London's Metropolitan Police, Britain's largest police force, has appointed its new commissioner.
Sir Paul Stephenson takes over from Sir Ian Blair as Britain's top cop. Sir Ian Blair was mired in controversy, with his embarrassing politically correct views and his obvious support for the Labour Party.
The Metropolitan Police Force is the world's oldest police force, established in 1829 by the then Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel.
They derived from the Bow Street Runners, who in turn derived from the Thief Takers, groups of civilians who made a living catching criminals.
The Metropolitan Police didn't carry guns and their uniforms became blue as the British public is hostile to armies roaming its streets - the British Army uniform at the time was red. This was adopted by all British police forces. To this day British cops wear blue and don't carry guns.
Their truncheons had the letter "WR" (William Rex) printed on them (King William IV was the monarch in 1829) and they quickly became known as "Bobbies" after the name Robert - as all cops are still know today.
Their truncheons each had a copper band around the end, coining the nickname "coppers" or "cops."
Can Scotland Yard's new chief bring back common sense policing?
Sir Paul Stephenson's in-traymay be daunting but at least he has a fair political wind in his sails, says Philip Johnston.
By Philip Johnston
28 Jan 2009
The Telegraph
Sir Paul Stephenson enjoys cross-party support Photo: PA
Flanked by the two people who had appointed him, Sir Paul Stephenson looked an understandably happy copper as he stood in the drizzle outside New Scotland Yard.
It was the best imaginable launch for the new commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He is the first occupant of the £253,000-a-year job to have unequivocal cross-party support, chosen jointly by the Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and the Labour Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.
As such, he is in a strong position to begin the task of rescuing British policing from the mire of mediocrity and public antipathy into which it has strayed in recent years.
If that sounds too grandiose an ambition, then Sir Paul had better get used to high expectations. As the chief of the country's biggest police force, he is inevitably in the public eye, not least because many politicians, commentators and "opinion formers" either live or work in the capital and have first-hand knowledge of its problems. London is also Britain's shop window for the rest of the world, attracting millions of tourists every year whose view of the country will be determined by their experiences there.
It is no exaggeration to say that Sir Paul takes over at a point of crisis in policing.
It is in danger of slipping away from the people it is meant to serve. The middle classes who would, until fairly recently, have supported the police through thick and thin are increasingly disenchanted with what they see. This is not entirely the fault of the police, though the activities of some senior officers, including Sir Paul's predecessor Sir Ian Blair, are partly to blame. The culpability lies predominantly with the Government and its imposition of targets on the police that actually make it less likely that they do the job most of us want to see.
Sir Paul appears to understand this. He wants to see a return to "common sense" policing, which will be a blessed relief to millions in the city who rely upon his officers for their security and reassurance. It was that no nonsense approach demonstrated by the perma-tanned 55-year-old Lancastrian with a love of rugby that convinced Johnson and Smith that he was the man for job (there being no female applicant).
In truth, Stephenson thought he had blown his chances because of the Damian Green affair. He had only just taken over as acting commissioner before Christmas when officers from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command decided to arrest the Tory MP and search his offices in parliament without a warrant, to the incredulity of all and sundry. Sir Paul could, and perhaps should, have put a stop to this, but didn't. However, neither did he try and shove all the blame on to the shoulders of Bob Quick, the senior officer who ordered the investigation. This unswerving loyalty to his officers is a characteristic that has impressed many of them. He starts off with the distinct advantage of not being Sir Ian Blair, who for all he might resent his treatment at the hands of Johnson – who pulled the rug from beneath his feet – had lost the support of his colleagues.
Stephenson, then, starts his time in the hot seat of British policing with a fair political wind in his sails and without having to look over his shoulder for incoming friendly fire – or not yet, anyway. The danger is that it can only go downhill from here. His in-box remains daunting: settling the Green affair once the Crown Prosecution Service has decided whether or not to prosecute; dealing with outstanding race issues after allegations of discrimination by some Muslim officers; tackling an epidemic of knife crime; keeping a close watch on terrorist suspects; overseeing security for the 2012 Olympic Games; and restoring public faith in the Met.
