Tasers on Stun
Camilla Cavendish wrote an excellent article in The Sunday Times on the significance of Theresa May's visit to the Police Federation conference last week describing it as a 'shock and awe performance'.
In the process she made some very telling points about the Met Police disciplinary process which has moved at the speed of a glacier, taking 18 months to investigate an incident that lasted a minute and has resulted in four police officers being sacked for gross misconduct - yet the evidence from those hearings has not been made public even though there appears to be prima facie case that the individuals concerned were part of an organised conspiracy.
Sharpen up, constable, or prepare for another shock from Taser May
Camilla Cavendish - The Sunday Times
Theresa May’s speech to the Police Federation last week was an electrifying moment in British politics. She has done what none of her predecessors dared to do: call time on the union’s closed shop. Only a year before a general election she has risked out-and-out confrontation with a force that was once Margaret Thatcher’s thin blue line.
Listening to federation representatives the morning after who were complaining about how upset they were to be lectured by this lady in a suit, I wondered how they imagined other home secretaries have felt being booed or heckled by the police union. Labour’s John Reid and Jack Straw were booed. May was heard in stunned silence, for her message was clear: change, or else. After she departed, union leaders convened an emergency meeting. Members then voted to adopt all 36 recommendations of the independent Normington review, which she had threatened otherwise to impose on them.
The charge sheet is devastating. In a headmistressy tone of grim disappointment, she read out the failings that have rocked public confidence. The list went on and on. From Stephen Lawrence, to taking backhanders from journalists, to allegations about fiddled crime statistics, to stop and search, to the first sacking of a chief constable for gross misconduct in modern times: it was unanswerable.
“It would be the easiest thing in the world,” said May, “for me to turn a blind eye to these matters. To deny the need for change. But it would also be the wrong thing to do ... because... I want the police to be the best you can be.”
Many officers have laughed hollowly at that. With May dissing their leaders they feel she has attacked the thousands of brave officers who act with integrity to protect us. But this is why the police are Britain’s least reformed public service: politicians have been loath to challenge them. Labour made grumpy noises but feared being labelled soft on crime.
The morning after May’s shock and awe performance, Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester, said in measured tones that he agreed with “a lot of what the home secretary said”. He thought reform and a “professional ethic” were needed. He was speaking in the long-term interest of the rank and file. The officers who risk their lives every day have been let down by their leadership and by a union that has brought them into disrepute, while charging them £22 a month for the privilege.
May has ended almost 100 years of truce by stopping public funding for the federation and making it an opt-in organisation. It was created after the police had to be bribed out of striking at the end of the First World War. It won the right to represent all officers in pay discussions in return for a no-strike deal. Tearing up that deal is a risk (and a recent European ruling suggests that no-strike deals for police forces may in fact be illegal). It also marks a profound change in the relationship between the police and the Conservative party, which under Thatcher rewarded the force for its work in the miners’ strike and against the IRA.
The trigger was Plebgate. Andrew Mitchell looks increasingly like a modern-day Dreyfus, with May his Colonel Picquart. The former Tory chief whip is being sued for libel by Toby Rowland, the Downing Street officer who accused Mitchell of calling him a “f****** pleb” — and Mitchell says he may have to sell his house to fund the case. Rowland’s costs are being paid by the Police Federation, presumably out of the vast opaque reserves that May will now force it to declare openly, following a scathing report by MPs. Meanwhile, the Met’s internal hearings have just crawled to an end, 18 months after an incident that lasted a minute — and none of the evidence from those hearings has been published.
The hounding of Mitchell and his bicycle was the last straw for Tories who had not felt the police were “one of us” for a long time. By 2010 reforming Tories arriving in government retained a Thatcherite commitment to law and order, but didn’t feel that the police were sacrosanct. As a slew of failures came to light and public confidence dropped, it felt as though the responsible course was to challenge the culture on the public’s behalf, not to worry that reforms might dent public trust.
May has consistently sided with the victims of crime over the vested interests of the bureaucracy. She has expressed repeated concern that too many young black men are stopped and searched and that this is damaging community relations. She has opened an inquiry into corruption in the Lawrence case. She has argued that domestic violence must be taken more seriously, after HM Inspectorate of Constabulary found that most forces treat it as “a poor relation” to other activity.
Yet the police have resisted. The Met commissioner has echoed concern about stop and search, but done too little. The police resented elected crime commissioners and saw the moves to tie pay more closely to performance as a hostile act. Some may have assumed they would be saved, because budget cuts of 23% would set off a crime wave. But the predicted crime wave has not materialised, partly because of the professionalism of officers on the ground and partly because of an unexplained trend of falling crime in many countries.
May has now put the writing on the wall: if you will not change, we will change you. She has threatened to take control of stop and search, as well as federation matters. While it is deeply uncomfortable for a government to interfere in policing to this extent, it was one of Robert Peel’s principles that the power of the police should derive from public approval. It would be infinitely preferable if the decent majority, people such as Fahy, would drive reform from within. By making it clear that doing nothing is not an option, the home secretary may have made this possible.
May has won round one — taking on the Police Federation. It is not yet clear what her vision is for round two — changing the culture more broadly. Even her supporters do not credit her with the “vision thing” which is why, despite some eager predictions, she is very unlikely to be leader.
