The Lords defend the thin blue line

mbarnes

For once i agree with Mel.

Neil

I agree with your diagnosis of the problm but I do not see how defending the independence of the constabulary is the solution. In that case they will surely be accountable to no one?

I am in favour of directly elected commissioners. They are accountable to the electorate and can be democratically deposed if they do not deliver. Whether or not thy should have the power to staff the position of chief constable is surely necessary for the empowerment of the position? By all means, introduce a right of appeal to another body or a review process, but the police, like virtually every other public service in this country, needs to be held accountable to those they are supposed to serve.

Frank P

As ever, Melanie cuts to the chase. Spot on! One minor quibble, though, to develop her own implicit qualification of Ian Blair's role in this latest parliamentary ploy: he was indeed one of the major contributors to the problems of politicization of policing during his career path both inside and outside Met until he scrabbled to the top of the dung-heap by force-hopping. This intervention, through his current platform, is a gift-horse that should have all it's teeth X-rayed.

Maybe the proposed shoo-in of Boris Johnson as the Met.'s elected Commissioner was the sticking point for Ian Blair.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/nov/27/boris-johnson-elected-commissioner-police

Is this latest stratagem the erstwhile-Commissioner's revenge on Boris for shit-canning him? Politics and policing are now so inextricably linked and I don't see any way of restoring the status quo ante (when the independence of the police function was jealously guarded by Chief Officers and practiced on the streets through the 'Office of Constable' - appropriately empowered and with individual discretion, enjoyed by all ranks of the thin blue line).

As I’ve always averred on these pages, ‘elected Commissioners’ is not the route to better policing, but having Ian Blair (apparently) on my side does not help my argument very much.

Santorum

mbarnes

Ditto. The London Mayor precedent was very worrying. Operational autonomy is impoprtant.

Corin Vestey

I think the independence of the police has entirely disappeared now, assuming that it ever existed. While I share Ms Phillips' very real concerns about thralldom to one 'social grouping' or other, I do think that we can't go on as we are. The police have been captured already. At least elected commissioners will have to justify a chief constable's lack of enthuisiasm for pursuing, for example, those responsible for forced marriages, or FGM, or honour killings. Commissioners might also be sensitive to the charge that their chief constables are taking advice from Islamists on how to reduce extremism etc. A few good FOI requests and we might see some chief constables actually get sacked.

Frank P

Neil

"but the police, like virtually every other public service in this country, needs to be held accountable to those they are supposed to serve."

Really?

Every police officer who has ever donned the cloth HAS been held fully accountable: by training; by police orders and regulations; by the law of the land; by supervision at several levels; by the scrutiny of the Courts (from Magistrates' to the House of Lords) as a result of interface with defendants; now by the CPS (and indirectly by the ECHR); by constant parliamentary scrutiny and endless inquiries and reports - not to mention the constant attention of the media in all its delving and devious forms; then there is a public complaints procedure that is at times draconian and intrusive available to guilty and innocent alike.

Some of you who sit in judgment on those who are up the sharp end, at the beck and call and the mercy of the Great British Public in all its guises should don the uniform for at least a couple of years and then perhaps adjust your prattle accordingly.

What makes you think that you deserve the benefit of even what you have now; never mind what once was?

Having another layer of 'elected representation' breathing down the necks of the boys in blue is pure unadulterated misguided bunkum! It is another political device for selectively and politically diverting police from keeping the peace, preventing crime and enforcing the law. Moreover, it would provide yet another easy opportunity for corruption and immunity for cronies and militant minorities that already wield too much clout.

Kenny

Frank P wrote:

"...I don't see any way of restoring the status quo ante..."

I am sadly forced to agree...

In a democracy we get the politicians and the police we deserve.

Sean

Don't know why all the fuss; do the police actually do anything these days ? I've made 4 reports of crimes in the last month and the only action has been to be issued with a crime number. In one case I had the address of the thief as they had left a trail from our garden to their front door. The police weren't interested. Total wastes of space.

aelle

Is there not something deeply un-democratic and authoritarian in insisting that the community should have no say in or control over the police who after all are in existence for the protection and preservation of our democratic society?

Reason Above Ideology

This is an excellent article with which I can wholeheartedly especially with these two points:

1) The Politicisation of Policing: this is a very serious problem. It worsened markedly in the nineteen-eighties. The then government openly employed the police force against political opponents (including but not limited to those in trade unions). It is in evidence today in the way the police have been used to score not only security but also propaganda victories against opponents of the government's economic policy (for instance, those manipulated and then arrested at Fortnum and Mason in March).

