Thin blue end of the wedge

Frank P

"Politicisation is the problem, not the solution -- and transferring political interference from Whitehall to town hall will merely make things even worse."

That is the crux of the matter and absolutely correct.

I suppose it is attractive to believe that democracy would automatically be improved by transferring even more power to local authorities. It wouldn't. On the contrary, as militant minority interests are more active in local authorities even than in Central Government, then it means priority will more often than not be decided by people who have no interest in democracy, but by those who are hell-bent on foisting the minority interest over the majority.

Police must re-establish their traditional independence, based on the requirements of the law, well tried and tested law enforcement practices in both the prevention and detection of crime and they should be afforded the resources and the authority to get on with the job with least interference possible from politicians; unless they fall down on the job themselves.

And the law should be enforced without fear or favour, regardless of race, colour, creed, political persuasion or social standing.

Prosecutorial powers should be returned to the police, who should only seek the advice and assistance of lawyers as and when necessary. The interface between police and local magistrates unfiltered by the CPS is much more efficient. In fact the CPS should be disbanded; it has been a disaster. It is politicised and by and large manned by second-rate lawyers who aren't good enough for private practice, or those with a political agenda.

Before the rot set in, that was how it was, but the Scarman Report of 1982, the Sheehy Report of 1993 and the Lawrence Report of 1999 were all travesties of justice, politically motivated and contributed greatly to the accelerating decline in policing in this country.

Melanie Phillips who is peerless in her championing of the depoliticisation of policing has chronicled this decline perspicaciously and in detail.

The police have actually been under attack since the mid 1960's from elements that are inimical to the interests of the UK and whose baneful influence has deeply undermined the policing function. Hence many of the social problems that now abound.

The solution? Firstly a change of government; secondly a higher standard of recruitment criteria, involving physical standards, experience and common sense trumping mere academic qualifications, the latter being the bane of efficiency; rapid promotion leads to inexperienced management and resultant sloppiness and poor morale. Thirdly the rank of Police Constable needs to be elevated to higher importance because it is at the sharp end where the streets are won or lost. Replacing them by well meaning wannabees without real qualifications or powers might fool the general public; but it sure as hell doesn't fool the villains, even when the villains are young teenagers. It is a sham and this government is wholly responsible for the current sad state of affairs.

We need an election and HM Opposition needs to seek the advice of Melanie Phillips. In fact she has been suggested often on this blog as a potential Home Secretary – imagine the exchanges in the Westminster Gasworks with her Opposition counterpart Jacqui Smith – carnage! One reservation! The only issue that I have ever demurred from her judgement: 90 days detention without trial. But with all the other corrections to the policing function and prosecutorial power, I think that even she would change her mind, because then it would no longer be necessary as prerequisite evidence for a holding charge would be adduced much more rapidly with efficient policing.

Sam Armstrong

I'm worried about what will happen when the political interference in the Police transfers from Whitehall to a town hall in a particularly Muslim area...

Ronnie

The only thing that I would like to add to what Melanie and Frank P have written is, can we really trust the Home Office?

Directly elected local police authorities will be a chaotic disaster, perhaps the worst piece of 'cultural warfare' that we have so far witnessed. However, over the past 20 odd years, the Home Office has become increasingly estranged from those it is supposed to serve, with a succession of quite nutty Home Secetaries over the years.

EC

... and the thick end of 'the blue' wedge is how much it is costing us to pay some of the buggers off. I suspect they're guffawing, not crying, all the way to the bank!

EC

... and how long will it be, I wonder, before the dearly departed "go large" with another mountain of moolah from the public purse by way of a sinecure on a quango or policy making committee?
Treasure Island!

Verity

Frank P writes that the CPS is a hindrance. "In fact the CPS should be disbanded; it has been a disaster. It is politicised and by and large manned by second-rate lawyers who aren't good enough for private practice." Oh, I didn't realise Tony Blair was associated with that body.

Frank wants physical standards, experience and common sense in police recruitment to trump "mere academic qualifications". I concur. But it is equally important that those qualities must also trump skin colour and religion.

Verity

EC - Agreed. I want to see every quango hacked to pieces and lye poured over the hacked-up pieces. How do other countries manage without these cancers on the body politic?

Who the hell elected Sharma Shakrabarti or whatever the spelling, to anything? Who would willingly vote for any of these passengers? (Sharma Shakrabarti could actually develop a second income by charging to go away and shut up.) Quangoes cost the British taxpayer £64 BILLION a year.

