The next Governor of the Bank of England will be Canadian. We have had two foreigners managing the England football team. Could the most senior policeman in this country be an American?
The question arises because Bill Bratton, who has been credited with slashing crime, tackling gangs and reforming policing in New York and Los Angeles, has told The Times he wants to be Metropolitan Police Commissioner.
According to the newspaper, Mr Bratton’s name is at the top of No 10’s shopping list for possible recruits. The Home Secretary, Theresa May, will open the door to him and others next week by proposing reforms to police recruitment, including allowing senior officers from overseas to become chief constables.
There is, however, one inconvenient fly in the ointment so far as the job of Metropolitan Police Commissioner is concerned. It’s occupied. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe took it up in September 2011.
The pity is that Mr Bratton, nicknamed ‘supercop’, was not appointed then. David Cameron was strongly in favour of doing so, but Mrs May was against. She did not want to upset senior police officers, who hated the idea of an American giving them lessons on policing.
Sir Hugh Orde, a former Chief Constable of Northern Ireland and himself a contender for the top job, poured scorn on Mr Bratton, questioning his reputed success in controlling gangs in Los Angeles.
‘I am not sure I want to learn about gangs from an area of America that has 400 of them,’ he sniffed.
But, of course, the issue is not how many gangs there are in Los Angeles but how many there were before Mr Bratton came along. The evidence is that both in New York — where he pioneered a ‘zero tolerance’ approach to policing — and in Los Angeles, he has significantly reduced crime.
Sir Hugh’s lofty put-down epitomises the arrogance and hidebound conservatism of many senior British police officers. Such characteristics might be tolerable if we had a highly efficient, widely trusted police force. We don’t — and we particularly don’t in London.
More... 'Supercop' who tackled New York and LA crimewaves could be heading for Scotland Yard after ban is lifted on foreign police chiefs Foreign police to be chief constables: May to unveil radical plans this week Invasion of the foreign supercops: Minister wants to hire U.S. crimebusters to take over British policeSir Bernard Hogan-Howe’s predecessor in the capital, Sir Paul Stephenson, resigned after taking a £12,000 freebie at a health farm. His brief tenure was tainted by mounting evidence that Metropolitan Police officers had had corrupt relationships with News International journalists.
Shortly after Sir Paul stood down, the capital erupted in riots, sparked by possibly cack-handed police behaviour. Police officers were lamentably slow to respond, and in some instances initially looked on as people’s homes and shops were destroyed.
Sir Paul’s predecessor was Sir Ian Blair, much criticised for his intimate relationship with New Labour.
The most controversial and, I believe, unforgivable incident was the shooting in cold blood of the innocent Brazilian Jean Charles de Menezes in July 2005.
Somehow Sir Ian and other senior officers in the Met managed to survive that disgraceful affair.
In place: Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe took up the role of Metropolitan Police commissioner in September 2011Without any warning, Sir Ian was eventually sacked by the Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, in October 2008 for no discernibly specific reason.
The present incumbent, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, has hardly enjoyed an unblemished period in office. His biggest error has probably been his failure to take control of ‘Plebgate’, when policemen may have set up Cabinet minister Andrew Mitchell by accusing him of calling two officers in Downing Street ‘plebs’.
Meanwhile, there has been the usual catalogue of embarrassing errors. In August, police were accused of incredible blunders after the body of a 12-year-old girl was discovered in the loft of a house in New Addington which they had searched three times.
Needless to say, there are many fine and diligent officers of all ranks. My argument is not that the police force is rotten or deeply dysfunctional. But there is surely enough evidence of failures of leadership, mistakes and shortcomings, perhaps particularly in London, for us to believe that an effective new broom such as Bill Bratton could do a great deal of good.
Change of heart: Home Secretary Theresa May does now accept the principle that a foreigner could take charge of the Metropolitan Police or any large force If Sir Bernard does survive five years, Mr Bratton (pictured) will be nearly 70 by the time the post is availableI wouldn’t go as far as one unidentified senior Cabinet minister, who was quoted in August 2011 as saying: ‘The police are the worst led in my lifetime. The leadership are politically correct jobsworths who spend their time worrying about their salaries, pensions and uniforms.’
