The Met: Decline and Fall
Will David Carrick be the man who finally broke Scotland Yard?
Rome finally falls
When the obituary of the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) is written, will the PaDP (Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection group) be remembered as the unit which lit the fuse of its destruction? Hapless centurions, too busy on their dating apps and dodgy WhatsApp groups to notice the enemy at the gates?
The hideous crimes of Carrick and Couzens suggests it might. Those who want the Met disbanded have fresh impetus and this time they have a point. It’s not just the usual defund-the-police suspects either. It includes people who wish the Met well. Even people like me.
Although I offer a word of warning; given the UK’s record of bungling police reform, the inadequacy of the Home Office and the National Crime Agency’s (NCA) inevitable machinations, what replaces the Met is unlikely to be a much of an improvement. Maybe that’s simply a hump we’ll have to get over in order to make things better.
Nonetheless, the Met’s involvement in wider UK law enforcement and (especially) counterterrorism infrastructure is like Bolognese sauce mixed into a cauldron of spaghetti. Unravelling it all will be very, very messy. I’m told Bernard Hogan-Howe, when Met Commissioner, realised this after initially being open to the idea of slimming the force down.
How did the MPS get here? I’ve offered my two pennies on this Substack, writing about deficiencies in police misconduct systems and vetting. Culture and Leadership are others I’ve touched on. Today, I’m going to try to look at the interconnectedness between them all. That is to say, does the Met’s sheer scale and range of responsibilities contribute to spaces developing where creatures like Carrick and Couzens can operate? Leadership and culture loom large. Regular readers will know I consider sergeants and inspectors the most important ranks in policing. I also think the system comprehensively fails both. These are the people we expect to hold the line. To identify and deal with rogue officers. They need training, development and top-cover.
Mind you, while we’re on the subject, I give you the Catholic Church, which more or less wrote the book on this stuff. The PaDP scandal has similarities – semi-closed institutions with strict hierarchies abusing trust and closing ranks?
First of all, the PaDP where Carrick and Couzens worked. To officers who’ve never served in a ‘security policing’ role, PaDP (previously known as the Diplomatic Protection Group, or DPG) was historically a place where cops who liked guns but disliked policing went to earn overtime guarding government buildings. We’d chuckle when newspapers described them as ‘elite’ when one of them dropped himself (and it was almost always a ‘he’) in the shit. As a colleague who worked there as a sergeant once told me, “the Devil finds work for idle hands to do.”
I’ll swing the lamp at this point; as a young constable, I was on foot patrol when a distinctive red DPG car pulled up. The driver literally threw a handbag at me. “Here, some woman gave us this,” he said brusquely. “Book it into lost property, will you?”
“Why can’t you do it?” I replied. We were only two hundred yards from the police station and I’d things to do.
This earned me a withering look from the DPG guy. “We’re too busy.”
“Yeah, looks like it,” I said, passing the bag back. Hey, you only get one chance to make a first impression. That was mine when it came to the DPG.
This probably seems grossly unfair to the decent officers doing an unglamorous but necessary job. Many perfectly competent coppers work on PaDP, many using the experience seeking to gain qualifications necessary for working in the wider armed policing arena. It should also be remembered PaDP now technically covers the unit where Pc Keith Palmer, GM worked. The media probably won’t mention Keith’s bravery in the coming months, so I will. Guarding high-profile locations in London carries risks, especially when some of that risk comes from your own management.
Pc Keith Palmer, GM.
Yet stereotypes, however unfair, are capable of harbouring a smidgeon of truth. This matters in the stratosphere where decisions are made. Nor do I doubt the Tories have forgiven the PaDP / DPG for the ‘Plebgate’ affair.
Look at the Met’s Flying Squad, traditionally made up of London’s finest detectives. Sadly, a Venn diagram between some of them and the Met’s most corrupt once overlapped – and so the dodgy geezer / Sweeney stereotype never went away. Ditto the Territorial Support Group (formerly the SPG), where people are shocked (shocked, I tell you!) a riot squad occasionally attracts people who like hitting people with batons. Yet the TSG are angels compared to the French CRS, as any travelling England supporter will tell you.
The case of the PaDP, though, is materially different and arguably worse. Why? Because it’s now infamous not for being overzealous in the execution of its duty – which is one thing – but for its officers’ off-duty behaviour. Like my old colleague said, the Devil finds work (etc).
As for the culture inside the PaDP? The complaints I saw working in the DPS suggested it was fairly macho. Lots of gym-going. Boring work. An obsession with overtime. A history of constables staying in the Group for years – their core policing skills atrophying in the process. It was made up of a relatively smallish pool; officers capable of passing the demanding firearms and tactical courses (I wrote on this in light of the Couzens affair). Senior management seemed happy to deal with problems with a light touch, fearing any issues involving their ‘elite’ unit might make the news. I really can’t overemphasize how absolutely fucking terrified police managers are of the Media.
