Dominic Grieve begins 2009 by calling for a return to "common sense" policing

This time last year, Dominic Grieve would probably have been stupefied at the suggestion that by now he would have replaced his then boss, David Davis, as shadow home secretary. At that time he was, however, the Conservative MP most ConservativeHome readers wanted to see promoted to the shadow cabinet.

And after David Davis's resignation last summer, that is exactly where he found himself and he has made a good start to 2009 by giving an interview to this morning's Independent in which he sets out his desire to see a return to "common sense" policing.

He outlines how he wants to see officers allowed to concentrate on dealing with the crimes that seriously affect people rather than have to waste time on investigating trivial complaints.

He says:

"There is no doubt – the police say that their discretion has been eroded. If somebody comes in to a police station and makes an allegation clearly of the most trivial character they nevertheless have to record it, to investigate it, go through a process of dealing with it which may involve going round and confronting the person against whom the trivial allegation has been made. Equally, the public seem to have become tremendously willing to go running off to the police to bleat about the most minor matters. In part that may be because of the perception that they are so regulated and controlled in every other way that there is nothing they can do about problems and they have got to go to the police to solve them."

Mr Grieve also reiterates the need for the police to support - rather than question - adults who rebuke children:

"The public have also come round to seeing the police as more likely to bite them than do something about the problems in the community around them. They also say: 'Oh well, if I try to stop that, someone will come round to arrest me.' Most of the complaints being made by the public are about quite low level anti-social behaviour issues about children and adolescents. I don't believe these problems didn't exist in the past, but in the past they were controlled because adults felt confident in tackling these problems themselves, not by being vigilantes, but by being sensible citizens."

The Independent states that a new Conservative government would act "within days" to rewrite guidelines in favour of people who stand up for traditional good behaviour.

The report also suggests that Mr Grieve will spearhead a "New Year policy drive aimed at ending the 'conveyor belt to crime', praising initiatives championed by the former party leader Iain Duncan Smith to target children at risk of falling into delinquency".

All very sensible stuff. I look forward to hearing more from Mr Grieve in the coming weeks.

Jonathan Isaby

Comments

[Sally Roberts]

All good stuff but I fear the problem is bigger and the first thing which needs to be tackled is to root out and address the "political" culture at the top of forces such as the Met! At the moment the Metropolitan Police seems to be nothing more than a Wing of the Labour Party and under a Conservative Government this link between Police and Governing Party must end and be seen to end!

[SuperBlue]

............ and an armed wing at that!

[Opinicus]

All good stuff but why the Independent?

Who does he think he's speaking to?

This was an interview for the Sun not Justin and Abigail from Islington. The purpose of giving an interview is to make people vote for you. If he thought the Independent a constituency worth bothering about (because we were 45 points ahead in the polls and he was going for the lot) then he should have been talking about arbitrary police methods not cracking down on youth crime.

[rugfish]

Without a doubt, Mr Grieve is a very sensible person and full of commonsense. He is surely seen as safe, loyal, concerned, and able. I think more widely, he will be seen as non-radical except to the point of ridding the land of Labour lunacy and heralding the return of more traditional British standards of liberty and justice than man of his predecessors possibly with the exception in more recent times of Michael Howard.

I do hope that he can knuckle Labour's stupid policy agenda to whittle our country away to nothing, firmly into the ground this year, and I wish him all the luck in the world as well as the stamina to do it.

A General Election would not come amiss to give him further room to prove his obvious capabilities.

[London Tory]

We are giving far too many of these puff pieces to our *enemies* at the Guardian and Independent. These people are the exponents of the liberal trash that has got this country into the mess that it is in today. Do CHQ imagine that Grieve's interview will cause a single Inde reader to recant over their muesli in Islington this morning ?

[Tip guys- look at the readership of the Mail and Telegraph for our core vote, waiting to be enthused].

What next- David Cameron tells Kevin Maguire that we will be sending kids up chimneys as a manifesto pledge ?

[R.Baker.]

The Human Rights shield has promoted most of these things that have been mentioned here.we had Human Rights cover before the EU installed theirs in the UK,and this is what has destroyed our previous system of policing.
It has also generated the no win no fee nonsense that has strangled us all in one way or another.

[Sally Roberts]

"We are giving far too many of these puff pieces to our *enemies* at the Guardian and Independent."

