Tories plan political control of police forces

The Conservatives are committed to directly-elected political figures controlling police forces around the country, although the details are still being drawn up ahead of next year’s General Election—which is why most of us, including myself, didn’t know anything about this until now. And that’s only because Sir Hugh Orde, the head of the police professional body, the Association of Chief Police Officers (Acpo), has warned that chief constables may resign if a Tory government tries to place forces under local political control. He has said colleagues would resist being told how to protect the public by locally-elected leaders.

The right-wing popular press, busy bedevilling the Prime Minister for having a visual disability and not very good handwriting, and his deputy for (allegedly) illegally using her mobile phone while driving (which you can be sure many Sun and Mail and Torygraph readers do all the time) and then crashing into an unoccupied parked car, hasn’t bothered to focus on this trivial detail of actual policy. The majority of the ever-shrinking minority of people who are intelligent enough to use their votes, but not necessarily intelligent enough to assess party policies before casting those votes, know next to nothing about Tory plans.

People just know they hate Labour, and that—apparently—is a sound basis in their minds for voting the Opposition into government. For most the idea is that one party has been in power too long and it’s time to give the “other ones” a chance. Is it? Is it really? Yes, Gordon Brown has made mistakes but Tony Blair ordered most of the damage done and then skipped away to kiss the Pope’s ring before the shit hit the fan. Harriet Harman, if it’s true, should have had the sense and awareness of the law to have used a hands-free kit. However, the notion of local politicians telling the police what to do, and how much money they can spend every year, and what to spend the money on, should have anybody with just a smidgen of political awareness running to the ballot box to keep Labour in power.

It’s a highly dangerous and stupid plan. What do you know about policing? What do your local town and city councillors know? Giving them some degree of control over reducing dog fouling on public highways is one thing; allowing them to decide whether to spend more money on burglary than rape investigations, or less money on undercover work than putting bobbies on the high street, these things are quite, quite different. One can imagine with horror such Tory-determined priorities as, if a mansion has been burgled the police would be permitted to spend years hunting down whoever stole the silver but if it’s a rented council property they could only spend six weeks looking for a cheap TV and a kid’s bike.

A politicised police force becomes a tool for the deepening of social injustice on a massive scale. As Sir Hugh Orde says, “Even the perception that the police service of this country… is under any political influence, I think that suggests you cannot argue that you are a proper democratic society. It’s as simple and as stark as that.”

Crime and punishment affect all of us regardless of class, race, creed, income, sexuality, ability, age—and politics. The police should be free of direct political control and always have been, even if all parties have tinkered tentatively around the edges before now—and to much criticism in the past when they have.

Where are the Tories looking for a model of how this will work—Zimbabwe?

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