Save us From Political Policing
Tony McNulty says we should leave the policing to the police and the politicking to the politicos.
8 Sep 2011, 18:03
Save us from police-influencing politicians?
We were left in no doubt that it was the politicians who came to the country’s rescue in the light of apparently incompetent policing. The image given was that the PM was in charge – that he told the police to get more officers on the street; that the Home Secretary, as she herself claimed, gave the order to cancel all police leave; that the politicians sitting in COBRA told the Metropolitan Police to get assistance from other police forces – and that the politicians saved the day. We were left with the impression that it was the politicians who would decide whether or not baton rounds and water cannon would be necessary or not. We were told that the government would consider closing down social media networks if required. We were effectively told that the entire leadership of the police in the United Kingdom could not provide anyone good enough to be the new Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police – and only an American ex-Police Chief had the answers. Bill Bratton, despite having no experience of policing in the UK and having left Los Angeles with the 400+ gangs it had when he started there as Police Commissioner, would solve all our problems, according to the Prime Minister.
We now know that, quite properly, the decision to increase the number of the police on London’s streets from 6,000 to 16,000 officers was the decision of Acting Commissioner Tim Godwin, and not the politicians. At the time, the Home Secretary had said that she “….had ordered that all special constables should be mobilised, all police should be cancelled and the robust tactics used.” There was outrage from many Tory politicians at the time when the police gently pointed out that all these decisions had been made by the Commissioner, not the Home Secretary. However, the Home Secretary has now admitted to the Home Affairs Select Committee that neither she or the Prime Minister or the Mayor of London made the decision. She also admitted that she was wrong to say that she had ordered the police to cancel all leave as she claimed at the time. All operational decisions about the numbers of police on London’s streets were taken by Acting Commissioner Godwin.
We were given the impression that it was the politicians sitting around in COBRA who were instrumental in making sure that there was help and support from other police forces on successive nights in London as the riots continued. Again, this impression was and is a false one. There is a long standing agreement between forces to provide mutual aid to each other – all forces need help every now and then to deal with issues as they arise. Many forces helped the Suffolk Police when one man murdered five women in December 2006. The Metropolitan Police received mutual aid during the Airline Plot, also in 2006. In neither case did the police force concerned seek permission for these operational decisions from politicians in COBRA or elsewhere – and the same position prevailed during the riots.
We now also know that the police in London had been issued with baton rounds and were authorised to use them, but it was not found to be necessary. They did not need any authorisation from the politicians to use them – it was an operational policing decision not to do so. In the spirit of ‘policing by consent’, the police in England do need a decision from the politicians in order to utilise water cannon, but this was never requested. Nonetheless, the politicians gave the impression that the absence of use of both water cannon and baton rounds was somehow a failure of policing – it was not. Police tactics were criticised from a position of ignorance by some politicians who sought to give the impressions that the police were being soft on the rioters by not using baton rounds and water cannon. The reality was that, despite considerable police knowledge and experience that suggested that the situation was vastly different from the running battles between police and rioters in Northern Ireland, where both had been used. The difficulty for the police in the August riots was the very speed and mobility of the rioters – baton rounds and water cannon are used to disperse large crowds that are intent on both threatening the police or public safety. The issue in London was not running battles between large crowds and the police, but severe disorder, destruction and theft by highly mobile crowds - an entirely different situation. The police did use Jankels – armoured vehicles – for the first time in Clapham. The point is that, at a time when the police needed the support of the most senior politicians, what they got, more often than not, was a series of lectures from armchair chief constables.
During the aftermath of the riots, the politicians gave the impression that they were calling together, as a matter of urgency, the social media network bosses with a view to shutting them down when necessary to avoid disorder. This was painted as another clear example of the politicians being tough and in control. No debate was countenanced, comparisons with autocratic China or the use of social media networks in the Arab Spring, were dismissed as fatuous – networks were used by rioters so should be shut down. Except that, as the Home Secretary has again admitted to the Home Affairs Select Committee, when she met the bosses of the social media networks and the police, she had, what seems now to be, a very cosy chat about how the police could use the networks and whether more could be done under incitement laws with those who would use the networks to organise and pursue violent disorder. There was no discussion about shutting down or banning networks.
We should raise two cheers for the Home Secretary because she made clear to the Prime Minister that there was no need to import police chiefs from the USA and that we would find a new Commissioner from within UK policing. She has also made clear to the Mayor of London that she appoints the Commissioner. She will take advice from him, but she will make the appointment in her own time. The Mayor of London persists with the impression that he appoints the Commissioner, when he doesn’t. Time after time, the Mayor of London seeks to mislead people into thinking that he has total control over the police, when he does not. The last Commissioner, Paul Stephenson, had to make clear to the Mayor and his sidekicks, that the Commissioner ran the Met and was accountable to the Mayor and the Metropolitan Police Authority. The Mayor of London is supposedly the role model for the elected Police and Crime Commissioners, but he can’t even be bothered to chair the MPA meetings and is constantly trying to take the credit for what London’s police officers are doing on a daily basis in defence of our communities.
During and after the riots we were given a peek at what the future will look like if we had elected Police and Crime Commissioners. We would have politicians climbing over the police to take credit when things go well and readily attacking the police when they don’t. This cannot be right for the future of policing in a democracy. There is an accountability deficit in policing – in London and elsewhere – but elected Police and Crime Commissioners are not the answer. Of course there needs to be a strong debate about policing, the riots and how the police dealt with the riots and society’s response to the riots, but we do not need the politicisation of all aspects of policing – which is what we saw a glimpse of during and after the riots. It was not an edifying sight and did nothing for the safety of our communities.
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