What is there to say about the resignation of Cressida Dick from the Met?
First, this was well overdue. Many have had doubts about her since she was duty officer when Jean Charles da Silva e de Menezes was killed by the Met in 2005, despite which she went on to become Commissioner.
Second, many did not need the wholly inappropriate policing of the Sarah Everard vigil to be reminded of the misogyny of the Met.
Third, there was her approach to corruption. On so many issues during her time the Met appeared unable to take action where Tory MPs appeared to be close to the scene, from the funding of the Brexit campaign onwards.
The force was found to be institutionally corrupt on her watch.
Will that be solved by her going? In many ways that is the more interesting question. In part, the answer comes down to who is appointed, and we do not of course know that as yet. But the influence of the prime minister, who is currently under investigation by the Met, on this is clearly of significance as well. One just has to hope that a fair appointment is possible at the moment and to simultaneously have doubt as to whether it is.
What is the answer going forward? It has, surely, to be that the Met must be the London police force again. It should not have direct access to the government. It should be accountable to London, which it is not, even though Sadik Khan used his influence to finally remove Dick from office.
What the Met also needs is a moral compass. But then, so much of public life requires that, and too often it is absent. We are suffering the plague of Thatcher's children who were taught that self-interest is all.
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‘We are suffering the plague of Thatcher’s children who were taught that self-interest is all.’
Nicely summed up and whole heartedly agreed.
Um… you’d have to agree on a definition of self-interest for that to fly. I suspect we may here be confusing self-interest with simple greed, greed which will short term provide tangible benefits but long term to harm in the form of, say, worse air and food quality. Thatcher’s lamentably under-educated children needed then and now to have it explained to them what genuine self-interest is, perhaps.
Let us say then that Thatcherite self interest has a lot to do with wealth accumulation, because it is wealth that can insulate people from the effects of certain policies as well as from needing other people. Wealth is power – the power to be self reliant. The logic of accumulation is ‘taking’ without giving out of course.
Real human self interest is really about reciprocity – giving and taking/receiving from others – we are kind to others for example because we make a non-financial risk investment in the hope that they are kind back. It is a very clever, co-operative and sustainable system of social relations that saw us through much of our evolution as a species until we created money and then we started to get problems (some of us want more of that money than the rest of us it transpires).
And then there is that other form of giving -altruism – which people like poor von Hayek and Ayn Rand sort of forgot to take into account when they re-wrote human history behind our backs whilst we were all too worried about those pesky communists.
We are all now supposed to self realise through ourselves rather than what we do through and for others. Existentialism has been individualised and marketised thus cutting us off from the rest of society.
It explains why we don’t value women, carers and nurses for example and that we should hurry up and bloody do something about it and right quick.
In the unlikely event that readers are not familiar with the depravity to which front line police have sunk – this is worth looking at (the first 5 minutes):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z6yxEs4QkRY
These are the words of “ordinary coppers”. The words of a police force which needs fundamental reform – quite probably decimation (every 10th person fired – with no pension). A brutalised group who regard the public as the enemy. They always have. Most police, most of the time despise the public. It is unlikely that a single person can reform the police. It is certain that politicos of all stripes will need to take part. It is equally certain that the supine crew on both sides of the HoC are incapable of delivering that change – or setting the appropriate tone.
There is a vast body of video now available that shows the short comings of the police. It is not a London phenomena (although arguably London is the worst) but rather a national phenomena.
In the 90’s I spent some years doing criminal defence work and spent a lot of hours in police stations supporting those being interviewed, mainly by Cleveland police but occasionally Durham or Northumbria. What came across VERY clearly was the intelligence level of the average officer. I recall a DC asking me in front of a suspect, to tell him what the minimum sentence for theft was. At the time the only offence with a minimum sentence was murder – the minimum being life. The officer’s attempt to frighten his suspect, using me, backfired unmercifully.
The second thing that came across was the motivation to join the police. A job that requires, fundamentally, a desire to help society was populated by people whose desire was simply to control others and impose their own world view.
I was appalled, at that time, by the regular arrest of children for ‘child prostitution’ with no understanding of or interest in the fact that the ‘criminal’s’ ‘clients’ were paedophiles.
During my time doing this work I came across 2 very intelligent and aware officers, both of whom happened to be women. They stood out from the rest.
I cannot see how there can be improvement in English police forces (I am unsure about the rest of the UK, but I doubt that they differ from the ones I encountered) solely through improved management. There also needs to be a move away from allowing people to become police officers without a close consideration of their motives.
As has been said of MPs – Anyone who wants to be a police officer (MP) should be banned from being one.
I absolutely agree with Cyndy’s comments, but I would go further. There is a saying I have heard amongst some solicitors: ‘You have to go a long way up the chain of command to find a police officer who is half intelligent’.
But it is more than just intelligence, it is the low level of probity that seems to exist; if they can bend the rules, they seem to delight in it, as a matter of course. For many opf them It is all about wielding power and teh lack of joined-up thinking. It appears to me that they jump into any situation, make a snap judgement and then quite often pursue that line of thought regardless of the facts or evidence.
What assists them is the lack of personal accountability or responsibility.
