Cuts, yes, we have to, but which is it better to cut, civil servants, for example or police? I'm thinking that if social problems get worse, we will need more police, not less.

Part of the problem is that the Government doesn't seem to know exactly what it wants from the police. Firstly they wanted to free up uniformed officers for frontline duties so they transferred work to civilian staff and PCSOs (plastic policemen as I believe they are uncharitably known). Now they want to cut "back office" costs so expect more civilian staff posts to be axed. Where will the work go next - outsourced to India, maybe?

I can't see the PM's discussions with Bill Bratton getting very far either if the Government is determined to stick to it's agenda of slashing police budgets, when the way in which Bratton has said he dealt with crime in NYC was to boost police numbers by 5,000. At least when Thatcher wanted to use the police as her private army during the miners' strike she bought their loyalty by "stuffing their mouths with gold", to coin the phrase Aneurin Bevan used when dealing with consultants opposed to the introduction of the NHS. In those days the police didn't seem to find it a problem to stop people driving along the road in their own cars and tell them to turn around on suspicion that they might be en route to a picket line - wonder why that couldn't have happened in the areas where rioting was taking place?

Dave seems to be making himself more unpopular with the police every day.

Well the plan is to cut out as much as possible of the unecessary bureaucracy in addition to reducing the crazy amount of time cops are tied up with paperwork, thereby keeping at least as many police on the streets as now.

A commendable solution I would have thought, if only it can be done.

As I understand it civil servants will also be cut as far as possible.

Bil I think you have a point problem is paying to keep enough in reserve to deal with hopefully fairly isolated incidents it's a difficult calculation . Point has been made there are too may cops tied up dealing with what are really social services etc matters. Mind I think the government at times need to engage brain before speaking as for this guy from the States in my mind this is just a gesture we are not America and he hasn't policed the UK we have some good experts in the Police one being Hugh Orde.

If I recall correctly a similar approach was tried quite a few years ago in Cleveland UK with similar consultations as well as the introduction of a zero tolerance policy.
Apparently it worked just fine and the locals were very impressed with the vast reduction in the crime rate.
However for some reason unbeknown to mankind the then Socialist local authority didn't agree with it and were very concerned that the police were being unkind to criminals.
Basically they eventually got the chief constable turfed out and replaced with a do gooder who abandoned the zero tolerance policy allowing the crime rate to go back to where it had been previously.
Naturally the local citizens were appalled at what had happened and suffice to say that the previous police chief is now the mayor.

It won't be just to deal with isolated incidents, though - Iain Duncan Smith's plans to "make life a misery" for gangs were reported in the Sunday Times today, by harrassing them continually for every kind of infringement, parking offences, out of date tax discs, you name it. If police numbers are cut (and Chief Constables have said openly that they would have to be if the level of cuts the Government has demanded are to be achieved) then exactly who is going to be doing the harassing?

Check post 408.
Thats the plan anyway, would be nice if someone had a better one or could wave a magic wand and come up with a nice big pile of cash.

Quite a thought provoking article by AN Wilson, in the Daily Mail (of all papers!). Praising those of faith and strong family values - including Muslims and Sikhs. And condemning the type of society that the UK overall has become.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/ar...s-nothing.html

I've listened to some discussions today about zero tolerance law enforcement as practised in New York with great success. It could work on the UK, but police numbers would need to double, as would the army of lawyers and court officials behind the scenes.

And we would need more prisons. And it would help if the Guardian was shut down and a few Liberals were shot.

I doubt if the rioters would try and set a police gunship on fire, or walk around armed with knives if it meant an automatic prison sentence of five years.

Having said that, I'm not against it.

Its not just the police they have a problem with, the same goes for the armed forces.
in both instances mayhem will follow if they are cut too drastically
party politics don't matter in this, no one knows what to do with these men and women, can't write their job description cos they have no experience, don't know what it is like out there.
the police have, regrettably, like the firemen, a reputation for not doing as they are told because they know better.

its a hard one that is going to take some very delicate footwork on this and I am not sure that any of the current bunch of any party have the skills to do it without serious bloodletting somewhere

didnt we have a senior police officer Ray Mallon who became mayor up in Middlesborough who managed to make a version of Zero Tolerance work, which he called "Here and Now"

he is still around but havent heard anything from him

its no use having a rule of instant imprisonment for carrying a knife or gun if the courts interpret that as being " subject to the following exceptions"
perhaps the prisons in the longer term would be less full if over the past decade there had been some hard lessons as promised by Bliar. Its no use putting someone in for 6wks and they walk because they spent the night in a cell

Well, if I have a swiss army knife in my pocket, I don't want to get banged up.

Presumably make the mail compulsary reading?

I've read a lot of guardian articles very hostile to the Labour party. Do you actually read it? Because most of the people who slag it off, don't seem to much.

Shooting Liberals? Oh dear, that starts to sound a teeny bit worrying. I don't mind you shooting looters, but when you start to talk of shooting people on a basis of their political afiliations.......

The Mallon case in Middlesborough is a strange one. He was a senior detective who advocated letting off minor criminals to concentrate on the bigger fish. His honesty was called into question and he was suspended by the police authority for years, before becoming the Mayor.

The Met used a similar system in the eighties with supergrasses, armed robbers were given five years to grass on their accomplices who got 25 years. Police honesty was again called into question.

To cut short a long debate, as far as police are concerned, I believe that at the highest investigative level, it takes a thief to catch a thief.

The Boy Scouts will catch the litter louts, but you need something a bit stronger to take out the villains.

Of course we then have to look at the long list of false convictions obtained by the police forging confessions and worse....

Quis custodies......