'Shiny headquarters are full of promotion-chasers wearing rainbow-lanyards.' Adrian Dennis/AFP via Getty Images.
Policing is an acronym-rich occupation. Among the rank and file, the most popular is “TJF” — “The Job’s Fucked”. Senior officers have long viewed such cynicism as mere shop-floor griping. Policing, after all, has never enjoyed harmonious industrial relations. Frontline officers can’t strike, and support staff who can are currently staging a two-week walk out because they can’t work from home. But since the rape gang scandal, it’s become clear that the rot goes far deeper than bickering over conditions, let alone the hardy perennials of corruption or racism.
Talk to officers, and there really is an “end of days” feeling at stations up and down the land. If, to put it bluntly, we failed the victims at Rotherham and Telford and a hundred other places so catastrophically, how can we ever recover, either professionally or in our relationship with the public? The answer must begin with reform. No — not another report, but genuine change, a red-tape-cutting Trumpian revolution everywhere from the law to leadership, which together can expunge 30 years of failure, and finally build a service fit for the 21st century.
The last few decades have been torrid for British policing. Austerity led to plummeting officer numbers, and a recruitment and retention crisis. The service’s obsession with DEI impressed activists, but led to no discernible improvements to performance. Then came Covid, casting the police as government stooges. All the while, the public became tired of authoritarian busy-bodying around Non-Crime Hate incidents, especially with the virtual decriminalisation of theft, and after Sarah Everard was murdered by a serving officer.
Amid all this rot, it’s surely worth asking: what, in this day and age, is policing actually for? It’s a question that seems to baffle the Home Office, College of Policing, Police and Crime Commissioners and the National Police Chief’s Council. Conquest’s Third Law of Politics springs to mind here: the simplest way to explain the behaviour of any bureaucratic organisation is to assume it’s controlled by its enemies. It’s an overused term, but it’s impossible to avoid “Blob” here too. Spend long in British policing and you’ll see what I mean: the self-interestedness, the sluggishness, the groupthink, even as trust collapses and crime soars.
Once you grasp that basic fact, it’s easier to conceive of a solution: a Musk-like insurgency, with a Milei-like chainsaw, against complacent bosses. In practical terms, I’d start with a wide-ranging Royal Commission on policing. That’s surely needed, and not just because the last one was in 1960. Turbo-charged public inquiries, Royal Commissions are independent and uncomfortable to the powers-that-be.
What would this fantasy Royal Commission conclude? In the first place: that the police need to do less, but better, and concentrate on their core mission of fighting crime and keeping the peace. That would reverse the decline into a “social work policing” model, whereby officers pick up the slack around mental health, the homeless and youth services. The police, to be fair, are beginning to address some of the problems. Yet talking to officers on the ground, so-called “precautionary principles” mean they’re still routinely diverted from core duties. This is before we even delve into the issue of public order and demonstrations, another drain on resources.
From there, our Commission would hopefully embark on a DOGE-like spree. For one thing, we need fewer forces (there are currently 43 in England and Wales) but with local commanders enjoying much more subsidiarity. Forces are already collaborating sneakily via “strategic partnerships” which means collaborating on things like fighting organised crime. The genius of this arrangement for police chiefs? It doesn’t threaten the 43-force model, meaning senior officer posts are preserved. So pass me the chainsaw: modern technology would easily allow local policing to operate without multiple layers of management. While we’re at it, officer numbers will need re-examining too. Norfolk’s case is instructive: the chief constable is being forced to hire cops rather than admin staff due to central diktat, obliging him to use cops as admin staff.
When Toby Young first introduced Free Schools, I wondered what it would be like if the Home Office allowed Free Constabularies: officers empowered to use their initiative and be answerable for the results. That, however, would require technocrat cops to relinquish control, or anyway be forced to relinquish control. As it is, policing is currently ruled by spreadsheets and process maps, not common sense and discretion. Virtually every police function, from arrests to basic investigation to safeguarding, involves overwhelming policy, bureaucracy, guidance and advice, with some officers avoiding certain duties altogether.
Then there’s law and procedure. This is policing’s operating system — which, at the risk of revealing my age, resembles Windows NT 3.1. Law, for understandable reasons, moves glacially. Sadly, modern society moves cheetah-fast. Add to this the clunky Blairite legacy, a hybrid of common law muddied with continental-style statute, and a rights-based framework designed by a cabal of London lawyers, and you’ve got a recipe for disaster. Unless, of course, you’re a lawyer paid by the hour.