Now, I’m not adverse to a light touch. However, there’s a time and place for it. Problems begin when a light touch becomes a default disciplinary position. The wrong sort of person takes advantage and corruption flourishes. I’d argue managerial discretion is best developed through experience, and far too many senior managers – flyers destined for greatness – were rushed through departments like PaDP simply to burnish their CVs as opposed to running them properly.
A curious journalist working this story might want to submit a FOIA request to the Met, asking how many officers at superintendent-plus rank were rotated through security policing (which includes PaDP) since 2012 and how long they remained in post? Did they have their eye on the ball when it came to people like Carrick? More than a few now hold very senior roles elsewhere in UK policing. Hey, such people usually fail upwards. Some suspected PaDP was used as a petri dish for flyers to get evidence of working on an armed policing command without actually running one – and failing to properly grip it in the process.
So much for the PaDP and its culture. What of the other issues around disassembling the Met?
A commonly cited problem is the Met isn’t just London’s police force. For reasons of both history and scale, the force has national responsibilities – and more than one boss. The Mayor (who’s technically the Met’s Police and Crime Commissioner) shares responsibility for the force with the Home Secretary. And the Mayor runs a city which would vote Labour if the party stood a horse for election, so he enjoys the luxury of not having to worry too much and blame the Home Secretary instead. What would a Met free of the Home Office look like?
Careful what you wish for, Mister Mayor.
The Met’s national brief lies predominantly with counterterrorism policing, as purely crime-related matters have been slowly but surely hived off to the NCA. So a smaller, leaner and more community-policing focussed Met would lose most of its counterterrorism responsibilities (probably 3000 plus officers across all roles?). This argument suggests this would allow leaders to focus on doing less, but doing it better. The interconnectedness between the Met’s Home Office budget and the force’s wider efficiency, though, is thorough. Armed officers on PaDP, for example, rotate into other armed posts serving Londoners. The investigative heft of SO15’s Counter Terrorist Command can be turned to other policing problems if necessary. There’s an enduring connection between terrorism and crime, something the Met’s intelligence apparatus is very good at identifying. This is what Bernard Hogan-Howe discovered when he recce’d this can of worms.
The devil really is in the detail.
As for the NCA? Well, I worked with the Agency towards the end of my career and got on okay with individual officers. At an organisational level, though, the NCA are essentially civil servants. To me, they came across as HM Government’s private police, something alien to the English and Welsh model of law enforcement. I think there are issues with accountability and, yes, competence. A common criticism from many cops is the NCA wants its cake and eat it too – to be an intelligence AND law enforcement agency, choosing the best parts of both roles as and when it suits them. The pre-NCA SOCA were notorious for this, earning them the ‘MI7’ nickname they hated. On the other hand, their canteen at Spring Gardens was pretty good.
Hey, maybe it’s changed in the five years since I retired. I hope so.
The NCA’s coat of arms – which seems to feature a disco leopard, was clearly designed by someone on an acid trip
This stuff matters. It’s an open secret the NCA want to add counterterrorism - that most political of crimes - to their portfolio. They’re not neutral actors, as the Met’s loss is their gain. I’d love to be a fly on the wall watching the resulting MI5 / NCA turf war. Pass the popcorn. CT would make the NCA even bigger and sexier, with more overseas postings with Ferrero Rocher and opportunities for MBEs and knighthoods. It’s sad, really, as CT is one of the things the Met’s pretty good at.
Hear that splashing and screaming? It’s another baby being thrown out with the bathwater.
Although, knowing the NCA, they’d angle for a powerful coordination role, too, manipulating their police meat-puppets into doing the donkey work while evading responsibility for any tactical mistakes. “Hey,” hollers MI5 from across the Thames. “That’s our job!”
Back to the Met, and the potential butchering thereof. Apart from the criticism about the Met’s national functions beggaring workaday policing, size is also cited as an issue. That and a constant churn of people – nearly 50,000 employees including support staff – means pockets of toxicity can develop undetected. This perspective sees the Met not as a cosy village, but a festering city. Yet as anyone who knows London will tell you, the place is still a city largely made up of villages. Policing scandals occur in every single police force, no matter how big or small.
What I do think is the Met lacks consistency of leadership and, yes, this is partially due to its unwieldiness. The sheer churn of leaders passing through Met departments is dizzying (I worked at one department where I genuinely never knew who our superintendent was). When I was at Heathrow with Special Branch, we used to joke the place was a building site with an airport attached. The Met’s similar – it’s a restructuring project with a police service attached. Nothing gets enough time to settle. Constables spend too long in a department while seniors pass through like racing drivers at Le Mans.
Bring in a cadre of leaders who agree to stay in post for at least five years and be held fully accountable for their departments. Pay them properly. “Stuff their mouths with gold” if necessary. Then watch performance and discipline improve.
