I have hit on an ingenious idea that could save the taxpayer many billions of pounds. Let’s get rid of the police altogether. Theresa May, in her roles as home secretary and prime minister hated the police so much, she got rid of 21,000 of them. She now argues that these cuts have made no difference to crime figures and that the 93% increase in knife crime since 2012 is a complete coincidence. If she is right – and there is always a first time she will be right about something – then let’s scrap the police force altogether. It won’t make any difference.
I jest, but only just. May, who does appear to be more than slightly unhinged at the best of times actually believes this. After all, she leads the party of law and order as well as the party of paring back public services. She wants a bit of everything.
Ask a copper and you may get a different answer. Up until 2015, I worked with police officers on a regular basis and they all told the same story: the police service was becoming a police emergency service only. Trivial matters such as solving murders and burglars could be set to one side. And anyway, May said she wasn’t cutting numbers from the front-line: the cuts would come from back office. And who, pray, would carry out the essential back office jobs, like obtaining evidence, taking statements, preparing cases to submit to the CPS as well as crime reduction initiatives? Er, front-line coppers withdrawn from the ‘protected’ front-line.
I don’t like calling people liars. However, to Mrs May, lying is what she does. It’s not her second nature; it’s her first. She either lies or she avoids the question altogether. No halfway house with her. And to say that cutting police numbers has had no effect on crime is, quite simply, a dirty black lie.
Naturally, a Tory minister on Radio Five Live blamed the previous government for the cuts to policing. When the Tories formed a government in 2010, in which some Liberals were given jobs, they had to make huge cuts because the previous government had spent all the money. And there, my friends, is another dirty black lie. Two years previously, there was a worldwide financial crash. It was not caused by having too many coppers. In fact, when David Cameron (remember him?) took over in Downing Street, the economy was recovering rather well. Cameron and his wretched home secretary Mrs May ensured the economy stalled and they took the axe to the police force. Nearly nine years later and we are in a different place, with escalating crime levels and a collapse in the number of crimes actually solved.
You can use the analogy that cutting numbers makes no difference anywhere. If we had less doctors, the same number of people would be treated for illnesses. If we had less train drivers the same number of services would run. If a football team had less players than another football team…oh, you know where this is going.
My idea to scrap the police is, of course, a joke. It’s a joke just like the PM’s claim that slashing police numbers hasn’t made any difference to the effectiveness of the police. It’s a joke and it’s a dishonest joke. As we say, a lie.
The PM’s lies are of no comfort to the victims of crime. Like the rest of the population, they know that police numbers have been cut to the bone. They can see this every time a crime goes unsolved, if it is even investigated in the first place.
The police ensure we maintain a civilised society. Making the thin blue line even thinner does nothing to help that.
