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Sir Paul Stephenson has chosen a good issue with which to make his mark on London's policing, saying that he wants his officers patrolling on foot and alone.
He's called for a renewal of the “uniformed governance” of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies, when the presence of individual officers walking the beat was the sine qua non of an ordered society.
Personally, I'm all for Sir Paul's proposal — but only so long as London doesn't find itself going back to the future. I agree that the individual police officer, doing the rounds, chatting with the people on his patch, is the key to good policing.
However, Sir Paul would do well to recognise that if this was “uniformed governance”, it was governance with consent. The problem for London's police today is that all too often they aren't wanted. In Stockwell, where I live, that's because they're mostly white. The Met has tried to up its quota of black police — but it's still far from proportional.
Still, even an individual white officer will, I argue, have more success with a gang of lairy black lads than a pair. Why? Because part of the whole gang mentality is to come on hard — have a bigger dog or a gun. By getting out of their patrol cars, and leaving their mates back in the station, the police will be making a very strong statement: it isn't us against you, and we aren't involved in an arms race.
I think another reason why people may be resistant to Sir Paul's uniformed governance is because, quite frankly, the police we see every day don't always look up to the job. This is because they spend too much time roaring around, sirens screaming. The last time I really clocked police on the street they weren't in uniform and they certainly weren't alone: there was a entire armed-response unit, with automatic pistols strapped to their legs, giving a couple of rude boys a shakedown in broad daylight on Clapham High Street. It may be that these were very bad men but I couldn't escape the feeling that this was being done for the citizenry's benefit.
More commonly, I see community support officers on foot patrol. Watching a gaggle of them move a junkie dosser on from the alley opposite my house recently was not an edifying spectacle. They seemed utterly unsure of themselves and at a loss with the situation.
I never liked the introduction of the PCSO anyway: it's two- tier policing, with the underlying message that the street isn't really worth wasting proper officers on.
The problem with modern policing is unwittingly voiced by the Met Police Federation's Paul Smyth. He wonders whether the Crown Prosecution Service will accept evidence gathered by an individual arresting officer. The unquestioned assumption that police evidence is true was part of the original idea of uniformed governance; it should still be wholly applicable to 21st-century London. This is the crisis of confidence that Stephenson must now confront.
Madge's immaculate collection
Madonna, not content with retaining the body of a semi-divine 30-year-old when she's knocking on 51, is also intent on acquiring some of the other characteristics of her holy namesake. It seems she's looking into adopting another Malawian baby. Could this count as a kind of virgin birth? She was only ever like a virgin in the first place.
Tiddles scores a gaff in NW3
Whenever I'm in Covent Garden I like to drop in on my pal who impersonates a cat. Compared with those saddos who dress up as statues and stand stock-still on boxes waiting for the punters, my feline friend's shtick is positively Shakespearean.
His body concealed beneath a little table, his head heavily made up and crammed into a one of those cages used to take Tiddles to the vet, he entertains the crowd with a steady stream of catty witticisms.
On Sunday we were chatting about where we both lived, when Felix let fall that he stopped in Hampstead. “Hampstead!” I expostulated. “Well,” he moved quickly to mollify me, “I have a very nice council flat.” But I wasn't to be soothed by these strokes.I mean to say, we all know how hard it is to get public housing nowadays — and here's an entire gaff going to a cat!
Reader views (1)
a great idea - but police will still need to be in twos or even more in some bad areas............. we need a lot more police - well done to them!
- Graham Grimshaw, Ruislip Uk, 18/03/2009 17:42
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