Tag archive for ‘Police’
-
Are the Tories running scared over police cuts?
Conservatives like to present themselves as the party of law and order so it is no surprise that they are sensitive when the unpalatable truth about their record is brought out into the open.
The reaction of City Hall’s Tories to the news that Ken Livingstone is attending the Metropolitan Police Authority tomorrow to oppose police cuts and defend London’s safer neighbourhood police teams suggests they are less than delighted to have these issues raised.
The cut to police numbers of 455 [...] -
Malthouse appointment = broken Boris promise
Dave Hill has a preview of today’s confirmation hearing for Kit Malthouse to become chair of the police authority – a clear cut broken promise by Boris Johnson who pledged to do the job himself.
Dave looks at the recent resignation of Bob Purkiss from the race and faith inquiry, amid questions over Malthouse’s role in that affair.
Meanwhile in the Standard Pippa Crerar reports that the incoming chair has a poor attendance record at MPA meetings, despite being the mayor’s lead on [...] -
Boris Johnson privately admitted Ken Livingstone and the Met delivered on crime
The latest instalment of Sir Ian Blair’s memoirs, Policing Controversy, is published in the Mail on Sunday today. Inevitably the controversy surrounding his removal as Commissioner by Boris Johnson tends to focus on the constitutional issues and the question of the politicisation of the police.
Yet Blair’s autobiography also shows that Boris Johnson clearly privately admitted what his supporters still refuse to do publicly – that under Ken Livingstone London was achieving real results in the fight against crime. Boris Johnson [...] -
Policing controversy – Sir Ian Blair’s memoirs
Sir Ian Blair’s memoirs – Policing Controversy – are due to be published shortly.
Blair was the police commissioner Boris Johnson forced out. Johnson has never given a coherent or adequate explanation of the reasons for Blair’s removal.
Perhaps this is connected to the fact that on the key issue of crime, the Met was delivering – Blair was presiding over a period of significantly falling crime. And over several years, first with Sir John Stevens and then throughout Blair’s period [...] -
Don’t blame the media for telling the truth, Boris
Boris Johnson yesterday criticised the media coverage of the G20 demonstrations. According to the Guardian online he told Sun radio’s Jon Gaunt “I worry that there are large sections of the media that are currently engaged in a very unbalanced orgy of cop bashing. I think it is wrong, it is wildly overdone … everybody understands that there are serious questions to answer about what happened to some of the protestors at the G20, and particularly Ian Tomlinson, and thoughts [...]
-
Hague’s fond memories of Major shows how little the Tories have changed
If there is one strategy you would think the Tories would want to avoid like the plague right now it would be to invoke memories of the Major years. Yet that’s exactly what William Hague did yesterday on the Andrew Marr programme.
Ken Clarke have may been causing the Tories headaches with his line on inheritance tax but his record as Chancellor appears unassailed in Tory circles. When asked by Andrew Marr about public spending under a Tory government William Hague’s [...] -
Friends in high places
The Damian Green affair has deepened City Hall’s already dysfunctional attitude to Scotland Yard – and, worse, the mayor of London has used his office to pressurise a police investigation into a political ally.
Sir Paul Stephenson may well have felt it was best to start as acting commissioner by keeping Boris Johnson fully informed of a sensitive operational matter. Johnson responded to his call by seeking to warn the police off.
The move did not represent the “commonsense policing” sought by [...]
