If threats of this kind are treated merely as issues of community relations or low-level disorder, the response will always lag behind reality. By the time soldiers are required, the failure has already occurred.
In theory, everyone is responsible for crime: the police, the council, community safety partnerships, and central government. In practice, that means no one is accountable. The police point to limited resources. Councils blame the central government. Officials promise to “monitor the situation”.
The seriousness of this is simple. If the Government did not follow due process, the Prime Minister has lied to the House. If the Government has not handed over the documents, it has not complied with the Humble Address and is in contempt of Parliament.
There are so many reforms that you could and probably should do before increasing the number of police hires, because it makes it easier to know when you have a sufficient number of police.
Conservatives should offer a different vision: one rooted in local accountability, visible neighbourhood policing and respect for policing by consent.
Never has trust in politics and democracy been needed more. What we are getting is the end of localism.
And we agree that the PCC role should not be immune from reform, but by scrapping the one form of genuinely accountable governance, the public’s voice in its local force is lost along, it would seem, with your local police force.
Home Secretary says there is a “postcode lottery” of police responses to rape and sexual assault offences against women and girls.
Croydon’s recovery depends on strong high streets, and strong high streets depend on the small businesses that bring life, colour, and hope to our towns.
The total salary cost of Police and Crime Commissioners is approximately £3m. Yet it is suggested that Police Authorities can replace PCCs if there is no mayor. The total cost of allowances on Police Authorities in 2010 was £10m – a comparable figure would be £15m today.
When the state concludes it cannot guarantee the safety of lawful citizens engaging in lawful activity, it has effectively ceded sovereignty over that space. The police aren’t merely making a pragmatic security decision. They are admitting they cannot or will not enforce order in the face of potential disorder.
We live in a world where the mere words of an officer under extreme stress, facing the threat of a knife, is considered more damaging than the actual lawbreakers.
She says: “There is a gap in the law…and I will be taking measures immediately to put that right.”
More Specials recruited could mean more warranted officers on the streets. But here’s the problem: we can’t expect off-duty Specials to leap into action every time someone nicks a packet of biscuits. My proposal? Get the big retail chains involved.
Operation Bridger is the Policing that supports the safety and security of MPs, when MPs are back in their constituencies. It was set up after the horrific murder of Jo Cox MP in 2016 and further enhanced after the murder of Sir David Amess MP in 2021.