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/platform/2008/05/ben-farrugia-br.html

I tried to Google the national budget of Malta, a real country with an economy that produces revenues rather than just sucks them down a bottomless black hole, but couldn't find it.

I'll wager, though, that running the whole bustling, producing country does not cost what it costs to pour billions down the greedy throats of the quangoes, which produce nothing but reports.

Why are you people so supine?

Hereford

I disagree with you on one point Melanie. I do not believe the public is competent to make judgements in any of these areas, not just policing.

If you allow the public to manage anything you are allowing that all must have a vote, whether they are competent to understand the issue they are voting on or not. Whether they have a particular political axe to grind or not.

Place these matters in the hands of individuals who have demonstrated themselves to be competent to make judgements.

And by that I do not mean Government by the way.

Conservative Cabbie

For once I find myself in disagreement with the 'right' consensus here. I'm in favour of localisation whether it be policing, healthcare or other services. Witnessing the incompetence of central government in recent times, how could anyone want those self important blowhards to run anything.

Localisation would create more political involvement by the people, services that are more responsive to the peoples needs and more efficient and cost effective.

We are a nation of political indolents. We vote once every five years and then sit back and watch the political classes govern from the civil service handbook. We need an independent concerned citizenry to retake control of the services which their hard earned wages pay for. That is only going to happen with localisation where party machinery is less able to monopolise the political process.

Verity

Hereford - You mean the public should be allowed to vote for an MP and prime minister, but not a police chief? How so?

It certainly works in the jurisdictions that have it in the United States.

Hereford writes: "Place these matters in the hands of individuals who have demonstrated themselves to be competent to make judgements."

As in a quango?

David Lindsay

Who do you think is going to vote for the BNP in sufficient numbers to give them control of, or even one seat on, any Police Authority? And why do you think that?

Herbert Thornton

The question I feel impelled to ask is - will locally elected police authorities be any worse than the present system?

To my mind it can't be any worse.

Moreover, I don't understand why the election of a member of the BNP to the occasional Police Authority would constitute a sinister "thin blue wedge". Surely the election system guarantees that any supposed wedge can, if the electors don't like it, be removed at the next election?

Nonvexatious

Verity - given your rants about spelling and grammar I'm surprised you didn't have time to google Shami Chakrabarti in order to get her name right. Oh, but it's just a funny foreign name so that's okay then. Liberty isn't a quango anyway, so why you bring it up I have no idea.

Sam Armstrong - it's so laughably typical of this site that when the spectre of BNP control of the police is raised, someone starts going on about muslims.

Verity

Nonvexacious - First, look up "rant" in the dictionary and learn to use it correctly.

Second, no I don't think Shakrabarti's name is a "funny foreign name" as I lived in India and many names, especially of those from the south, are much longer and are rather mellifluous and pleasing.

I didn't waste my time googling this embedded passenger on the public purse because I couldn't be bothered. I knew people would know who I meant.

Nonvexatious

Verity

I love ya,madam! I am honoured to have a response from you. This will be my last post on this site as I could get addicted.

But you haven't answered my point. Liberty is not publicly funded, nor is it a quango. Human Rights are universal, we all have them - what about Liberty's support for David Davis, or for the Enron three?

And don't tell me you don't have a slight crush on Shami - gay or straight, left or right, it seems pretty universal

Verity

Nonvexacious - Being in the apparently rare and fortunate position of never having seen the woman speak, I have no opinion of her personality.

But whatever her organisation is engaged with, and however it's funded, it gets so much oxygen solely because it is in accord with the BBC and the socialist establishment meme, and that means it's destructive.

Conservative Cabbie

Nonvexatious

Probably no point in posting this as you said you won't be around.

"Human Rights are universal"

And which rights would those be then? Who decides which rights are universal?

Is the protection of private property a universal right? Try explaining taxation.
Is the right to life a universal right? Try telling that to Barack Obama with his votes on the Born alive Act.
Is the right to Freedom of Speech a universal right? Try telling that to comedians who can't make jokes about religious beliefs anymore.

There is no such thing as a universal right. Rights need to be delineated as per the U'S.'s bill of rights.

Verity

Conservative Cabbie writes observantly. He closes with: "Rights need to be delineated as per the U'S.'s bill of rights."