But there does seem to be a certain smugness and introspection among some senior police officers who can be more preoccupied with inward-looking matters of protocol and police conduct than improving often worryingly low rates of solving crimes.
A recent example is the suggestion by the Association of Chief Police Officers (whose president is the aforementioned Sir Hugh Orde) that some policemen are taking steroids in gyms, which may be leading to ‘corrupt’ and ‘corrosive’ relationships. No numbers of alleged miscreants have been provided. Is this really a serious issue?
Like all institutions that have grown a bit moribund, and whose senior members have been trained in the same places to think in a similar way, the upper echelons of the police could do with a good shake-up.
Sir Paul Stephenson resigned as Commissioner after taking a £12,000 freebie at a health farmI’m afraid that the new police commissioners (there aren’t any in London) are unlikely to supply this because most of them apparently lack the acumen or resources to put a rocket up underperforming chief constables. Besides, they scarcely enjoy public support.
Mrs May’s reported new proposal that talented recruits should be able to join police forces at inspector and superintendent level is a step in the right direction, since it will be a way of introducing new blood.
The appointment of Bill Bratton in 2011 would have amounted to an entire blood transfusion. I am sure he has his weaknesses — he can seem insufferably pleased with himself — but his record can’t be gainsaid.
His ‘broken windows’ theory makes sense. He believes every crime should be investigated, however small, because the process will in turn reduce more serious crime. If only our own police — who often seem dazed by small crimes, or simply uninterested — would adopt that approach!
Mr Bratton is 65. Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe could reasonably expect at least a five-year stint, and unless he puts his foot in it (a by-no-means inconceivable prospect), Mrs May and Mr Johnson can hardly ask him to walk the plank just yet.
If Sir Bernard does survive five years, Mr Bratton will be nearly 70 by the time the post is available, and arguably a bit long in the tooth to take on a challenging new job in a strange city which would not end until he was in his mid-70s. I fear he has missed the boat — or Mrs May missed it for him in 2011.
But she does now accept the principle that a foreigner (who must presumably speak good English) could take charge of the Metropolitan Police or any large force, and introduce foreign practices and foreign ways of thinking where our own people have grown timid and blinkered.
Should Mr Bratton be too old to run, my sources tell me that Commissioner Bob Paulson of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police is a live-wire bursting with ideas, though whether he could cope with a huge city I can’t say.
Foreigners generally make the best football managers, though England may have been unlucky with its two choices, and plenty of our best companies are run by people born abroad. Isn’t it clear that our evidently imperfect police force is ripe for a revolution?
A RESPONSE FROM SIR HUGH ORDE, ACPO PRESIDENT
Stephen Glover asks why a US police chief should not take charge of a British police force. Of course if foreign citizens are now to apply, the task of selecting future chief constables is now a matter for elected Police and Crime Commissioners. But I am very clear British policing has nothing to fear and plenty to gain from being open to ideas from abroad.
I have the privilege to sit alongside many big city US police chiefs on the board of the New York-based Police Executive Research Forum - and I have benefited greatly from their leadership and expertise. Among some outstanding chiefs from the US, I’ve sat alongside Bill Bratton and hold him in high regard.
The point I make in respect of applying the US experience of gangs to Britain is that it is overly simplistic not to recognise the two situations are very different. That is not to say we cannot learn from each other, and that is precisely why I proposed the international policing conference which was held following the 2011 riots, at which Bill and I both spoke.
We continue to share ideas, and many British police chiefs are in demand overseas where US policing is keen to learn from our approaches not just to gangs but in areas such as public order policing and more.Crime statistics published recently continue to show a long term trend towards falling crime. Policing is a risk business: in the 7million plus interactions with citizens every year some mistakes are inevitably made, and there is much more we can do to tackle crime, support victims and keep people safe. But our committed police officers and staff at every rank are also getting many things right, and rather than be risk averse or timid, they are determined to do more. Sir Hugh Orde
President, Association of Chief Police Officers