Then there’s public order. London, love it or hate it, is a genuine World city, a major financial centre and capitol of the planet’s fifth or sixth largest economy. It has a population approaching 10 million people. It’s home to HM Government and, indeed, His Majesty too. Annually, London hosts myriad demonstrations, rock concerts, football matches, ceremonial events, cultural festivals and official visits. A safe London is vital for the UK economy to prosper.
The Met, having policed such events for years, is quite good at it. I give you the Olympics, a masterpiece of police planning (in which I played no part, in case you were wondering). Ditto Her Majesty the Queen’s funeral. The management of major events is something the Met has to preserve; it isn’t a luxury. I’m not sure how this could be effectively removed from the force easily, and herein lies the rub – public order require lots of officers. So the idea a new Met would be radically smaller is, in my opinion, for the birds.
Critics also allege this pan-London function degrades local policing as officers are hived off from their beats to deal with protests or state visits. I think there’s some truth in that. In Europe, you’d simply leave this stuff to the Gendarmerie, a route I think we’re heading down by stealth. In the meantime, though, the problem remains - how do you square the circle of everyday policing properly with the bald facts that London remains a World city that needs a beefy police service? Hierarchies, unfortunately, are only armed with hammers so every problem’s a nail. The answer lies in more structures. More bosses. More governance.
How about more police? And how’s that ‘uplift’ working out?
Yes, I can see why politicians might superficially be tempted to split the whole thing up. A Conservative government in its pomp - say the 2019 iteration - might have a grand plan for the Met (almost certainly involving privatization and the formation of locally-run municipal police services), but in 2023? The Tories make the John Major government of 1996/7 look like titans. Do you really think they’re in any fit state to begin dismembering the UKs biggest police service when they’ll most likely be defenestrated in two years time?
I still think they’ll try. The optics demand it. Decency expects it. There will be blood.
And so we have the the anatomy of a scandal. The slow death of an empire - the classic whimper rather than a bang. A sour gumbo of poor leadership, conflicting responsibilities, falling budgets and a demoralised workforce. I know, let’s add a departmental turf war and a restructuring problem of unprecedented scope and ambition too.
If you’re in the Job, take care. You’re living in a historic moment. And yes, it is something of a curse.
The Met is in trouble, your article highlights a myriad of problems in graphic detail. In support of your comments I would suggest that British Policing needs a thorough review, changed terms of service and a reduction in overall numbers, despite the alleged ‘increase’ of 20,000 have drastically reduced the service provided to the public.
In my view, a Royal Commission is required to ensure policing in the UK is fit for the 21st Century.
This was the most depressing thing that I have read in a long time. Not because it's wrong, but because it's right. It beautifully and accurately encapsulates my own feelings about an institution I have strong feelings about: pride, gratitude, and sorrow. Pride, because of the bravery, dedication, and skill of some of the exceptional people I had the great good fortune to work alongside; gratitude for skills, experiences and friendships it afforded me over 30 years; and sorrow, because it contains within it the seeds of its own destruction. I won't try to list those; Dom has already covered most of the bases, if not all. I daresay he will remember sitting in the canteen with a fag-ash encrusted old van driver, whose own efforts at describing the demise of the institution were reduced to the pithy but much quoted, "the job's fucked". This recurring theme throughout the history of the police has never been truer. I seem to have had a similar career path to Dom, albeit about 15 years earlier, when the Met was much closer to Dixon of Dock Green and The Sweeny than it is today. Roughly equal parts uniform /CID, gaining a first degree and a Master's by distance learning on the way. Spending the majority, 25 years, as a PS/DS, with a long stint in complaints and discipline (Area Complaints, CIB2, CIB3 Financial Investigation Unit), then SO12 National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit, transitioning into Counter Terrorist Command, SO15). The last part of my career was having a prominent role in the investigation of the London bombings of 7/7 & 21/7, and even more so in the prevention of massive loss of life in the Liquid Bomb Airlines Conspiracy of 2006, saving between 3,000 and 4,000 lives, after which I retired, in 2007 to form my own AML/CFT Consultancy. The work of the police service in general, and the Met in particular, was exceptional during both of those events, and the stock of police officers had never, I think, been higher. The same could be said during the wave of knife and lorry attacks of more recent times, when the raw bravery of Met officers, including PaPD's Keith Palmer, was the talk of the town. Yet a few short years later (well 16, actually, but it's passed in a flash), we find ourselves with a very different scenario. I believe that the causes Dom lists are an accurate reflection of the truth. The successes I mention above happened, it seemed to me, in spite of the system, not because of it. I may be wrong, but the SIOs that led these successes seemed to me to be those who got their via the coalface, not the classroom . On the other hand, in the Anti-corruption Command, an essential in the greasy pole -race, there were some proper cock-ups, masterminded by aforementioned box-tickers. I don't have any magic solutions, but a return to getting real experience in Command roles, rather than fleeting periods of box filling.