Therefore our notional Royal Commission should consider a bonfire not only of red tape, but of wider legislation too. Policing doesn’t exist in isolation. It relies, rather, on its partners in the wider criminal justice system: the courts, legal profession, prisons and probation services. Penal reform is a case in point: the Fabian-esque British establishment holds a traditional distaste for incarceration. This is unfortunate, because it works, as any police officer (and, indeed, criminal) will tell you.
When I say works, I mean it’s an effective way to offer respite to working-class victims in crime-plagued communities. These, too often, sit at the bottom of police priorities. Strangely, nobody listens to police officers, despite being one of the few professions to whom criminals speak candidly. From hundreds of hours of listening to criminals, occasionally while monitoring covert audio of their conversations, I can assure you the “criminal fraternity” are utterly contemptuous of the bleeding hearts who run our criminal justice system.
Then there’s the 500-pound gorilla in a custodian helmet: leadership. Pass me a dozen chainsaws. Post-Macpherson services, desperate to erase the smear of institutional racism, were uniquely vulnerable to the insidious effects of social justice politics. And so a querulous chief officer cadre took the police from being an organisation with problems around race to — an organisation with even more complex problems around race. From DEI programmes to allegations of two-tier policing, senior officers indulged in an orgy of meaningless virtue signalling. Why? To fit in with the dominant political culture, one in which advancement is contingent on ideological compliance. Yes, the “canteen culture” of laddish humour is dead. Now, though, there are non-denominational prayer rooms and soulless “patrol bases” on the edge of industrial estates. Meanwhile, shiny headquarters are full of promotion-chasers wearing rainbow-lanyards.
It would be some comfort if my views were merely the grumblings of a disillusioned backwoodsman. Sadly, they’re not. There is, however, hope. The police have demonstrated an ability to pivot. To blow with the wind. If the political will exists, the police will change accordingly, if only for reasons of self-preservation. Which brings me back to my point about the current administration. Unfortunately, Sir Keir Starmer seems to me Conquest’s Third Law made flesh. So why not parachute in a new breed of leader, I hear you ask? They’ve tried that: there’s little point in having direct-entry senior leaders if they’re recruited from the same civil service cohort responsible for all that rot.
What’s the way forward? The party manifestos on law and order at the last election were uninspiring, just platitudes about bobbies on the beat and being tough on crime. Tough on crime? The increasingly ludicrous College of Policing takes a dim view of “zero tolerance” policing, even as it’s loathed by many academics for ideological reasons (which is a shame, because it works). Like every other part of the British state, in short, the wishes of our elected representatives play second fiddle to the civil service and special interest groups. Reform, intriguingly, offered a tiny ray of hope, promising to do away with the College. Considering many coppers refer to it as “Hogwarts”, you can imagine how they’d feel if it went.
Not that any of this is easy. Quite aside from all those blobbish reactionaries, reforming a police force is like changing the wheels on a speeding train: you can’t just shut it down while you fix it. More to the point, meaningful change implies upending the existing political and cultural settlement. And is a Leftist government — by which I mean Highgate Left, not Hartlepool Left — likely to accept the challenge?
Beyond targeting “far-Right” rioters and Facebook posters, the answer is obviously no, even as a leaked Home Office-commissioned report on the disturbances suggests large segments of the British establishment are happy wallowing in cliches over “behaviours of concern”. Even the public itself is a potential stumbling block here: we like robust policing in principle, until we’re actually policed robustly. Just recall clown-show decisions by the Independent Office of Police Conduct (IPOC), let alone the old saw that a conservative’s a liberal who’s been mugged, and a liberal is a conservative who’s been arrested.
Yet with officers increasingly charged with serving an increasingly balkanised society, to say nothing of rising anarcho-tyranny in towns and cities, perhaps we no longer have the luxury of being policed by consent, reforming chainsaws or not. All the while, the question looms: what will happen when the next disaster finally, inevitably, arrives? I suspect the constables behind the riot shields will offer a familiar answer: TJF.
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SubscribePolicing is on the verge of being undoable.
In the interests of perceived needs within our delightful multicultural society we have created tiers of justice. It appears to be heavy handed one moment and then totally ineffectual the next.
