a rare moment of introspection, he might wonder again why he thought it was fine fine to expect the taxpayer to pick-up his £600 wisteria pruning bill.

Chris lancashire

Johnson has proven, yet again, he is unfit for office.

Heartless, but Romantically Hard Perry

So what’s all this nonsense from the H2B (Firebomber of QUANGOs) about Water Canon being ready ‘at 24 hours notice’?

If you need them now, now is when you need them!

Ah – just came to me, - will the rioters be obliged to give 24 hours notice to the authorities of the riot – to comply with some arcane EUSSR law?

Only asking.

I S

Any 'howitzer' that Boris unleashed has blown his own feet off. 'Police departing the streets' - they did that years ago.
The inept, spineless, pussyfooting response from the police to the criminal acts of these gangs has exposed their institutional inadequacy as a peacekeeping force. Why should this appalling performance be rewarded with extra funds?
Finally, any mug could have predicted the further outbraks of criminal looting and where they would occur. Namely, in areas where there is a significant Caribbean presence.

Boris for PM

Boris for PM - no other will do (or do anything) at present.

Mike

There's no need to reverse police cuts if effective deterrents were in place. Scrap the human rights legislation to castrate all the wet liberal judges and opportunist lawyers. Make a very clear warning to rioters to disperse and if necessary follow it up with water canons, tear gas, plastic bullets and even real ammunition if needed.

Additionally any one found guilty of looting will be forcibly conscripted into a special division of the Army where forced labour for no pay is the order of the day.

That will serve as a very potent deterrent to these feral animals and wont require more police on the streets.

Frederick de Fossard

I can understand why this numbers issue has become so potent, but we have more police than ever in our history, and that didn't stop the rioting. It's about mobility and tactics, surely.

They're damned whatever they do. During the G20 and student demonstrations, they were too violent, apparently, and because of the outcry (by the press alone, that is) they now hold back and use force as a last resort. That attitude has to change, and they need to get to grips with new communications. They only just worked out how to use Twitter after the student demos, and now they have to catch up again.

somerset

As a retired Police Officer (28 years service) I think Boris completely wrong. The waste and incompetence within the Forces of England and Wales has to be experienced to be believed. Cameron is right. We need to bring someone in from outside to head the Met as a matter of urgency. Whoever it is needs to be in post ASAP. The last 2 Commissioners resigned under a cloud as did the last • heads of the Counter terrorism Command and the present holder of that vital post was in charge of the Stockwell farago! Words fail me at this point.

Slim Jim

'And they need to change the recruiting rules so policemen need to have some decent stature. 5'0" plod are no use at all - you need six footer brick shithouses.'

Alexandr you have identified the heart of the problem. The decline in many organisations is directly related to the onslaught of equalities legislation. Whilst it gives the impression that it pulls everyone up, it has the opposite effect - dumbing down to the lowest common denominator. The same thing has happened in other public sector organisations like the Prison Service and Fire Service. It's all to make the poor oppressed minorities feel included. It makes the rest of us wonder why common sense has died. It is particularly obvious the higher up the food chain you go: witness the current bunch of weeds running the Met...or even the country!

Barbara

It depends *which* police are being cut.
I've been told that civilian Diversity Trainers (ie ex teachers), appointed to train (ie brainwash) the police, are immediately given the rank of Inspector. The training seems to consist of sitting police personnel in a room and asking if they'd like to confess to being prejudiced. One officer on Inspector Gadget's blog, a while back, said he'd had to do more training for diversity than for firearms.
When we hear of police numbers being cut, people immediately assume it's front-liners, and object. But if it's these 'Thought Police Inspectors' that are being cut, then it's a step in the right direction.

London Calling

Pete Hoskin
August 10th, 2011 1:29pm
“I do think Cameron's on to something with the responsibility stuff, though. But the emphasis ought to be fixing problems that government has nurtured, such as a welfare system that incentivises worklessness”

Pete…
If Harriet Harman is to be criticised for her comments on the demoralisation of youth support through cutbacks, the removal of financial support through EMA, job centres closing, connexions etc. in conjunction with discussing the riots, why do you feel the need to do the same by mentioning the above on the welfare system in conjunction with Cameron’s speech?

Reading most of the comments so far, some of which are critical of the Police and the lack of political leadership, however stereotyping will teach us very little, and racism nothing at all.

From then Guardian…

Who are the rioters? Young men from poor areas ... but that's not the full story

The crowds involved in violence and looting are drawn from a complex mix of social and racial backgrounds
Jay Kast, 24, a youth worker from East Ham who has witnessed rioting across London over the last three nights, said he was concerned that black community leaders were wrongly identifying a problem "within".
"I've seen Turkish boys, I've seen Asian boys, I've seen grown white men," he said. "They're all out there taking part." He recognised an element of opportunism in the mass looting but said an underlying cause was that many young people felt "trapped in the system". "They're disconnected from the community and they just don't care," he said.

skippydetour

Cutting Police Budgets will only encourage CRIME ! Currently there is so much for the average " Police Frontline Officer " that they ignore certain aspects of crime so as to be able to tackle what they consider is important !
These past 4 nights of Rioting have shoved everyday work aside and " blown the budgets " in nearly every Police force ! Can you imagine what will happen when life returns to a semblence of reality ?
The hierachy will be giving Officers "Time Off " to compensate because there will be No funds to pay out even if the Police Officer is willing to accept payment rather than take time in lieu ! Wish my blog had the answers to this problem but i can only suggest shipping the offenders to an Artic Island to serve their time because putting them in the " Holiday Camps " they think they are going to will only encourage repeat episodes of what we have seen to date !

Dimoto

Boris committed that cardinal sin for the public school boy - he showed the white feather when under fire.
I guess that's the end of his (fanciful) ambition to be Tory leader.

disenfranchised

as cameron can overruled the inept theresa may with her no water cannon mantra, so should he overrule her with the appointment of bill bratton as met chief.
never did this country need a tough guy copper more.
never did this country need a tough power elite more, but that's never going to happen with the pc nambys we've got.
but getting a proper zero tolerance copper over here would be a bloody good start.....

Baron

somerset’s spot on, as are Frederick, Chris, Paul, most of the others.

if the police did just policing, not chased after the political incorrect, wasted time on diversity training and stuff, we would have more than enough of them.

and as for Boris, as a young scribbler not bad, as a politician a disaster, a completely spineless solipsistic buffoon, he should stick to impregnating women, he seems to be good at it.

Geoff M

Boris is an ass.

Cutting police expenditure is NOT the same as cutting numbers.

Are people so financially illiterate that they cannot see that cutting waste and improving efficiency and effectiveness can reduce cost AND improve the service.

It happens all the time in the real world - is the public sector in a parallel universe where the same laws of physics don't apply?

A previous commenter mentioned the TA as a backup for the Army. In America they have the National Guard to call in during times of exceptional demand.

Why not have a strengthened Specials service - comprising fit guys, maybe ex-forces, well trained and paid a retainer?

GeoffM

Further to my previous post.

Perhaps they could also consider allowing everyone over the age of 30, not on benefits, with a clean criminal/drugs/mental health record to carry a gun - and have permission to use it.