2) The need for professional leadership to restore a lost ethos to the police (and, I might add, other public services). As David Marquand elegantly demonstrated in his book 'The Decline of the Public" we in this country have undermined the professions by imposing an alien ideology upon them - that of competition, market forces and the profit motive. Where once professions were governed by ethical codes enshrining their obligations to the public they serve we have, since the 1980s, replaced this with the governing direct 'discipline' of the rate of return or we have aped it with endless measures of market efficiency.

The attempt to subordinate the police to the power of the electoral marketplace is just the latest instance of this ill-conceived Thatcherite agenda and its destructive intent so inimical to - as Melanie calls it - the "singular British concept of civil society".

Hurrah for Melanie and for her devastating expose of the destruction of civil society in the name of neo-liberal ideology.

Fabio P.Barbieri

It might also be pointed out that the quality of policing in America is not so wonderful that we should strive to imitate them. American cops are as often as not incompetent brutes - ask my friends in Baltimore, to name one city where the police is at third world levels - and I have spoken with members of the US armed forces, who these days are trained to act as substitute policemen in places like Iraq, who are simply disgusted at the lack of professionalism and self-control of their local police. If you are looking for foreign models to learn from, the Dominions and most European countries are a much better bet.

RCE

What sort of police chief do you think would be elected in Tower Hamlets? Or Burnley? Or Bradford?

John Richardson

"Corin Vestey
May 12th, 2011 1:49pm

I think the independence of the police has entirely disappeared now, assuming that it ever existed. While I share Ms Phillips' very real concerns about thralldom to one 'social grouping' or other, I do think that we can't go on as we are. The police have been captured already"

I do not see how anyone could disagree with the above.

There are no good options in our current predicamet.
So, in the end we must take a chance on The People. If they mess up they suffer.

The political class have already messed up.

The modern urban British Police 'Service' could not be any worse.

Oh...

Having read 'Reason before Ideology' above, I can only say what; a relife.

I had worried that my posting addressed to her, on the previous Melanie Philips blog, had been too harsh.

It was not. Good.

David Lindsay

mbarnes, it is always good to read Melanie Phillips on things like this, or drugs, or education. She is spot on.

Reason Above Ideology

Dear Mr. Richardson,

Thanks again for responding directly to one of my posts. I am not sure why you think we completely disagree here. You agree with Corin Vestey's observation that the police have been captured by a special interest group - and so do I.

We do differ to the extent that I agree with Melanie's criticism of the idea that elections can resolve this whereas you think they might.

I worry that this would be a slippery slope to electing everything - teachers, doctors, shopkeepers and so on.

As a Conservative I think - like Melanie - that it is better to leave things to the professional communities that have developed over the centuries and to the gentle regulation brought about by the ongoing conversation of civil society - much better than to impose artificial mechanisms upon it all.

It is because the matter of elected police commissioners is analagous to Gove's education reforms that the policy should go ahead.

And if Yvette Cooper is the best authority to quote in opposition to the proposals, then they must be right. This woman was a member of a government that brought law and order and many other aspects of policy to the depths.

You're looking down the wrong end of the telescope here, Melanie.

Norm

The Police are not our friends, they are not here to protect us or our property. They are here to keep the peace and to protect the property and instruments of the state, ie, to prevent the rabble from causing trouble and riot. That is why they give you a crime number, so that you can claim financial retribution via insurance for a loss that is outside their remit. Avoid them at all costs.

Harry Riedl

good post agree totally. Both on Lords role and the elected police commissioners. It would make more Ian Blair possible, or heaven forbid something not to dissimilar to the Wire,Corrupt cops who can't be sacked due to the intertwining between politics and the police.

TomTom

The abolish Policing Authorities which are staffed by non-entities who are patsies. North Yorkshire Chief Constables are serial failures and West Yorkshire simply incompetent...but taxpayers have NO control

C.d.G.

Melanie, not always sold on what you write (maybe your focus looks too much set on Israel) this time I must say: brava! That's all I've been thinking about for years, but naturally said with professional ability. For your information, in Italy just today the papers speak on a diatribe between the Minister of Internal Affairs and the Costitutional Court, which has just declared "not necessary to put into jail those charged with suspiction of volontary omicide".
It's just a crazy, suicidal trend all around the West. And it all began with the 1968, and the movements to "make the world better"! As usual, we know who to thank for all this!

Comprehensiveboy

Local accountability of police worries many people because of the potetial for balkanaisation. However, the day might come when the same people may be glad of their own mountaintop. Not a nice prospect if you could always assume that it was not neccesary before. We've not really had the feeling that the police belongs to some other social grouping. We know what is going to happen with this. so utterly predictable.