The standards of hiring appear to be bizarre. I’m constantly surprised at the physical inadequacies of some frontline officers. If you’re attending a march/riot I expect a certain level of physical presence. A brief look on X will show you some officers are just not up to the job (and thus put their fellow officers and public in danger).
I despair with it. And with Kier & Co in charge it will definitely not get any better. Just more bull@%£¥ to deal with eg Islamophobia legislation.
I live in hope of a revolution in policing. But a more likely outcome is the adoption of pink cat ears on helmets and pronouns on their uniforms.
Rather than stipulating that all Policemen and Policewomen be graduates however obese or physically challenged, ALL without reservation must have served in HM Forces for a minimum of three years.
Then we may find the right calibre of person prepared to make such a heavy personal sacrifice as joining the Police.
Frankly the time for PC Blobby is passed and it’s time for a return old values before it is too late.
Not quite. All police officer should have passed through All Arms Commando Course or P Company Courses. Then all Police Officers must pass the close quarter combat course Fairbairn developed for Shanghai Anti Riot Police of the 1930s. Priority given to ex Special Forces. In Far East, most Police have black belts in a martial arts.
Al Chief Constables to have reached the rank of Lt Colonel and been through AACC and or P Company. The Deputy would be the career Police Officer.
In order to catch criminals the Police need to out run them and and to apprehend them, out fight them
Fairbairn knife fighting method. the father of knife fighting
Father of Close Quarter Combat – William Fairbairn
The above is a return to the sort of Police we had pre mid 1950s.
All those in politcs, The Law, Civil Service, universites, journalism to spend 1 minutes in a squash court with a light heavy weight bare knuckle boxer so they understand the problems the Police encounter arresting strong, large, violent fighters. The days when those in the jobs mentioned had been in Armed Forces and boxed or played rugby and understood how tough, strong and violent some men can be, are long gone.
This one of the main problems the Police face, a complete ignorance and unwillingness to face facts by those in Authority about the problems of arresting large strong violent fighters.
Sounds like a military police force is what you want? Well, that’s never been the case in the UK and the police were establised here partly because of military failures in dealing with civil unrest. And the pre-1950s police officers you describe never existed. Given our Army is much smaller than our Police Force, and also suffers from a recruitment and retention crisis, how do you propose to establish this pipeline of new officers?
You are mistaken, you have failed to study the problem.
Fairbairn was ex Royal Marine Light Infantry who became a police officer in Shanghai which was the most violent city in the World. The Triads are trained in martial arts, the instructor being called ” red Pole “.
fairbairn was nearly beaten to death by the Triads in the early 1920s so went to Japan to learn JuJitsu . He then combined boxing, wrestling Ju Jitsu and Southern Chinese martial arts to devlope close quarter combat.
In the early 1930s large numbers of Police were being killed and a few Triads. By the end of 1930s a large number of Triads ds were being killed a few Police. Fairbairn saved many Police lives. He had 600 fights in his career and his body was covered in knife wounds. He went to train the Commandos/SOE in close quarter combat . Proof of it’s effectiveness was in the 1980s a lady who had just retired as lecturer in French was attacked by three muggers. She defeated all three. She was ex SOEand never practised martials after the war.
The Police recruited ex military. You fail to understandfear. A combat veteran who is confronted by a criminal with the weapon willhave the confidence born of experience to know whether to diffuse the situation with a quip or disarm them. A friend persuaded drug dealers to leave a pub by saying ” The taxpayers of Britain have spent £100Ks training me to kill people far more dangerous than you will ever be.” They left . He was ex Royal Marine Commando.
In many confrontations police officers have to confront many people. If someone punches or stabs them, they do not have the time to draw Tazer, baton,etc . It may also be slippery underfoot so they risk falling over. They need quick reflexes born of training to evade, block and disarm. When it is dark, raining and windy it is far more difficult for the Police officer to perceive the attack.
If one has been trained and experience of combat one will have the self control, nowledge and self discipline to use the least violent methods of control. How many Police officers have used Tazers inappropriately because they are scared ?
Recruiting ex sergeants in the their early to mid thirties means they have the emotional maturity born of experience yet still maintain fitness and reflexes.
It would be interesting to see a breakdown to see how often policewomen have used a ‘Taser’ compared to policemen.
Nobody ever discuses the ‘fear factor’, but it’s always there.
