The Melchetts of Marsham Street

The Home Office 'sprint' report is pure Blackadder

No cunning plans: the Home Office

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General Melchett was the moronic Great War general from the TV series Blackadder Goes Forth. Blisteringly stupid but all-powerful, Melchett spent his days planning disastrous offensives from a French chateau. Aided and abetted by his snivelling aide, Captain Darling, Melchett commanded the long-suffering Captain Blackadder and Private Baldrick.

As a former police officer, I remember our General Melchetts haunting New Scotland Yard. And, if you worked in counterterrorism or extremism, their Home Office equivalents plotted grand strategies from their Marsham Street HQ. Nowadays, though, their reactionary tendencies swing politically leftwards. I’m sure they’d prefer the term ‘progressive’, but those sands seem to be shifting.

In the summer of the 2024, the Government was put on notice by the horrific murders committed by Axel Rudakabana and the subsequent violent disturbances across the UK. The Home Office was charged with providing an urgent policy response.

Along with publicity surrounding the rape gangs scandal, not to mention political trends in Europe and the USA, I imagine tin-eared Home Office mandarins suddenly developed an interest in domestic extremism. Usually the Cinderella of counterterrorism policing, Domestic Extremism (DE) suddenly found itself invited to the ball. During my posting to DE as a special branch officer, it occasionally felt like sweeping the cellars of the counterterrorism palace. Our ugly stepsisters did all the glamorous stuff.

Counterextremism ultimately turns on policy. On strategy. The polite fiction of police operational independence is enabled by nostrums of multiagency working, but be in no doubt; police play second fiddle, despite carrying the burden of operational risk. The Old Bill are, of course, the hapless Private Baldrick. And Melchett’s cunning plan is usually the same as the last; to march slowly towards the enemy machineguns in a straight line – what else can explain reinforcing failures like Prevent?

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What, then, do the postmodern Melchetts of the 21^st Century civil service think about the post-Southport extremism landscape? Last week we were given a rare glimpse, thanks to a partial leak to the think tank Policy Exchange. It’s worth a read. This Home Office ‘rapid analytical sprint’ ordered by the Home Secretary was meant to ‘map and monitor extremist trends’ and ‘understand the evidence about what works’ to ‘underpin a new strategic approach to countering extremism from Government’.

The tone of the report might be partially explained by Prevent’s failure. Prevent, the body most culpable in the Rudakabana case, is run by the er, Home Office. At this point, it’s worth quoting Policy Exchange, who (correctly) surmised;

What happened in Southport was more an operational than a policy failing. The murderer had shown he was dangerous many times over several years before he killed anyone. In a more operationally effective policing and justice system, action would have been taken against him sooner, even without having to first label him an extremist.

This chimes with my experience. As a domestic extremism investigator (which included public order intelligence) we only occasionally worked under terrorism legislation; most of our operations involved bog-standard criminal law. Alongside our core duties, we were given the odds-and-ends of political and, frankly, just plain odd policing to deal with, from single-issue obsessives, potentially violent industrial disputes, wannabe survivalists and new religious movements. It occasionally felt like the ‘X’ Files. Rather than wonder ‘is this terrorism?’ we simply thought, ‘what kind of threat, if any, does this constitute?’ Before it was disbanded, special branch triaged precisely the kind of hybrid threats the ‘sprint’ report was meant to identify.

Does protest activity causing disruption to daily life count as extremism? Does being a sexist pig on the Internet?

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Yet reality is less important than control to the Melchetts of Marsham Street – control without, of course, operational responsibility. Besides, civil servants are loath to let a good crisis go to waste; Did mandarins see how rattled the Home Secretary was and think, ‘let’s throw a wish list of pet political and culture war bugbears into the mix. Who knows what will stick?’

The report offers an intriguing insight into the minds of those entrusted with policy intended to protect us from harm (spoiler - they aren’t very good). This, presumably, is why the Home Office ‘quick sprint’ is more of an amble in the foothills of inanity. The report considers extremism to include conspiracy theorists, anti-vaxxers, online misogynists, those obsessed with violence and violent imagery and (of course) the far-right. Hey, I’m onboard with the existence of a far-right threat, but indicators of fascistic tendencies now include entertaining notions such as ‘two-tier policing’. Two-tier? As someone who spent 25 years in the police, I can put my hand on my heart and say policing has more tiers than an Aztec ziggurat. Many of my former colleagues, albeit those not on the chief officer payroll, would be inclined to agree.