In my view, what is needed is:-
(a) that they should be held to a higher standard than the general public (as they are in a powerful position).
(b) Be more closely monitored by an independent organisation that has real teeth (not the hopeless IOPC or, in my opinion, the biased College of Policing or the ineffectual Inspectorate of Policing).
(c) Scrap the “Professional” Services Departments and use the money to pay for (b) above.
(d) No past police should be allowed to join the new body (b) above.
(e) Change the law so that Officers are legally and personally accountable for their actions and decisions even if they retire and they should be investigated in the same way as the public is: arrested and taken away from any police role whilst teh acse is on-going.
(f) The unfair support that police under investigation receive, from the Police Federation, should also end. Why should members of the public be supported by a duty solicitor, but a police offcer under suspicion is often provided with an expensive barrister paid for by the police federation ? There should be a level playing field.
(g) An end to the legal defence, for an officer, of having a “genuine belief that…” e.g. the officer had a genuine belief that the person had a gun/club/knife etc. (and then no gun/club/knife was found).
(h) The record of every officer should be publicly available for review – how mnay times they have been complained about, what crimes have they committed, how they are performing etc. They are paid for by the public; I feel we have a right to see and comment on their personal record in their job.
(i) Chop-up all the functions of each police force and let the police (and each Cheif Constable) focus purely on policing. Why does thne Met have over 100 PR people ?, What is the need for separate purchasing functions across each force ?, Why shoudl thgey control the properties they work in ? etc.
(j) The information systems and databases should be independently controlled, so that records cannot be withheld from investigations, deleted or illegally “modified”.
(k) The level of independence of the police needs to be reviewed with a view to achieving a better balance of accountability vs operational independence.
(l) It should not be for a committee of police chiefs to determine standards and strategies. There should be a group that is partly formed from the public and academics experts that set policing directions and the type of equipment that can be used (e.g. tazers/spit hoods/ANPR etc.)
(m) The law should be modified to state that the police are employees of the public and make it more clear that policing is by consent.
(n) The number of arrestable offences should be reviewed and more limited and a return to “inocent until proven guilty” in as many cases as reasonably possible.
I am sure a lot more needs reforming and updating.
Commissioner reports directly to GLA, and is appointed and disciplined by it (no Home Office involvement),
Borough divisions controlled by local satisfaction scores, not bewildering collection of metrics,
Police complaints staffed by true outsiders, retired cops from places like Canada, the Netherlands, New Zealand on fixed contracts,
Proper funding of legal aid, court system.
The Commissioners job is really two, one covering the ‘Security & Protection’ issues and another looking after the day to day policing.
It needs two people to do it.
Agreed
One of my neighbours is a retired police officer & my wife is rather fond of the cheap TV – Lout, Lager, Action and both my neughbour and the officers shown on TV seem decent people doing a difficult job in rather trying conditions.
If we were to look at Crime Reduction, rather than policing and deal with offenders better than we do at the moment then the sort of situations that must grind officers down would be much reduced with possibly an improvement oin their mental health and behaviour
The Met did not want to become involved in ‘Partygate’, from the beginning, and for good reason. Forget Cressida Dick’s problem. ‘Partygate’ created a constitutional problem for the Met; especially if a devious, treacherous, unreliable Executive decided to protect its authority in Parliament, and was cynical enough to attampt to use the primacy of its constitutional status in Parliament to save itself.
And, Lo! What dow we find? Sky now records ‘The Times’ reporting that a “close ally” of Johnson has played the constitutional card: the Johnson ally claims the Met: “need to be ‘very certain’ before issuing him with a fixed penalty notice for breaking COVID lockdown regulations.
‘Do you want the Metropolitan Police deciding who the prime minister is?’ the figure says.”
This has plumbed a despicable new low in standards. The country is now being brutalised by its own Government to save a Prime Minister who has treated the public’s efforts selflessly, often at enormous personal sacrifice, to follow the hard road of public virtue for the Common Good, with utter contempt.
Agreed
The totalitarian playbook is in use
A slew of factors have not helped the Police.
Targets: – I do not think that this helps as fighting crime and assisting the public go hand in hand. I’ve seen police chasing crimes and ignoring others just to fulfill targets. I remember one traffic cop telling me that his issuing me with notice about a dud rear light was just get his quota up and he apologised. Then he returned to his car where his 3 fellow officers were. Why 4? Because they all had quotas to fufill probably.
Job Losses: – fighting crime creates lots of paperwork. In the past, the rear echelon seemed to have enough staff to do this. Now cops spend as much time filling in paper as they do crime and maybe even more.
Reduced budgets:- I remember police officers in my local constabulary working alongside an LGB&T group where I work – working empathetically and successfully to reduce hate crime and come to an understanding with these groups. After 2010, all of that got chucked out of the window and the meetings no longer take place. How can the police operate it communities they know nothing about?
Other Pressures:- Our country has been denuded of money since 2010. Some systems like the NHS and adult social care plus mental health services are clearly breaking down before our very eyes.
Who ends up having to deal with people with mental health problems who aren’t taking their medication (usually with tragic results)? The Police.
