Met is facing threats to its survival

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The Metropolitan Police was created in 1829 and is, therefore, resilient by the standards of public institutions in Britain. But the unseemly spat with Boris Johnson and the Opposition front bench could, if the new Commissioner cannot de-politicise his force's reputation, tempt the Tories into reforms the Met would not like at all. They might, for example, split the "national" and "London" functions into two separate operations.

Sir Paul will also need to ensure his rank-and-file officers are confident in their leader. The police, if they are to be a proper hierarchical institution, must be willing to be led. Otherwise, messages transmitted from the top will not have any effect on the ground. Constables need to get out and mix with the public, if that is what the politicians who allocate taxpayers' money say they want.

An effective working relationship with Mayor Boris Johnson will be the new Commissioner's next objective. The vast majority of the Met's work is "London" policing. The Mayor sets the budget. Indeed, so powerful is the Mayor's mandate that even the Commissioner cannot out-rank him - as Ian Blair discovered.

Fear of crime remains a real problem, whatever the crime statistics show. Mercifully, the police appear to have reduced the use of the yellow boards appealing for witnesses to crimes. Having a sign on a pavement for weeks announcing "VIOLENT ASSAULT" is unlikely to make people feel secure. Similarly, the extraordinary number of sirens can only be interpreted as "trouble".

London, in fact, remains curiously safe. But it doesn't always feel like that. If the Mayor and the new Commissioner could deploy the Met in a way that is seen to be visible and reassuring, we might come to believe those falling crime statistics.

* Tony Travers is chair of the Greater London Group at the London School of Economics.