Strangely, though, there’s no mention of rape gangs as a form of domestic extremism. If we played the Home Office what-is-extremism game, surely there’s a case to be had? A twisted belief in sexual, racial and religious superiority over underage girls? That doesn’t fit with the narrative, I suppose.

Then there are the Captain Darlings who actually wrote the report. The modern Darlings, incidentally, scraped a 2:2 in politics and work from home in their pyjamas. Add to this the civil service mindset, which views any issue through the prism of departmental advancement; rather than counting brass tacks, they end up counting how many devils can dance on the head of a pin. Captain Darling should have Googled the simplest fact of all when it comes to the greatest domestic threat to the British public. As Policy Exchange points out in their analysis;

In Great Britain, Islamists are responsible for 94 per cent of all deaths caused by terrorism since 1999 and around 88 per cent of injuries caused by terrorism over the same period. Last year, Islamists accounted for 80 per cent of the police’s counter-terror caseload, 75 per cent of MI5’s and 63 per cent of terrorists in custody.

One of the report’s most worrying (if not entirely surprising) themes is how counterextremism appears to be seen as a vehicle for social engineering – how ‘harms’ to social justice ideology are as important as preventing disgruntled young men from acts of violence. For example, the ‘sprint’ posits a new offence of communications that inflict ‘psychological harm’, demonstrating an obsession with the assaultive nature of language. They suggest the police ramp up their use of controversial (and deeply illiberal) Non-Crime Hate Incidents (NCHI).I note the report was written before the embarrassing climbdown by Essex police over their investigation into the journalist Alison Pearson.

And, of course, the Home Office proposed a new policy board. More meetings. More PowerPoints. More buffets. Research grants ahoy. Like a mess dinner at Melchett’s chateau, many miles from the front.

From the civil service counterextremism handbook.

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Then, after it was leaked, the ‘rapid sprint’ ran off a cliff. In Parliament, Security Minister Dan Jarvis forcibly rejected the report’s conclusions. It was a stunning rebuke to the Melchetts, demonstrating how quickly the political terrain has shifted since the autumn of 2024.

Sure, the average Labour minister probably agrees with every word of the report, but realises the public mood demands action. The ‘sprint’ reads more like a demented HR manual than a forensic examination of threats to public safety. Yet, as the world seems to be moving on from pronouns, affirmative action and grievance politics, Melchett stubbornly refuses to budge.

What, then, should be done? Yes, policy and strategy are important. In a democracy, no single agency or body should hold sole responsibility for a complex problem such as violent extremism. As a former police officer, I understood my place in the pecking order (the bottom). From that perspective, police require policies reflecting reality, not a politically-aspirational wish list. Yes, that means the ambitious Captain Darling might occasionally have to listen to the wily but cynical Blackadder.

The tools required to deliver effective counterterrorism policing already exist. They simply need reconfiguring, better leadership and liberating from diktat and maximalist interpretations of Human Rights law. I’m not holding my breath, though; Richard Hermer KC, now the Attorney General, seems to have spent a sizeable chunk of his career defending the sort of people I spent mine investigating.

The capacity exists, but requires proper resourcing. Perhaps the titans of counterterrorism might surrender a fraction of their budget? UK policing has experienced Multi-Agency Public Protection (MAPPA) teams. Forces manage the full spectrum of risk, from sex offenders to stalkers to urban street gangs. Specialists track fixated persons (albeit usually for politicians and the Royal Household), working in tandem with mental health professionals. The Met receive, report and manage thousands of Threat To Life warnings (TTL - formerly known as ‘Osman warnings’) every year.

Even academics, who I occasionally give short shrift, have an important role to play. Simply make sure the research grant carrot is aligned to operational outcomes and they’ll happily nibble. The Home Office should be working to coordinate these disciplines within the wider counterextremism landscape, not pontificate on group ‘a’ or ideology ‘b’ – that information should come from the trenches to the chateau, or from local teams to Marsham Street. Not the other way around.

I hope, somewhere in the Government, someone’s whispering in Dan Jarvis’s ear. He’s a veteran, a former paratrooper. I imagine he knows what it’s like to be in thrall to a Melchett. Until then? Until then, officers will continue to chase the wrong targets, or fail to manage risks around those already identified. And the pyjama-wearing Melchetts of Marsham Street will continue to write silly, counterproductive reports. They’ll still get their OBEs though.

In the civil service, you see, there’s only one direction they ever fail.

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