MikeF

Reason above etc - a very neat distortion of the facts. The police were used quite properly in the 1980s to maintain public order against against attempts to disrupt it in pursuit of political goals. That is one of their necessary roles.

The politicisation that we need to worry about now is the one embodied in concepts such as 'hate crimes' i.e. the notion that the law should not be applied impartially, but that according to a system of preference determined by ideological imperatives. Everyone should be equal before the law and be equally protected by it.

Graeme Thompson

Absolutely Melanie. Who can expect the ex-Conservative Party to remember the British way of doing things?

We need a new party to challenge the cultural Marxist mainstream three to eradicate Political Correctness and restore democratic values.

Getting some old 70's style coppers to retrain their modern colleagues on how to get the job done and restore decision on prosecution to the Police and away from the CPS will improve things immeasurably. Anyone who is over 35 has seen the past and they know it works.

Graeme Thompson

Reason Above Ideology
May 12th, 2011 5:28pm

"As a Conservative"

Yeah, a conservative who hates Maggie Thatcher and quotes David Marquand.

If I was half as clever as you think you are I'd be Einstein.

Reason Above Ideology

Dear MikeF,

Thanks for the response.

I can't see how one can be logically consistent if one says that the police are politicised when implicated in a politics one disagrees with, but not politicised when carrying out a politics we do agree with. We might want the police to back our politics and hinder the fools who don't agree with, say, our austerity programme but we can't, in good conscience, get them to do so and call it 'neutral', can we?

On the hate crimes issue - I'm not sure I follow you. In what way does the "concept" of a hate crime bring about partial treatment? When we prosecuted the Nazis not only for breaching rules of war or for murder but - in recognition of the fact that they were specifically motivated by racial hate and seeking to destroy a people - for crimes against humanity, were we losing impartiality? It seems to me that we were raising the idea of impartiality to a new and vital height. The national and international law should protect regardless of background, shouldn't it?

Reason Above Ideology

Dear Graeme,

Thanks for the response. I do understand that my commitment to Conservatism will seem odd to some who also identify themselves as Conservatism.

But what is not Conservative about believing in the virtues of professional bodies governed by their own professional ethos? You advocate that yourself -and quire rightly - with regard to the police. Just because that means you and I agree with someone (i.e. Marquand) who was not a member of the Conservative Party does not make it a non-Conservative position. Edmund Burke - as I am sure you know - was a Whig and not a Tory.

I don't 'hate' Margaret Thatcher. I just think that she introduced ideology into conservative government when conservatives should eschew ideology for the gentle application of reason as it unfolds in our tradition ('the British way of doing things' as you put it). I take it from what you say that you are also somewhat over 35 and so you will remember as well as I that there were more than a few classic conservatives concerned with the sometimes dogmatic drive of Thatcherism. and you yourself refer to the 'ex-Conservative Party'.

I apologise if something I said precipitated your turn to sarcasm about Einstein and to attacks on me.

Stewie

Yeah good job Mel. In Brixton the boys in blue will be forbidden to search people for drugs while in Surrey villages drivers will be dragged from their cars and tazered for driving at 21mph.
The people who actually get involved in local politics are never *quite* the ones we envisaged!

Ashley Patton

A comment from the colonies - while I think Mr. Giuliani and Mr. Bratton generally did good jobs in New York City, it is likely that with respect to the sharp decrease in crime during their tenure they had some assistance from changes long in coming and totally outside of their control. As has been pointed out in places like "Freakonomics," the general rise in the availability and use of abortion by lower income mothers starting in the mid 1970s after Rowe v. Wade is generally thought to have contributed to a reduction in the number of disaffected youths and a concomitant reduction in the rate of urban violent crime. That being said, Messrs. Giuliani and Bratton did make street policing a priority, something that has sadly slipped on Mr. Bloomberg's watch, as midtown-New York's streets have once again come to resemble 16th century bazaars.

Raymond Douglas

Has anyone noticed how "ashamed" the BBC seem to be about the Brilliant series "Ashes to Ashes" that ran on their network. Was that because a copper was presented as most people would want them to be ? Someone who had a passion to put bad men in prison and didn't care to much how he did it ! Someone who could lead . Someone who criminals feared , and the law abiding trusted. Stand up Gene Hunt !. How I wish you were the model for our modern policeman !

Santorum

Raymond

Crikey! I think only you have noticed that.

