Political police

Today's national newspapers wax lyrical that Blair doth speak unto Blair.

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Well, actually it is worse than that, since it has been revealed that increasingly the 42 Chief Constables of England and Wales and the Metropolitan Police Commissioner have been drawn in to law-making and in the process clearly being deflected from law enforcement.

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The evidence is overwhelming. At least 21 police Chiefs lobbied in favour of the Government's failed 90 day amendment of the Terrorism Bill earlier this week.

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Research concludes that several Chief Constables sent e-mails or spoke to MPs in person, arguing for the 90 day extension to the current 14 day maximum for terrorist suspects.

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Sir Ian Blair, the head of London's Metropolitan Police specifically and frequently met Tony Blair and other political advisers in the Prime Minister's private study at Number 10.

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As reported in today's Daily Mail, two Chief Constables were however less than compliant. Peter Maddison (Northamptonshire) said: "I support the 90 days but thought this issue was a matter for Parliament."

Terence Grange (Dyfed-Powys) said he refused on principal to lobby his MPs, adding "the request was inappropriate".

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Perhaps the willingness of so many Chief Constables to back the Government line is because so many of their jobs are vulnerable, since the Home Office announced recently that it wishes to see the amalgamation of the country's police forces, which this blog firmly believes the Government wants to see reduced in number to a regional structure as a part of the overall regionalisation of the United Kingdom.

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Meanwhile, this Editor is pleased to report that the City of London Police (the force protecting the capital's Square Mile and quite separate from their Metropolitan colleagues) have combined old technology with modern beat patrol methods.

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Significant numbers of officers patrol the City of London on specially adapted bicycles, (equipped with remarkably loud sirens and flashing blue lights) which enable them to speedily pedal through the increasingly congested traffic, powered by nothing more than 'Plod Power' - their own legs!

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One can only hope that the City of London's Police Chief Constable's more pragmatic approach has some influence on his politically ambitious colleague in New Scotland Yard.

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Above, PC 436 Grey, pictured outside St Paul's Cathedral

after the Lord Mayor's Show, 12th November 2005.