Look into my Dizaeis....

The embarrassing saga of sacked, reinstated, sacked, reinstated Met Commander goes on.

Yet Ali Dizaei is not in the clear on the charges of corruption for which he was sent to prison in February. He faces a re-trial, because despite the main witness in that case being proved to be a benefit fraudster, it's still possible a jury may convict Mr Dizaei based on other evidence.

How this will all pan out is still a mystery.  We should probably expect to see Ali Dizaei retiring honourable from the Met, receiving a knighthood, before taking over from Lord Stevens as the face-man for Labour's latest independent police review.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

All Hail the Independent Review

You know the Opposition has run out of ideas when the only policy they can put forwards is an independent review of the police.

It is not exactly clear what Labour hopes to achieve by this review, nor what it will actually be reviewing, but it does align closely with Police Federation calls for a Royal Commission that was dismissed by the Government earlier this year.  And, true to form, the head of the Federation has immediately backed the idea.

Perhaps Paul McKeever should point out that Labour has had twelve years of Government in which to hold this supposedly independent review.  And that instead they simply spent over a decade imposing more and more bureaucratic police targets and restrictions, whilst contributing to a culture of mistrust and resentment of the police.

Perhaps Paul McKeever should point out that it is the height of hypocrisy for Labour, of all people, to declare that the Prime Minister "should be backing, not sacking the police", after twelve years of total disdain shown by their party towards uniformed officers.  And to hark back to "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", when their government's sentencing policies have led to the kind of scenes in Tottenham and other areas in August, where 75% of those caught had prior criminal convictions.

As a front-line officer who has been assaulted twice in the last 3 months out on the streets of Blandmore, and who has gone through three cans of PAVA spray this year alone, I am not reassured or excited by the prospect of a review - royal or otherwise.

The truth is that the London riots have done more to help the cause of the front-line officer than any government minister ever will.  As someone who joined up to lock up people who perpetrate that sort of violence, that's a pretty sad indictment.

PS In case you're wondering about the long absence, I was catching up on my work emails following a few days off.  The advantage of being off for more than one week is that you can safely delete anything over 10 days old, knowing that the emails that have come the next week will have reversed whatever instructions the original ones contained.

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.

Visibility, Schmisibility

Sorry for the absence. I've been on holiday.  Luckily, I took my uniform with me, and a lot of British tourists at the resort were highly reassured to see me sunbathing in half-blues.

The totally utterly independent think tank The Policy Exchange has come up with a number of genius suggestions this week that by amazing coincidence and vindication of the Government, coincide exactly with what ministers have been saying: 

Apparently, a lot of uniformed police are doing back office roles and money could be saved by giving these jobs to civilians.  The Policy Exchange does not suggest how many of them might be on restricted duties and therefore needing stints away from the front-line.  Nor does The Policy Exchange talk about how many civilians are currently doing front-line roles such as PCSOs, designated investigators, and statement-takers.  Engaging civilian staff has nothing to do with protecting the front-line. 

The next suggestion: police should wear uniform on the way to work.  This would equate to 1200 extra police officers "on the streets".  I must say, there is certainly nothing more reassuring than looking over as you wait in traffic for your daily commute, and seeing that the person waiting next to you is a uniformed police officer.

The Government, as usual, has "welcomed" The Policy Exchange's report, which is another way of saying it was already due to be absorbed into the next police reform paper and they quickly needed an independent body to back them up.

Whichever high-flying Conservative Oxbridge graduate at The Policy Exchange came up with this genius idea, and actually thought it was doable, I'd like to meet him/her.  They'd get on like a house on fire with my Area Commander.

On another note - what does The Policy Exchange think we wear to work currently?  I personally like to travel in dressed in a full red latex gimp suit, just so I'm totally unable to respond should I happen across a crime whilst queueing on the slip-road of my town's bypass.

 

"Help officer, I've had my bike stolen!"

"Don't look at us, we're just waiting to get into the club on a night out."
  




You couldn't make it up.  Except that somebody did.

 

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'Diary of an On-Call Girl' is available in some bookstores and online.