Indeed. But not "rights" as defined by this government of knaves and fools.

Nonvexatious

Ok, Conservative Cabbie and Verity, you've reeled me back in.

All that the Human Rights Act did was to allow UK citizens to challenge alleged Human Rights violations in the UK courts without having to go to the European Courts. Those rights already existed pre the Human Rights Act. Convention rights were established in response to the horrors of WW2. No one, looking at the Convention Rights, could possibly find anything to disagree with, unless he is an evil dictator. You can't bring a free-standing Human Rights claim against a private body such as a limited company, only against public bodies. Certain convention rights can be interfered with, if that interference can be justified. Convention rights protect everyone. Are you really saying that you want to live in a society where those rights aren't enshrined. What if evil gramscians came to power and came knocking on your door?

Verity

Vexacious - I want to live under devised and voted for by my own countrymen - not a bunch of continentals whose behaviour gave rise to the EHRA in the first place.

You ask: "Convention rights protect everyone. Are you really saying that you want to live in a society where those rights aren't enshrined." (I'm assuming this is a question.)

Well, yes. I don't need unelected people conferring "rights" on me.

I refer not to the rights every Briton is born with, but "rights", whose definition expands and becomes more nebulous daily. It's the HRA that rules that immigrant criminals can't be deported because they have a "human right" to a family life, as one example. I believe I read that, thanks to the ubiquitous Cherie Blair, "transsexuals" (of which there is no such thing) now have the "human right" to get their birth certificates altered to record that they were born of the sex of their choice.

Others can provide equally egregious examples of the immense micro-interference industry the HRA supports.

I would like to see the entire human rights industry shut down and leave it up to individual nations regarding what rights their citizens demand of their legislatures.

Nonvexatious

Verity

I'm an employment lawyer, and although I hate everything the BNP stands for, I would represent a BNP member who lost his/her job because of the leaked list incident, and I would use Human Rights arguments to do so.
Also, I have two transgender friends and the
last time I looked they did exist. What you mean is that you don't understand anything about transsexualism.

David Raynes

A serious point, missed by Melanie and other commentators is that there far too many Constabularies in England & Wales, 43 I think it is. This is at least 30 too many. The Home Office knows it, a few (honest), serving and retired Chief Constables know it. The Inspectorate knows it. The Labour run Home Office knows it and chickened out of doing something, cravenly giving in to a Police "Jobs (Senior ones) for the (mostly) boys", lobby. The Tory party also got it wrong and sided with the lobby. As a result of the multiplicity of Constabularies, many authorities are too small, they lack critical mass, especially for serious detective work. The whole system is grossly inefficient with too many HQ Buildings, too many Chief Constables, too many heads of CID, too many Chief Constables drivers etc etc. Reduce the number of Constabularies and empower the Divisional Commander. Re-introduce the career, professional detective, (destroyed by the etective "tenure rule"), select for the role, rebuild fraud squads (Hardly tackled nowadays). Too much Policing nowadays, particularly in serious crime, is not much better than amatuer. Extend the years before Police Officers can get a full pension (People are typically fitter and longer lived nowadays. Less fit Officers should be compulsorily re-deployed to lighter duties rather than given early retirement at vast expense. Do not let experienced detectives leave after 20 or 30 years.

Verity

Nonvexacious - What I understand about "transsexualism" is, it's a made-up condition.

A man can feel he is "really" a woman. But getting his bits cut off and taking mega hormones will make him look like a facsimile of a woman, but he has not changed his DNA. He is still a man. (And most of them still have a man's voice, although they try to change it into a purr.)

Similarly in the other direction. Women can have their breasts cut off and male parts created with silicone or whatever, and surgery and she can take mega doses of testosterone to grow facial hair, but her DNA is still female. She was not born a man, and if she stopped taking testosterone, the beard would cease to grow.

The fantasies of these people do no harm as long as they're honest. The HRA makes it legal for them to be able to pose as their sex of choice from birth, possibly tricking an individual into marrying someone who is actually the same sex as themselves.

This is the quarrel I have with the HRA, besides the fact that it is alien to British law, but it is also engaged in social engineering and thought manipulation. A terrorist who murdered in Britain does not have "a right to a family life" and thus the right not to be deported. Murderers have no rights at all. It is lunacy.

I suspect Melanie will not like seeing this thread hijacked by special interests so I won't be responding to any more comments on the subject, Nonvexacious.