Last night on BBC1, Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police Force and Britain's most senior police officer, delivered the annual Dimbleby Lecture.
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This is not without precedence, in 1973, the then Metrpolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Robert Mark delivered the lecture and famously remarked: '' A measure of the success of a Police Force is that it arrests more criminals than it employs.''
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Click below to read a transcript of Blair's speech.
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Our thanks to our readers at Crystal Palace Bulletin Board Services, whose thoughts on the subject you can read below:
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As ever, these particular football fans' views are both informative and amusing, a pity that their over-paid heroes are also incapable of noteworthy comment as well as kicking a ball.
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Sir Ian Blair asked a sailent question: What Police service do we the public want?
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As this blog has commented on before the answer is not a Police service which alienates the public and is incapable of understanding that it is doing so. Not a Police service that targets motorists not criminals despite evidence that in doing so, road safety is not improved and vital public co-operation is harmed. Not a service that fails to understand the needs of the public. Not one that fails to thank members of the public for going well out of their way to assist the police as key witnesses in serious crimes, as exampled by the editor of this blog's experiences in two court cases in 2003.
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Most certainly not one that over reacted to the anti-hunting protests at Westminster in the summer. Clearly and emphatically not a Police service that in contradiction of its founding principles, is an arm of government, as endless recent examples illustrate.
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The Commisioner stated last night that the Police are rather good at catching criminals. Sorry, no they are not. They sadly are rather good at overreacting and imitating government departments with all the bureaucratic absurdities that are magnified in New Labour's Britain.
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In March 2004, The Federation of Small Business established in a survey that a third of all crimes committed against small businesses were not reported since business people believed that there was no point in doing so.
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The British public wants a Police service that does not believe that it is institutionally above the law as clearly Sir Ian does.
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In his lecture Sir Ian compared the Metropolitan Police to the Royal Navy. The Royal Navy have not in their long and glorious history sunk an innocent merchant ship. The Police service have been less successful in that respect.
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The day of the killing of the innocent Brazilian electrician, Jean Charles de Menezes in London, Sir Ian amazingly wrote to the Permanent Under Secetary at the Home Office demanding that the statutary investigation by the Independent Police Complaints Authority be set aside for ''security reasons''. His request was, quite rightly, denied - for the audacity of asking (and expecting to over ride the law) he should have been dismissed by the Home Secretary.
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What sort of Police service do we want in Britain? Well one in which Sir Ian Blair plays no part ! Let the debate continue.
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