Agree with MP for once. Political control of the police must be arm's length

Fergus Pickering

Re foreign police forces. Aren't the French police very very violent, or is that just a media thing?

pterodactyl

But the police are totally political already and completely committed to 'equality and diversity'. I do not see how elected chiefs could make them any worse, if they are already at an extreme. Eg if your house is being attacked they will do nothing, but if you say one of the attackers called you a racist name, they will be round in no time.
Surely the voting public will be less pro-crime than the elite who are gaining ever greater control over the police at present?
After all in an ITV Tonight poll 85% think prison sentences are too lenient. That shows the way the public will vote. Just because they vote for pro-crime MPs does not mean that they will vote for pro-crime police chiefs.

David Raynes

Of course Melanie is correct.

The Conservatives have tied themselves in knots on their policing policy. The elected Commissioners idea is an utterly daft, fringe idea. It will waste a great deal of money and is largely irrelevant to what most of the public want.

It will be an opportunity to confuse policing. It will not lead to greater effectiveness.

Effectivness needs good leadership. As we know to our cost, an election does not always provide that.

Worst of all is the atavistic Tory addiction to the multiple tiny Constabularies (there are 43 overall in England & Wales) with the smaller ones lacking the critical mass to do much police work properly.

The tiny shire Constabularies, thought up when even the bicycle was an innovation. When criminals came from the next village and not from eastern Europe.

All these minor Chief Constables assemble around their multiple HQs, similar entourages and expensive and duplicated support mechanisms. That is just how organisations are.

The Tories refuse to recognise the problem, it is a flawed thought process that began way back in oppossition.

England & Wales could probably be reduced to about 10 Chief Constables and Constabularies, of real quality.

Less Chief Constables would give us more chance of excluding the crackpots of whom there have been far too many in recent times.

Why was it so long before Sir Ian Blair became aware the wrong man had been shot at Stockwell? Was that, total quality management?

C.Gee

MikeF:
“The politicisation that we need to worry about now is the one embodied in concepts such as 'hate crimes' i.e. the notion that the law should not be applied impartially, but that according to a system of preference determined by ideological imperatives. Everyone should be equal before the law and be equally protected by it.”

Yes. A voice of reason. What is wrong with law enforcement is the law itself. The law has put ideology above reason. British law is no longer the guarantor of individual liberty, but a distributor of privilege to collectives - classes of people. The “hate-crime” is a good example of the conceptual corrosion of justice by social justice: perpetrators of violence must be deterred from committing crimes against certain classes of victim - who receive greater protection under law. The police are trained no longer to see the public as individuals, but to see each individual in terms of the set of classes to which he belongs. For any given incident, the perpetrator and victim are no longer clearly defined by the criminal act, but each is subject to evaluation for his protection status before a crime is defined. An elderly man holding up a sign calling for the damnation of homosexuals is set upon by a group of men, but the elderly man is arrested for incitement... A householder shoots one of two young intruders armed with knives and is prosecuted for homicide... A man shoots a video of a public march of Muslims condemning the cartoons of Mohammed and damning the infidel, a Muslim woman (veiled) objects to the filming, a policewoman orders him to stop.

Policing is at the interface of post-national humanitarian theory and actual humanity. An awkward spot to be. Not made any easier by ideological directives demanding that police personnel reflect recruitment from protected classes. So the police force no longer showing “institutional racism”, because it is an institution of many races (and creeds, including Wiccan). The necessity for the force to police itself for ideological compliance, leaves very little time after the paper-work is done to police the public for such compliance. It is a sign of a progressive society that every burglar should have one free burgle, and car-radio thieves as many car-radios as a night’s work can harvest.

Mrs June Cann

Thank you Melanie for that letter to David Cameron...its so true and let's hope it makes him think. Keep up your good work PLEASE. Thank You Again.

John Holland

It's very entertaining reading the splenetic, confused and witless responses to Reason Above Ideology's well-argued and rational posts.

Not one has so far come up with a more intelligent counter-argument to anything she's said than silly abuse. I'm particularly enjoying her excessively polite and reasonable replies to this pram- rattling.

MikeF

Reason above etc ' "I can't see how one can be logically consistent if one says that the police are politicised when implicated in a politics one disagrees with, but not politicised when carrying out a politics we do agree with."

I don't say that nor anything that can remotely be construed as that. I say that the job of the police is to maintain public order so that politics can be conducted by means of argument and debate not violence and intimidation.

Re 'hate crimes' C. Gee explains exactly what I mean (thanks). I am against crimes being regarded and punished with greater or lesser severity according to an assigned group identity of the victim rather than the actual harm done to the victim.