'A Government of Service'
How has Starmer's first year been for Policing?
‘That's what a government of service means. This shouldn't be a country where people fear walking down their street.’ (Image credit: The Daily Telegraph)
The 4th of July marks Keir Starmer’s first anniversary as Prime Minister. In his inaugural speech, he promised a ‘Government of Service.’ One which would ‘tread lightly on people’s lives.’
This isn’t a political Substack. It’s a Substack with politics. With that in mind, I’ll leave the postmortem of Labour’s first year to the experts. I will, however, comment on its performance concerning policing and security issues.
I will begin with Starmer. By relentlessly citing his experience as a former Director of Public Prosecutions, the Prime Minister has (foolishly, in my opinion) made himself the face of Labour’s threadbare law and order ‘offer’ by default. Then there’s the Home Secretary, Yvette Cooper. Despite being responsible for Policing, Cooper often appears to be the PM’s understudy. She was a prospect, once. A Blairite paladin, chair of the Intelligence and Security Committee. Or perhaps Cooper’s playing a political version of ‘The Hunger Games?’ Trying to survive long enough for a tilt at a bigger job? After all, politicians of a certain mien only ever fail upwards.
This places the Government in a bind. Starmer casts a long shadow over law and order - compounded by his grandstanding over 2024’s summer riots. It’s indicative of the sense of drift around the administration; who’s in charge of steering policy. Big picture stuff? Starmer? Cooper? Starmer’s consigliere, Morgan McSweeney? Then, in the background, setting the legal mood music? The bloviating whirligig of nonsense that is the Attorney General.
Starmer can’t do it all. He spends much time overseas, desperately pretending to be relevant. When he isn’t abroad, Sir Keir’s preoccupied with party management. In media interviews, he displays the charisma of a potato. As a result, the PM gives the inpression of doing everything badly - which means at least he’s something in common with British police forces.
This ‘Government of Service,’ then, lacks what the armed forces refer to as ‘a sense of urgency.’ The response to each crisis is a bellicose statement of intent, followed by a U-turn, followed by stasis, followed by… oh, fuck, there’s another crisis!
There’s a crisis in British policing. It requires a sense of urgency. Where is it?
A newly-released prisoner is picked up by a Bentley. Labour’s early release scheme ‘trod lightly’… on the lives of criminals.
First of all, though, I shall offer mitigation. It’s only fair. The police service Labour inherited was eviscerated by the Conservatives. The Blairites might have created the legal swamp into which policing sank, but the axe was wielded by the Cameron government. I wrote on the subject, for the Pimlico Journal, here.
Forget Labour’s tedious budgetary ‘black hole’ hyperbole, the parlous state of policing was very real. Yet, because the Labour party isn’t really interested in the police - for a variety of historic and cultural reasons, it chose not to capitalise on this aspect of Tory failure. Why? I suspect because it would involve spending money. Labour MPs aren’t interested in giving money to the police. Labour MPs are interested in pork-barrelling welfare funding to satisfy its base. Or, mysteriously, gifting taxpayer’s money to Mauritius. So our infant Government of Service, again, proved itself incapable of developing a sense of urgency.
What then, were the Policing challenges Labour faced during it’s first full year of Government ?
Riots, Two-Tier Policing and Hate Crime
I’ve written extensively on these issues, both here and for UnHerd, so I won’t repeat myself too much. In short, the details around a brutal instance of child murder were obfuscated. This was for reasons of racial politics and ‘social cohesion’ (sound familiar?). This led to rioting. The Government claimed, entirely falsely, it was hatched by the extreme Right. Then Starmer, either through conviction or opportunism, made himself the face of punitive punishment - the sort which seems in short supply for other types of offender.
People began noticing this disparity in policing outcomes, making allegations of a politicized, ‘two-tier’ approach by constabularies. The response? The Home Office declared such views an extremist talking point. The Attorney General, Richard Hermer, declared himself disgusted. Denial, as they say, ain’t a river in Egypt.
Labour’s high-handed, prickly response to criticism doesn’t bode well for the future, despite the obvious end-of-an-era vibe in the air (more of which later). This is the attitude of a Government more likely to salt the earth on their way out of the door, rather than plant seeds.
Verdict: Epic Fail.
Lucy Connolly posted a deeply stupid, inflammatory comment on social media, which she deleted. There is no two-tier justice in Britain. Christmas is in August. The economy is growing.
Gangs Matrix deletion - Ideology? Yes. Results? No.
