Police mergers

Police mergers will create Euro-regions by stealth

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By Christoper Booker

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A month after the deadline for responses to the Home Office, not one of the 43police forces in England Wales has given approval to the Government's plans for the most radical restructuring of our policing since 1829.

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Charles Clarke and Hazel Blears wish to merge the 43 forces into 12 regional "super forces" as part of John Prescott's grand design to divide up the United Kingdom into"Euro-regions", each under its own government.

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No chief constable has been more forthright in opposition to this plan than Paul West, whose West Mercia force, serving Shropshire, Herefordshire and Worcestershire, is officially rated as the best-performing force in the country.

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Last week Mr West was taken by a local MP, Owen Paterson, to put his case to Ms Blears at the Home Office. Dismissing his force's exceptional record, it soon became apparent that she attached no significance to his views. It was painfullyc lear that "consultation" is only a charade.

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The Government is bent on forcing through its regional agenda regardless. Following the overwhelming rejection of an elected regional assembly by the voters of the North-East, it seems the Government is hoping to reach its goal the other way round. So many powers are now being passed upwards from local authorities to unelected regional bodies - from police and planning to fire and ambulance services - that eventually, it is hoped, people will demand that these are made democratically accountable through elected regional governments.

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The greatest revolution in local government for 1,000 years will be complete - without the Government ever having had to admit openly what it was up to.

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