Years ago the New York police habitually recruited huge Irishmen to patrol the bars and streets. Their intimidating appearance and pugnacious behaviour made it a rather pleasant city to stroll around. Not so today I gather.
Sounds like a military police force is what you want?
Not to me it doesn’t-more like a force that is fit for purpose-in all aspects of “fit”
It’s an impossible dichotomy, HMG wants empathetic knee-benders and snoopers who are also expert in Close Quarter Battle (CQB).
It simply cannot be done!
I agree with the former, not the latter. HMG does not want the latter. A Garrison Sergeant Major said the Police try not to recruit ex military. The City of London Police used to actively recruit ex Guards sergeants and ex RN POs.
I recall a time when the Met’ was stuffed full of Guardsmen, easily identified by their ‘slashed’ forage caps!
Charles, great to have you back again and I agree with your sentiments here.
However, we’re simply not putting the quantity of people through the armed forces these days to feed the police. And that’s assuming they’re the same quality you’re used to.
Quality! Quite. But I wouldn’t count on ex-servicemen or women from HM armed forces as providing the hoped for calibre of physical bearing, strength and stamina. They’ve not only been massively depleted in numbers themselves but also suffer from the same DEI crap that has infected the police.
Thank you!
Sadly you are correct. ‘We’ should have thought about this years ago, when we still had the numbers.
Increase the toughness of selection and training. Make it 12 months with final fitness AAC or P Company combined with Fairbairn unarmed combat and make a minimum of 5ft 10 inches in height.
How Long Is Police Training In Japan? Duration, Academy Insights, And Career Paths [Updated On 2025]
Japanes Police training is 10 months.
Make it so that criminals will lose a fight with a police officer.
If one wants civilisation then the civilised must defeat the savages. Attila the Hun, Genghis Khan and Timur the Lame show when this does not happen.
TJF=McPherson
Essex Police, which came under fire for investigating Allison Pearson, The Telegraph writer, over allegations of stirring up racial hatred, provided some of the training on behalf of Thurrock council. The Labour-led council, which has received £530,000 in used government grants for refugee settlements since 2022, paid for a £180 “hate crime event” last year that taught newly arrived Afghans how to “recognise and report” offences.
£180?
You won’t get much HATE CRIME for that!
In contrast: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oKY600o3CXw
” … platitudes about bobbies on the beat …”
I live in a medium-sized market town in the northern half of the UK. I worked in a well-known tourist city nearby. It must be 35 years ago, if not longer, that I have dim recollections of uniformed bobbies walking the streets in either centre. In the interval since, the only sight we have of the police is when they flash by in their chequered vehicles with tinted windows and rainbow motifs. The police are invisible to the general public. It is little wonder we have a notion that the police now hover in front of computer screens in offices or working at home, engaged in spying on our social networks to sniff out hate crimes and Far-Right extremists (only Far-Left are referred to as ‘activists’) – with a specialist unit somewhere in London coordinating anti-terrorism work.
It is telling in our modern era that the term ‘bobbies on the beat’ is now considered a platitude by the Woke Establishment. I bet that most ordinary people (the ‘Little People’ – thanks, Call-me-Dave Cameron) would vote for a political party that promises to put bobbies back on the beat and delivers, and stops them from investigating and dishing out Non Crime Hate Incident notices altogether.
Am I alone in thinking that will not happen any time soon?
Apart from anything else, there’s simply too much law for the police and courts to deal with these days. So many new laws have been introduced over the last 30 years that there really is no hope of keeping pace with them.
That’s before we consider that the more new laws we have, the more we’ll discover inconsistencies and contradictions between them and the legal process will become even slower, more costly and error prone than it already is.
We have chosen complexity. And we shall reap the consequences. Frankly, I fear it’s all managed decline until we learn to simplify again.
I know it’s a bit simplistic but one thing that gets my goat about policing is that not everyone in a position of authority has actually been a Police Officer. It used to be that everyone started on the beat.
It’s always seemed wrong to me that anyone can demand that anyone else do something dangerous or unpleasant they’ve never done themselves.
I don’t know why or when this started but it’s one of those things that’s just wrong.
Also go back to hiring working class men and eliminate fast tracking for University graduates. Everyone should have to spend at least 3 years as a front line constable before moving up.
The reality is you need police who aren’t afraid to brawl with thugs and rioters.