This one’s niche, but bear with me; small stories often reveal larger truths. The Metropolitan Police Gangs Violence Matrix was an intelligence tool, used to track people with links to Urban Street Gangs (USGs). USGs are disproportionately involved with county lines drugs networks, stabbings and firearms-enabled crime. And, in London, for complex demographic and socioeconomic reasons, many of those linked to USGs are young black men.
I shall declare an interest: towards the end of my career, I used the Matrix often. I worked with the people who managed it. I can personally attest to (a) their decency and (b) how effective the Matrix was. It assisted decision-making. It reduced harm and risk. It was based on granular local intelligence.
It also, I suppose, involved uncomfortable issues around race. Again, is this sounding familiar? Activists protested the Matrix was racist. Inaccurate. Lawfare followed. The Met, no doubt under pressure from a knee-taking Home Office, decided the Matrix had to go.
Ideology trumped operational effectiveness. Not unlike the rape-gang scandal, here’s an example of how Labour instinctively defers to London Nord dinner party prejudices. Which is ironic, because when I used the Matrix it was to… protect the lives of young black men.
Verdict: Epic Fail.
Prisoner Early Release Scheme
We should accept, like policing, the Government inherited a broken prison service. That was, unambiguously, a Tory failure. Yet, again, we see what happens when Labour faces a genuine crisis - it crumbles.
I would say, as someone who spent their career working in and around public safety, running out of prison capacity is a national emergency. You would’ve thought a Government of the People, one which genuinely believed ‘this shouldn't be a country where people fear walking down their street’, would put its shoulder to the wheel. Create solutions. Build impromptu ‘Nightingale Prisons,’ perhaps. Smash the Gangs, right?
Sadly, the PM is a career human rights lawyer. His legal advisor’s a veteran of the most dangerous ‘cab rank’ in history. The answer, therefore, was to give criminals the benefit of the doubt and set them free. Then write a policy confirming the direction of travel - which Tory arch-wet David Gauke obligingly did. I wrote about this farce in greater detail here.
Verdict: Epic Fail.
Counter-Terrorism and Extremism
It’s been a busy year for the UK’s counter-terrorism police. Foreign spies and saboteurs abound, both Iranian and Bulgarian (by way of Russian intelligence). Lone wolves howl at the moon. Domestic extremism is a burgeoning industry, not least because the Home Office seems keen on making us all extremists (Equity, eh?). Meanwhile, PREVENT is the joke that stopped being funny after Southport. As for domestic terrorism, did policing’s softly-softly pandering to the Palestinian lobby embolden radicals? The Government seems to be taking off the gloves, although Palestine Action aren’t too worried. After all, as an activist boasted to an undercover journalist:
Serious charges were often diluted or dropped altogether by police and prosecutors… Palestine activists tend to get off lightly at sentencing, she claimed as she ran through a series of recent cases in which her “comrades” had avoided lengthy sentences or been acquitted by the jury altogether.
I’m sure the Attorney General would approve. The Establishment are more or less on the same page as the activists now.
As regular readers will know, I believe the decision to withdraw from policing domestic extremism was a mistake. A predictably shadowy nexus of politics, crime and terror has emerged - the challenge isn’t just gangs of Jihadist bombers planning mass casualty terrorism.
The new Government has, at least, considered the issue. Sadly, in my view, they’ve drawn the wrong conclusion - the creation of a national super-agency to combat terrorism. Will the Goivernment opt for centralization - a new agency would become (like the NCA) an adjunct of government. Not at all worrying, right? I wrote about it here. This area of policing will only get busier. Watch this space.
Verdict: Terrorism? Not great. Domestic Extremism? Solid fail.
Police Funding, Accountability, Welfare and Morale
Welcome to Policing.
These are, I suppose, what you might call ‘housekeeping’ issues. Nonetheless, although not headline-grabbing, they’re crucial. Again, Labour’s first year in power has to be seen through the prism of the burning dumpster fire they inherited from the Tories. And, again, I’ll make the point a genuinely dynamic administration would treat the state of policing as a de facto emergency. Which, as the recent spending review demonstrates, the Government clearly doesn’t.
Instead, it channels money into Welfare and the NHS (the NHS budget, incidentally, is the same size as the GDP of Portugal. Fun fact). Then there’s the cash shredding machine that is the Ministry of Defence, which will find novel new ways to waste public money without delivering weapons systems or personnel.