Who is it who seems to return errant Alzheimer and dementia sufferers home when they go missing? The Police.
‘Care in the community’ – another big lie.
I can’t remember the last time I saw a bobby on the beat even in the rural town where I live. I’ve not seen one since I was a boy in the 1980s.
The police are not actually here to do other services’ jobs but it seems that they increasingly do.
I’m not defending the indefensible here – I know that there are oiks in the police who should not be on the job. There are oiks though in all walks of life. You pay peanuts and you get monkeys – yes?
But have you seen the pay? Who’d be a copper in London on those wages? Have you seen the lost subsidised accommodation and other perks that used to make the job well worth having or bearable? All sold off or reduced in the name of ‘low tax’ and ‘efficiency’?
The police in this country have problems.
But those problems are a symptom of shit Governance by shit politicians who cannot be arsed to fund our public services properly in the name of lies about taxes and deficits. It is a country where our enemies are not criminals apparently but immigrants, or desperate people coming over in dinghies or Europeans with strange sounding languages.
It tells us of a Government that just cannot be bothered to run the country properly and have decided that we must make do and mend.
It’s our fault that we need the police apparently – and the fire service and ambulance service too.
A Government that wants all the benefits of power without the responsibility.
By all means let’s be critical about the police – but remember to look up too – in the direction no less of Parliament.
The rot has set in there by all accounts.
And it is Parliament that is responsible for all of these maladies make no mistake.
And we need to sort that our before anything else in my view.
Pilgrim Sight
I agree
Before Partygate I had an interesting conversation with a Police Officer about ‘Protection’
Its far from straightforward – imagine having to live with a bodyguard and from the protection officers point of view coping with the foibles of whoever they are protecting.
Again it might be better if ‘Close Protection’ was done by someone other than the police so if Boris goes on a Bender and breaks the law, Police Officers dont have to be complicit in it.
Much agree @PSR.
It’s a societal just as much as a Police problem.
That’s what happens when there iznomoney..
The most interesting reaction to Dick’s resignation was from the head of the Police Federation, stating their deep regret and how much she was admired by the rank and file. How true, but what woe the reasons. Officers have lost their guarantee that the Met culture would not be challenged. Dick has refused any action on rape convictions , violence against women , hate crime, racism or misogyny. The Met has no problem with distrust of the public. They just don’t care and carry on living in their canteen bubble. Patel wants no change. Let’s hope Khan can influence the choice Let’s also remember the Met reflects police culture everywhere so the problem is huge.
It’s disappointing to read such prejudice in the replies to your blog. Some of your respondents might want to read a balanced analysis of the recent resignation of the Commissioner. Then again they might not want such balance. https://policecommander.wordpress.com/2022/02/11/an-impossible-job/
That was worth reading
Thank you. I have read that and I have immense sympathy with many of your statements, particularly about funding in recent years.
However, my experience of policing in the 90’s included horrendous misogyny, homophobia as the norm, a closer relationship between criminals and officers than between officers and the public.
My experience of police officers started in the 1970’s when my best friend from school joined the police, my mother was a civilian police worker and I dated an officer when I was 20 and he was 24. Much later I spent 6 years in criminal defence work. My experience tells me that there is a fundamental issue between officers and the public. My police officer cadet best friend, in 1975, was told, at Hendon, to assume she would never have a non-police officer friend again. Self-fulfilling prophecy.
Forgetting the financial pressures that are currently horrendous, but have always been present to some degree. For me the primary issue is that the police are trained and expected to distance themselves from the rest of society. To treat all non- police as alien. So their only relationships are with other officers or with the criminals (or suspects) with whom they have daily interaction. That produces a dangerous situation that HAS to be addressed. i don’t know how.
This could be a long conversation! I joined the Met in the mid-eighties, left in 2012 and now advise foreign governments on policing reform (mainly financial crime). The service I joined was starved of adeqate funding and lacked unprofessionism, infrastructure, senior leadership and served a justice system that was so bad it was comical. The reforms I saw during the nineties were, frankly, fantastic. But organisational cultural reform is messy, imperfect and takes time. In my view the police were at their best around 2010. Since when all that was good has been systematically unpicked and we are now where we are.
Police officers have to distance themselves from the public in order to be dispassionate and fair. I don’t know the answer to your self-fulfilling prophecy either (!) but it just isn’t true that cops spend their time criminals, they spend far more time with victims and witnesses.
My brother and I were brought up in a police house attached to the local station itself. He’s just turned 63, I turn 69 at the end of March. As young children we used to go to the special police parties which were held at Christmas for the children of local police by the force, in our case, the Met. The idea was then that the police shouldn’t, couldn’t, mingle with the local communities. I don’t know what it’s like now, but in those days, social division and exclusion came baked into the cake.
Tristram,
Thank you for that
Much to agree with and nothing to seriously disagree with
I am glad you liked it. Serving police have no platform on which to reply to criticism (apart from the wooden format of a press release), which skews understanding and debate. Mr Sutherland’s piece is a response to those calling for police reform. We should recognise that we are ten years into the most radical reform of policing in a generation and scrutinise what this government has achieved.