This latter task is the toughest of all and one for which Stephenson has been specifically picked. He has come through a rigorous selection procedure, beating off competition from half a dozen high-calibre candidates, including Sir Hugh Orde, the Northern Ireland police chief. Because of the job's national, as well as local, dimensions, the choice of Met commissioner is, in law, that exclusively of the Home Secretary. However, there was never any chance that she would make a selection that was not agreed with the mayor. "They were always going to go into a room together and thrash this out," said a Home Office insider. "There is too much riding on this to start off with the new commissioner wounded by suggestions that he did not have the mayor's support."
There is more than merely the future of policing in London at stake. If Stephenson can successfully reconnect with the public then his approach will be emulated elsewhere. If anything, he has some catching up to do. A "common sense" approach is already being pioneered in several forces, such as Surrey, Leicestershire and the West Midlands. Here, chief officers are abandoning Whitehall-decreed performance measurements and giving much more discretion to officers on the ground to make decisions about whether to tick off suspects, caution them or arrest them.
It is a belated move away from an approach that threatens to derail the concept of policing by consent, the mainstay of the British system. Police have become distant, both physically and culturally, from the people they are supposed to serve.
The target fetish has encouraged them to focus on what can be measured, not what is required. Minor infractions are pursued relentlessly while serious crimes are deemed too difficult to follow up.
Simple things could be done, such as requiring police officers to patrol singly and not in pairs (the latter is derisively known as "double sculling" and defended by police representatives on the grounds of safety). While there may be some places that the police need to be mob handed, there are many others where a lone bobby is perfectly safe and is anyway more approachable on his own. Stephenson could double the visibility of his force merely by telling his officers to stop walking two-by-two. More police on the beat has been a constant refrain of the public. It also makes practical sense since bobbies are a source of intelligence and a symbol of community authority.
If he chooses, the new commissioner could be in the vanguard of this red tape revolt. It would certainly endear him to Boris Johnson, who campaigned for the mayoralty on a law and order platform and wants to see greater police visibility beyond the machine gun-toting anti-terror officers who have become the embodiment of the Met in many parts of the capital. Smith, on the other hand, might be less enamoured of seeing Labour's fixation with public sector targets and tick boxes trashed and the Government's much-vaunted "neighbourhood policing" initiative unravelled, as it must be if resources are not to be pointlessly tied up establishing dedicated teams in areas where they are not needed.
Fairly or not, Sir Ian Blair was seen as too close to the Labour government and too keen to do its bidding. Stephenson, who served as his deputy for three years, is in a similarly problematic relationship with the Home Office, because his force has counter-terrorism responsibilities and provides security for the seat of parliament and government.
But he needs to establish early on that he is his own man, and not Whitehall's, or he will be dead in the water. He could dispel any impression of cosiness with Whitehall by announcing he will join the "Public First" revolt and instruct his officers to abandon the obsession with easy detections and crime recording standards that is undermining initiative and driving good people out of the job.
The disconnection between the public's disappointment with street-level policing and the self-congratulation inspired by dodgy crime statistics and phoney targets is the biggest challenge facing not only Stephenson but every other chief officer in the country. Chris Sims, chief constable of Staffordshire, whose force is one of four taking part in this "Public First" approach, said: "We had reached the point in policing where targets had become an end in themselves. Yes, performance is important, but the pendulum had swung a bit too far and we became obsessed with numbers rather than delivering good policing."
This is a theme heard consistently across the country, and especially in London.
People could not care less where their force comes in a league table provided they think their areas are being well policed and they feel safer as a result. Public reassurance is a policing ambition that is impossible to measure accurately but which we all know when we see it. It will become clear over the next five years whether Stephenson is the man to provide it.
telegraph.co.uk
Sir Paul Stephenson takes over from Sir Ian Blair as Britain's top cop. Sir Ian Blair was mired in controversy, with his embarrassing politically correct views and his obvious support for the Labour Party.