This all means Labour will fail to meet it’s already modest manifesto pledges for policing. The promised ‘13,000’ new officers for neighbourhood policing (smoke and mirrors - it includes PCSOs and unpaid special constables) may not happen. Even if it does? Divided between 43 broken forces, it would be like pouring water into a colander.
Then there’s welfare and morale - due to awful pay and conditions, police forces struggle to recruit or retain officers. Many who stay are inexperienced and poorly-led. Discipline and resilience issues are legion. Sickness rates - especially around mental health - are through the roof. The police aren’t unionised - nor are they allowed to be - so Labour ignores them. Unlike tube drivers, cops won’t be able to demand 76K per year anytime soon.
Then there’s the police discipline system, given a shake-up after the Wayne Couzens scandal. In a classic example of overreaction by clueless senior officers with limited policing experience, it’s led to officers being sacked for, er, policing. And so, the streets are lost. The idea Labour will reform the IOPC, a quango stuffed to the gills with Guardianistas? Ha ha ha.
To those hardy souls still considering a career in the Job? Read my FAQ.
Verdict: Epic Fail.
Vichy Cops and the Vibe Shift
The College of Policing never, ever, ever thought this was a good idea. Honest.
We are told there’s a ‘vibe shift’, whereby Old Bill’s obsession with social justice activism is now as fashionable as Cuban heels. Like German guards at a POW camp circa 1945, senior police honchos like Sir Andy Marsh (of the College of Policing) try and persuade us they were the good guys all along. We need more commonsense! Less wokery! More neighbourhood policing! NCHIs? Not us, Guv!
Sir Andy’s quoted as saying.
[It] was not appropriate for officers to be taking the knee: “Looking back on the past ten years, alignment with movements — however honourable their cause — it’s not something that police should be doing.”
With this in mind, I invite the curious reader to investigate the College’s record on such issues - especially Non-Crime Hate Incidents - and draw their own conclusions. Similarly, Sir Andy’s now an enthusiast for Zero Tolerance policing, something the College previously declared verboten.
These, remember, are the leaders responsible for the mess policing finds itself in. The idea these ‘Vichy Cops’ have repented? As columns of Sherman tanks swarm Stalug-Luft XVII, Sir Andy’s there, frantically issuing prisoners with Red Cross parcels and chocolate bars. And his proposed solution for delivering the CPR neighbourhood policing so urgently requires? More College of Policing!
Marsh advocates more professional training for existing neighbourhood officers. While police in other specialist areas… have to adhere to national standards set by the College of Policing “from Cornwall to Cumbria”, there is no such consistency for bobbies on the beat.
Marsh thinks yet more lumpen ‘Accredited Professional Practice’ (diktat from the centre) is required, when I would argue the opposite is true. If you want to see what I think a better police force would look like, by the way, I recently wrote on the subject here. I suspect Sir Andy might not approve. Or, given the way the wind’s blowing, I suppose perhaps he might. Who knows?
What, you might ask, has any of this got to do with the Labour Party? Well, it’s in their gift to rip out the corroded plumbing and start again. But no, the College of Policing was a logical conclusion of Blairite institutional capture. Why would Sir Keir Starmer, of all people, disband something he probably thinks is a perfectly good idea. An arms-length (but servile) quango, issuing politically-correct bromides to horrible coppers? What’s not to like?
Verdict: Terminal Fail, but at least Sir Andy’s interview with The Times was a laugh.
As the polls tank and sharks circle Starmer’s increasingly fragile leadership, who in Labour will see Law and Order as an issue they can stake a claim? Will it be ‘Big Ange’ Rayner, who is apparently sympathetic to robust policing? Will it be a shiny opportunist like Wes Streeting, who I can imagine dynamiting the College of Policing for a crack at Number Ten? Or is there, lurking in the Blue Labour wings, a new pretender?
Frankly, I don’t really care. This looks like a one-term government, crows fighting on a dungheap. And the next lot, whoever they are? I have no idea. The Tories were atrocious. Reform UK? Well, I was going to have a pop at them for not having any policies, but then again neither do the Conservatives.
My take? As the man said in Shaun of the Dead, in response to the zombie apocalypse, ‘let's go to the Winchester, have a nice cold pint, and wait for this all to blow over.’
Cheers. Just don’t go outside.
Adrian Culley
7m
Fabulous, apposite writing and reasoning Dom. Thank you 🙏
An entertaining read, thank you. Reposted on BlueSky