Happy to lapse into silence rather than give anything away about herself, she does not inspire warmth. For a politician of such heft, she is surprisingly colourless: watching her speech felt like a return to the days before Technicolor.
I admire her indifference to journalists, however, and her preference for getting the job done rather than gladhanding people at parties. She was the only one of six home secretaries to fly to Jordan and secure a deal to deport Abu Qatada. She is now one of the longest serving home secretaries of modern times — and one of the bravest.
Listening to federation representatives the morning after who were complaining about how upset they were to be lectured by this lady in a suit, I wondered how they imagined other home secretaries have felt being booed or heckled by the police union. Labour’s John Reid and Jack Straw were booed. May was heard in stunned silence, for her message was clear: change, or else. After she departed, union leaders convened an emergency meeting. Members then voted to adopt all 36 recommendations of the independent Normington review, which she had threatened otherwise to impose on them.
The charge sheet is devastating. In a headmistressy tone of grim disappointment, she read out the failings that have rocked public confidence. The list went on and on. From Stephen Lawrence, to taking backhanders from journalists, to allegations about fiddled crime statistics, to stop and search, to the first sacking of a chief constable for gross misconduct in modern times: it was unanswerable.
“It would be the easiest thing in the world,” said May, “for me to turn a blind eye to these matters. To deny the need for change. But it would also be the wrong thing to do ... because... I want the police to be the best you can be.”
Many officers have laughed hollowly at that. With May dissing their leaders they feel she has attacked the thousands of brave officers who act with integrity to protect us. But this is why the police are Britain’s least reformed public service: politicians have been loath to challenge them. Labour made grumpy noises but feared being labelled soft on crime.
The morning after May’s shock and awe performance, Sir Peter Fahy, chief constable of Greater Manchester, said in measured tones that he agreed with “a lot of what the home secretary said”. He thought reform and a “professional ethic” were needed. He was speaking in the long-term interest of the rank and file. The officers who risk their lives every day have been let down by their leadership and by a union that has brought them into disrepute, while charging them £22 a month for the privilege.
May has ended almost 100 years of truce by stopping public funding for the federation and making it an opt-in organisation. It was created after the police had to be bribed out of striking at the end of the First World War. It won the right to represent all officers in pay discussions in return for a no-strike deal. Tearing up that deal is a risk (and a recent European ruling suggests that no-strike deals for police forces may in fact be illegal). It also marks a profound change in the relationship between the police and the Conservative party, which under Thatcher rewarded the force for its work in the miners’ strike and against the IRA.
The trigger was Plebgate. Andrew Mitchell looks increasingly like a modern-day Dreyfus, with May his Colonel Picquart. The former Tory chief whip is being sued for libel by Toby Rowland, the Downing Street officer who accused Mitchell of calling him a “f****** pleb” — and Mitchell says he may have to sell his house to fund the case. Rowland’s costs are being paid by the Police Federation, presumably out of the vast opaque reserves that May will now force it to declare openly, following a scathing report by MPs. Meanwhile, the Met’s internal hearings have just crawled to an end, 18 months after an incident that lasted a minute — and none of the evidence from those hearings has been published.
The hounding of Mitchell and his bicycle was the last straw for Tories who had not felt the police were “one of us” for a long time. By 2010 reforming Tories arriving in government retained a Thatcherite commitment to law and order, but didn’t feel that the police were sacrosanct. As a slew of failures came to light and public confidence dropped, it felt as though the responsible course was to challenge the culture on the public’s behalf, not to worry that reforms might dent public trust.
May has consistently sided with the victims of crime over the vested interests of the bureaucracy. She has expressed repeated concern that too many young black men are stopped and searched and that this is damaging community relations. She has opened an inquiry into corruption in the Lawrence case. She has argued that domestic violence must be taken more seriously, after HM Inspectorate of Constabulary found that most forces treat it as “a poor relation” to other activity.
Yet the police have resisted. The Met commissioner has echoed concern about stop and search, but done too little. The police resented elected crime commissioners and saw the moves to tie pay more closely to performance as a hostile act. Some may have assumed they would be saved, because budget cuts of 23% would set off a crime wave. But the predicted crime wave has not materialised, partly because of the professionalism of officers on the ground and partly because of an unexplained trend of falling crime in many countries.
May has now put the writing on the wall: if you will not change, we will change you. She has threatened to take control of stop and search, as well as federation matters. While it is deeply uncomfortable for a government to interfere in policing to this extent, it was one of Robert Peel’s principles that the power of the police should derive from public approval. It would be infinitely preferable if the decent majority, people such as Fahy, would drive reform from within. By making it clear that doing nothing is not an option, the home secretary may have made this possible.
May has won round one — taking on the Police Federation. It is not yet clear what her vision is for round two — changing the culture more broadly. Even her supporters do not credit her with the “vision thing” which is why, despite some eager predictions, she is very unlikely to be leader.
Happy to lapse into silence rather than give anything away about herself, she does not inspire warmth. For a politician of such heft, she is surprisingly colourless: watching her speech felt like a return to the days before Technicolor.
I admire her indifference to journalists, however, and her preference for getting the job done rather than gladhanding people at parties. She was the only one of six home secretaries to fly to Jordan and secure a deal to deport Abu Qatada. She is now one of the longest serving home secretaries of modern times — and one of the bravest.