What about public school ex members of the Armed Forces ?
And, may it be suggested, even enjoy it?
When govt fails in its duty of providing for public safety, it has failed all around. That is THE most basic function of govt. A nation can often be defined by is priorities and the UK’s seem to be putting criminals ahead of the law-abiding, among others. We see the same in the US, where cops are hamstrung by prosecutors who won’t prosecute.
The UK police are just suffering what most other government entities are – a crisis of poor or nonexistent government leadership. Trump is by turns the target of love or vitriol simply because he has no qualms about approaching problems with a distinctly undiplomatic “lead, follow or get out of the way” attitude. He’s not waiting for the unelected cabals of professional activists and bureaucrats to sign off on every initiative. This is a business approach with no consideration given to ensure that everyone is comfortably on board before proceeding. Will there be some bruised toes and hurt feelings? Absolutely, but you must move towards the goal.
UK police are failing because they have no idea what an actual “result” is anymore and it needs to be spelled out by government leadership. Want to be a chief constable or stay a chief constable? Then you had better impress us with your crime stats because that’s all we’re interested in. If you think you have the staff available to rainbow certify your department, hunt down ‘haters’ in pubs AND increase the embarrassingly low closure rates on robberies, assaults and vandalism then go ahead and give it a try. Just remember your job depends on it.
I suspect the best way forward is zero-tolerance, use the diverse force to crack down on every physical crime; never mind the digital ones.
I’m looking forward to the day when the Pakistani rapists get arrested and brought to the courts in front of a jury.
The motto of the NYPD used to be: “Courtesy, Professionalism, Respect”. They recently changed it to: “Fighting Crime, Protecting the Public”.
In the US, the Police have no legal duty to protect (or they could be sued by every injured person). Their duty is to apprehend the attacker after the injury. The victim is usually considered to be the person with the most injuries, so it’s important to emphasise any injuries.
Would have been more persuasive if Author had further elaborated on the point Policing cannot be seen in isolation from the Courts, Prison/Probation sectors and increasingly mental health services too. If we have huge Court backlogs and need to release prisoners early we are undermining Policing. If prisons just school inmates on career criminality it undermines Policing. If Police are tied up trying to help manage the daily presentations to A&Es of deeply troubled and mentally unwell individuals because mental health services have been gutted they obviously can’t be doing something else.
So you see all the Author’s focus on some form of ‘back to basics’ Policing bound to fail unless public policy is better joined up. The one’s I mention above are just the most direct. Ever creeping societal inequality arguably another, as the societies that are more unequal have more crime.
The anti-DEI stuff, and the non Hate Crime stuff, whilst both in need of a correction, are convenient excuse for what’s happened. (And before we get too self righteous about too-tier nonsense remember the brothers Amaad and Amaaz appeared in Ct only fortnight ago charged with assaulting Police after the incident was filmed at Manchester Airport. Initially the focus was on the Officers behaviour, but that has been dismissed and the brothers will be doing some time, rightly. You assault an Officer, get ready for a stretch)
I agree with your point about policing being integrated with the Courts and other key public services, whose cooperation and policies are crucial in following arrested/charged criminals. It is a point very well made. The entire country has been brought down, and continues to be throttled, by the destructive DEI madness, which is like a deeply rooted, malignant cancer metastasising from within the body politic to every cell of our public, corporate and private existence.
You’re conveniently ignoring the fact that it took a lot of pressure from the public before those brothers were charged.
Thank goodness the second video was widely shown on TV and social media as the original footage told an entirely false story.
Amazing how much the Trump fanboys care about poor girls in Rotherham – now that Labour is in power. Funny they did not campaign on it back when the Tories were in government.
Well I did.
Musk’s highlighting of the issue has made it possible to discuss it openly, to explore the evidence, and to suggest solutions. The purpose of the “Islamophobia” legislation seems to be to shut down that discussion. Back to the days when an MP told the victims to shut up for the sake of diversity.
I’ve always had serious reservations about Trump, but if supporting freedom to discuss these issues makes me a “fanboy” in your estimation so be it.
Sure, they did. Ask Tommy and some others about that. Tell me how they were treated by the media and the govt establishment. If it makes you feel better to lump Tories alongside Labor, go ahead. That is partisan is a problem in itself.
Perhaps that’s because so many Labour people have been complicit in the abuse?