The point you omit to mention is this, I believe. The MPS gets extra resources - cash and personnel - by virtue of its additional responsibilities. They are, in themselves, a legacy of the fact that until Beaujolais John agreed to change it, for historic reasons the MPS’ ‘police authority’ was the Home Secretary which, (sorry Counties), made it special and unique.
It was quite obvious to me that once the MPS came under the parochial ‘Mayor of London’ that it was quickly going to become political and also Tuppenny Ha’penny London local politicians were going to posture and pose that the MPS needs to lose its national responsibilities so those resources could be redirected to address “London’s problems”. (I believe in the end it was the Green’s Caroline Lucas who flew this kite a few years ago? I may be wrong.) It’s a great grandstanding piece for them, showing their pro-London credentials.
Of course, lose the responsibilities, lose the resources so when (not ‘if’, sadly) the Met becomes the Londonshire Constabulary to be redesigned by Chairman Khan in a year or so, they may find that, like the ‘Capital City Precept’ the counties will be bidding to get a share of that. The way public order has gone, with the MPS seemingly unable or unwilling to bear the brunt of large scale events and calling on mutual aid seemingly at least once a year now, I see that the Londonshire service is going to be very much smaller.
Of course, NCA, MI5, SFO old uncle Tom Cobbley and all will be setting out their pitch to hive off these central functions that they can, getting with them the funding and resourcing, and actually, it makes sense for that to happen.
The future policing arrangements for London twenty or so years down the line will be infinitely smaller and less ambitious than the Old Metropolitan Police I fear. West Mids has something like 7.5k officers according to Google and includes Birmingham and covers a population of 2.93 million (figs from Google). That would make a future MPS around 15-18k personnel I estimate. That is assuming that it stays a unitary body of course, and not broken into a Central and Outer London Constabulary, as was mooted in the 1990s.
The majority of War Crimes investigated are ones where the suspect or informant is in the UK, usually London. I think there is a role to prosecuting them. It can't be right that someone who incited the butchery of 80,000 people is living scott free in E16. Also it's dealt with by a single pod and they aren't that busy with it. NCA don't appear to have the appetite to take on any CT functions either.
The "trench warfare" between MPS SO15 and the NCA did get a public airing at the time. I always wondered what the stance was of SO15's partner agency? Certainly at times missions were complicated by the seeming arrogance of SO15 towards "county" partners. The partner agency once it had regional offices seemed to get amicably with chief officers, indeed some staff relished not bing in London. Just to add to the mix, how would the NCA "takeover" work in Northern Ireland? Best left alone i suspect is the advice to ministers from their advisers.
Happy New Year Dom… glad to see you back.
The point you omit to mention is this, I believe. The MPS gets extra resources - cash and personnel - by virtue of its additional responsibilities. They are, in themselves, a legacy of the fact that until Beaujolais John agreed to change it, for historic reasons the MPS’ ‘police authority’ was the Home Secretary which, (sorry Counties), made it special and unique.
It was quite obvious to me that once the MPS came under the parochial ‘Mayor of London’ that it was quickly going to become political and also Tuppenny Ha’penny London local politicians were going to posture and pose that the MPS needs to lose its national responsibilities so those resources could be redirected to address “London’s problems”. (I believe in the end it was the Green’s Caroline Lucas who flew this kite a few years ago? I may be wrong.) It’s a great grandstanding piece for them, showing their pro-London credentials.
Of course, lose the responsibilities, lose the resources so when (not ‘if’, sadly) the Met becomes the Londonshire Constabulary to be redesigned by Chairman Khan in a year or so, they may find that, like the ‘Capital City Precept’ the counties will be bidding to get a share of that. The way public order has gone, with the MPS seemingly unable or unwilling to bear the brunt of large scale events and calling on mutual aid seemingly at least once a year now, I see that the Londonshire service is going to be very much smaller.
Of course, NCA, MI5, SFO old uncle Tom Cobbley and all will be setting out their pitch to hive off these central functions that they can, getting with them the funding and resourcing, and actually, it makes sense for that to happen.
The future policing arrangements for London twenty or so years down the line will be infinitely smaller and less ambitious than the Old Metropolitan Police I fear. West Mids has something like 7.5k officers according to Google and includes Birmingham and covers a population of 2.93 million (figs from Google). That would make a future MPS around 15-18k personnel I estimate. That is assuming that it stays a unitary body of course, and not broken into a Central and Outer London Constabulary, as was mooted in the 1990s.
Politicians should be careful what they wish for.
The majority of War Crimes investigated are ones where the suspect or informant is in the UK, usually London. I think there is a role to prosecuting them. It can't be right that someone who incited the butchery of 80,000 people is living scott free in E16. Also it's dealt with by a single pod and they aren't that busy with it. NCA don't appear to have the appetite to take on any CT functions either.
The "trench warfare" between MPS SO15 and the NCA did get a public airing at the time. I always wondered what the stance was of SO15's partner agency? Certainly at times missions were complicated by the seeming arrogance of SO15 towards "county" partners. The partner agency once it had regional offices seemed to get amicably with chief officers, indeed some staff relished not bing in London. Just to add to the mix, how would the NCA "takeover" work in Northern Ireland? Best left alone i suspect is the advice to ministers from their advisers.
Fabulous piece Dom, which I’ve shared on X. All the best, Peter Bleksley
Another useful acronym for NCA is "Never Caught Anyone"