Elected Coppers - No Thanks?

With thanks to Ed West

I hate to use the phrase “liberal elite”, I really do. It should be on a Right-wing banned list along with “metropolitan liberals”, “Hampstead/Islington liberals” and “political correctness”, whether the mad or sane variety (and I’m sure I’ve used all of them). But looking into the reasoning of those who opposed Government plans for elected police chiefs last night it’s hard not to.

The proposal was killed off with a Lords amendment, voted out by, among others, former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Blair. Sally Hamwee, the Liberal Democrat rebel whose amendment it was, told peers it would lead to “the politicisation of the police”. She said: “I fear that what is populist may sometimes be dangerous, and may not reflect the needs of those who can shout less loudly.”

She’s not the only one. One legal society has warned that “a significant reason for resisting this reform is the irrefutable tenet that the police must not be swayed by public opinion”, because this might encourage miscarriages of justice. Liberty oppose it because “the proposals threaten the centuries old pillar of police independence”, while the Local Government Association says it could “fragment local partnerships” with councils.
Populism? Public opinion? Didn’t we just have a referendum last week based on the principle that, ultimately, the public does the right thing, one which the liberal elite lost? Damn, there I go again.

There might be problems with the model proposed by the government, but isn’t the idea that the public has more control over government officials a good thing? Not to everyone.
Blair has been bitterly opposed to reform of the police ever since Mayor Boris Johnson removed him in 2008. Last year he wrote in the Guardian: “And then there is the announcement of the introduction of elected police commissioners, apparently drawn from the US model of elected sheriffs, without any intellectual underpinning or historical understanding of the kind of national compact between the UK police and its public.”

But that is exactly the point; there is no national compact right now. Many of the police’s natural supporters feel completely alienated by the service’s hierarchy, and its priorities; they cannot understand police decision-making, the ludicrous overkill when investigating some petty crimes, the failure to put foot patrols out, the lack of interest in dealing with burglary, street robbery and what is now euphemistically called “anti-social behaviour”, the mentality that crime is a “social problem”, the proliferation of “thieves operate here” signs which basically say “we don’t”.

A few years back Sir Ian, as he was then, complacently declared that people in Haringey could leave their doors unlocked; as a taxpayer in Haringey, and one who lives in the London postcode with the highest burglary rate in the capital, I can assure him that is not true. Yet there seems to be no redress, because the people with power wish to impress those who appoint them, government officials; that’s why police chiefs seem more interested in winning over Guardian readers, by ticking the right ideological boxes, than Mail or Express readers.
It was also reported today that there would be tougher penalties for burglars, but that large numbers would still escape jail. To many people the idea that anyone who commits burglary – an incredibly serious crime which causes huge emotional damage to the victim, and fear in their neighbours – should escape jail is baffling. But many people do not have a say, because presumably to ask ordinary people would be populist. This has to change.