The Metropolitan Police Force is the world's oldest police force, established in 1829 by the then Home Secretary Sir Robert Peel.
They derived from the Bow Street Runners, who in turn derived from the Thief Takers, groups of civilians who made a living catching criminals.
The Metropolitan Police didn't carry guns and their uniforms became blue as the British public is hostile to armies roaming its streets - the British Army uniform at the time was red. This was adopted by all British police forces. To this day British cops wear blue and don't carry guns.
Their truncheons had the letter "WR" (William Rex) printed on them (King William IV was the monarch in 1829) and they quickly became known as "Bobbies" after the name Robert - as all cops are still know today.
Their truncheons each had a copper band around the end, coining the nickname "coppers" or "cops."
Can Scotland Yard's new chief bring back common sense policing?
Sir Paul Stephenson's in-traymay be daunting but at least he has a fair political wind in his sails, says Philip Johnston.
By Philip Johnston
28 Jan 2009
The Telegraph
Sir Paul Stephenson enjoys cross-party support Photo: PA
Flanked by the two people who had appointed him, Sir Paul Stephenson looked an understandably happy copper as he stood in the drizzle outside New Scotland Yard.
It was the best imaginable launch for the new commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. He is the first occupant of the £253,000-a-year job to have unequivocal cross-party support, chosen jointly by the Conservative mayor of London, Boris Johnson, and the Labour Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith.
As such, he is in a strong position to begin the task of rescuing British policing from the mire of mediocrity and public antipathy into which it has strayed in recent years.
If that sounds too grandiose an ambition, then Sir Paul had better get used to high expectations. As the chief of the country's biggest police force, he is inevitably in the public eye, not least because many politicians, commentators and "opinion formers" either live or work in the capital and have first-hand knowledge of its problems. London is also Britain's shop window for the rest of the world, attracting millions of tourists every year whose view of the country will be determined by their experiences there.
It is no exaggeration to say that Sir Paul takes over at a point of crisis in policing.
It is in danger of slipping away from the people it is meant to serve. The middle classes who would, until fairly recently, have supported the police through thick and thin are increasingly disenchanted with what they see. This is not entirely the fault of the police, though the activities of some senior officers, including Sir Paul's predecessor Sir Ian Blair, are partly to blame. The culpability lies predominantly with the Government and its imposition of targets on the police that actually make it less likely that they do the job most of us want to see.
Sir Paul appears to understand this. He wants to see a return to "common sense" policing, which will be a blessed relief to millions in the city who rely upon his officers for their security and reassurance. It was that no nonsense approach demonstrated by the perma-tanned 55-year-old Lancastrian with a love of rugby that convinced Johnson and Smith that he was the man for job (there being no female applicant).
In truth, Stephenson thought he had blown his chances because of the Damian Green affair. He had only just taken over as acting commissioner before Christmas when officers from Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism command decided to arrest the Tory MP and search his offices in parliament without a warrant, to the incredulity of all and sundry. Sir Paul could, and perhaps should, have put a stop to this, but didn't. However, neither did he try and shove all the blame on to the shoulders of Bob Quick, the senior officer who ordered the investigation. This unswerving loyalty to his officers is a characteristic that has impressed many of them. He starts off with the distinct advantage of not being Sir Ian Blair, who for all he might resent his treatment at the hands of Johnson – who pulled the rug from beneath his feet – had lost the support of his colleagues.
Stephenson, then, starts his time in the hot seat of British policing with a fair political wind in his sails and without having to look over his shoulder for incoming friendly fire – or not yet, anyway. The danger is that it can only go downhill from here. His in-box remains daunting: settling the Green affair once the Crown Prosecution Service has decided whether or not to prosecute; dealing with outstanding race issues after allegations of discrimination by some Muslim officers; tackling an epidemic of knife crime; keeping a close watch on terrorist suspects; overseeing security for the 2012 Olympic Games; and restoring public faith in the Met.
