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SIR Paul Stephenson, London's new police Commissioner, will need to re-motivate and re-position his force. Recent events have generated potentially serious threats to the Met's long-term survival. Sir Ian Blair's removal, the logistical chaos revealed by the de Menezes inquiry, Damian Green's arrest and the use of the word "corrupt" by an assistant commissioner in an attack on the Conservatives have seriously undermined the force's position.
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.
Reader views (3)
We absolutely agree with :Joe London. We need a Police Force, not Service. What we do not need is a dripping wet Liberal in charge of the Met. We need a tough cookie to sort London out. It is now resembling a third world slum, with the sort of crimes we have come to expect from third world countries. This used to be a gentle place, now it is anything but. We know where most of the crime is coming from, and we have an absolute right to expect a massive crackdown on what has become a violant unrecognizable mess. This country is in danger, and we do not now see a way out for it. Politicians do not have the guts to even admit the touble we are in in case they lose votes. Everyone needs to face up to this before it's too late.
- Sylvia, Epping. Essex, 28/01/2009 13:46
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Let us hope he can reduce the appalling sick record of the Metropolitan police.
- John, London, 28/01/2009 13:03
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The Met needs to modernise and de-politicise. The cringing culture of toadying to the shifting sands of political correctness has lost both the Met's rank and file and the public they serve. The Met needs radical reform - opportunity lost. Get back to basics and do what you are employed to do. When the Met was a Police "Force" it provided a service, now that it is merely a Police "service", it seems incapable of any response.
- Joe, London, 28/01/2009 12:40
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