This latter task is the toughest of all and one for which Stephenson has been specifically picked. He has come through a rigorous selection procedure, beating off competition from half a dozen high-calibre candidates, including Sir Hugh Orde, the Northern Ireland police chief. Because of the job's national, as well as local, dimensions, the choice of Met commissioner is, in law, that exclusively of the Home Secretary. However, there was never any chance that she would make a selection that was not agreed with the mayor. "They were always going to go into a room together and thrash this out," said a Home Office insider. "There is too much riding on this to start off with the new commissioner wounded by suggestions that he did not have the mayor's support."
There is more than merely the future of policing in London at stake. If Stephenson can successfully reconnect with the public then his approach will be emulated elsewhere. If anything, he has some catching up to do. A "common sense" approach is already being pioneered in several forces, such as Surrey, Leicestershire and the West Midlands. Here, chief officers are abandoning Whitehall-decreed performance measurements and giving much more discretion to officers on the ground to make decisions about whether to tick off suspects, caution them or arrest them.
It is a belated move away from an approach that threatens to derail the concept of policing by consent, the mainstay of the British system. Police have become distant, both physically and culturally, from the people they are supposed to serve.
The target fetish has encouraged them to focus on what can be measured, not what is required. Minor infractions are pursued relentlessly while serious crimes are deemed too difficult to follow up.
Simple things could be done, such as requiring police officers to patrol singly and not in pairs (the latter is derisively known as "double sculling" and defended by police representatives on the grounds of safety). While there may be some places that the police need to be mob handed, there are many others where a lone bobby is perfectly safe and is anyway more approachable on his own. Stephenson could double the visibility of his force merely by telling his officers to stop walking two-by-two. More police on the beat has been a constant refrain of the public. It also makes practical sense since bobbies are a source of intelligence and a symbol of community authority.
If he chooses, the new commissioner could be in the vanguard of this red tape revolt. It would certainly endear him to Boris Johnson, who campaigned for the mayoralty on a law and order platform and wants to see greater police visibility beyond the machine gun-toting anti-terror officers who have become the embodiment of the Met in many parts of the capital. Smith, on the other hand, might be less enamoured of seeing Labour's fixation with public sector targets and tick boxes trashed and the Government's much-vaunted "neighbourhood policing" initiative unravelled, as it must be if resources are not to be pointlessly tied up establishing dedicated teams in areas where they are not needed.
Fairly or not, Sir Ian Blair was seen as too close to the Labour government and too keen to do its bidding. Stephenson, who served as his deputy for three years, is in a similarly problematic relationship with the Home Office, because his force has counter-terrorism responsibilities and provides security for the seat of parliament and government.
But he needs to establish early on that he is his own man, and not Whitehall's, or he will be dead in the water. He could dispel any impression of cosiness with Whitehall by announcing he will join the "Public First" revolt and instruct his officers to abandon the obsession with easy detections and crime recording standards that is undermining initiative and driving good people out of the job.
The disconnection between the public's disappointment with street-level policing and the self-congratulation inspired by dodgy crime statistics and phoney targets is the biggest challenge facing not only Stephenson but every other chief officer in the country. Chris Sims, chief constable of Staffordshire, whose force is one of four taking part in this "Public First" approach, said: "We had reached the point in policing where targets had become an end in themselves. Yes, performance is important, but the pendulum had swung a bit too far and we became obsessed with numbers rather than delivering good policing."
This is a theme heard consistently across the country, and especially in London.
People could not care less where their force comes in a league table provided they think their areas are being well policed and they feel safer as a result. Public reassurance is a policing ambition that is impossible to measure accurately but which we all know when we see it. It will become clear over the next five years whether Stephenson is the man to provide it.
telegraph.co.uk