There is a reason for this, London Tory and that is that those papers are not only read by our political "enemies" but also by many floating voters.

[Malcolm Stevas]

Sally Roberts writes:
”.. the first thing which needs to be tackled is to root out and address the "political" culture at the top of forces such as the Met!”
True, though I suggest you do not go far enough. Perhaps Grieve is being diplomatic when he (apparently) ascribes the problem to legislation and political interference, suggesting that he ”wants to see officers allowed to concentrate on dealing with the crimes that seriously affect people”. To a very large extent it is the police themselves who have connived at the corruption of their core traditional function of protecting the peace, of guarding the overwhelming majority of decent people from the depredations of a really very small criminal minority. For decades they have embraced a crass managerialist approach to policing, whereby aims & objectives, targets and administration have been seen as the route to advancement: this might be considered the fault principally of senior ranks but ISTM that the rank & file have embraced it too. Those who have not have left the force, often emigrating to countries such as Canada that retain a more rational and better-administered policing system.
Though I follow most of my fellow citizens in avoiding contact with the police unless absolutely necessary – the paramilitary style of gear-festooned Met coppers springing out of yellow-striped BMWs is intimidating enough, and the sight of little plump policewomen clad in SWAT-style black and carrying HK carbines at railway stations is simultaneously scary and absurd - as a holder of a Firearms Certificate I am obliged to have occasional contact with them. More to the point, it has inspired me to observe police behaviour more generally, in particular regarding their administration of firearms licencing. It’s a long story, but in sum, it does not redound to the credit of our police.
I think the police in general take the soft option of concentrating on managing at best, or harrassing at worst, the general public: they see themselves as sheepdogs, and the public as sheep. Doing this enables them to tick all sorts of boxes which imply they’re doing their job, even though the clear-up rate of real crime is alarmingly poor to the extent that many people do not bother to report break-ins, car vandalism etc, since it’s a waste of time and they do not wish to suffer the barely-concealed indifference of some note-taking plod. To a large extent police claims that they have no discretion are bogus: when a friend & I were harrassed while out lamping for foxes one night, by a pretentious twat visiting the area and who had navigated himself to the wrong bit of land but still demanded to know what we were doing then reported us to the police, they could have corrected his daft misapprehension and told him not to be so stupid; instead they claimed it was a “firearms incident” and went to see the landowner, our friend, who was understandably irritated!
When a friend was out similarly at night potting rabbits he found the police helicopter overhead trying to find him, after some terminally stupid townee incomer called them out because she'd seen - Gasp! - a man with a rifle in the field... My theory is that in addition to ignorance, spite and stupidity, the cops like to play with their toys, and in the case of a helicopter they can log such an event as a "firearms incident" thereby hoping to justify its enormous expense. They didn't spot him, since my chum's fieldcraft had them beat, but on returning to his car he found a cop with a clipboard, who told him to notify his local plods before lamping in future! Naturally he ignores this grossly impertinent and unlawful demand.
I’ve often asked this question on net-based police forums, blogs etc: if as you claim, you want to be allowed to “get on with real policing” instead of all the form-filling, pestering ordinary citizens etc, what the hell are you doing about it? Why don’t you make such a stink, via the Police Federation or whatever, that sensible reversion to traditional policing comes about? Answer comes there none. They are too comfy, too well paid, and they don’t care enough…
I once had a girlfriend who’d been married to a copper. She described in detail the unpleasantness of the us-and-them “canteen culture” by which not only civilians but even those such as herself who’d actually married into the police, as it were, were regarded with suspicion and contempt. She got a divorce. I think we should collectively get a divorce from our police, the way they are at present constituted. I would like to think an incoming Tory administration might do this, but I will not hold my breath. It seems, from other posts here, that the key thing is positioning oneself to the electorate by saying the right things in the right papers, rather than doing something drastic about the cops.
Sorry to go on at such length. A belated Happy New Year.

[Patsy Sergeant]

Yes, I agree with R.Baker @ 10.32 - that until the Human Rights Act is 'tackled', you can forget about any real progress on anybody's part, in coping with anti-social behaviour. In fact, more recently it has become downright dangerous, if not lethal, to get involved, so no wonder people 'run to the police for every trivial matter'.

The 'Uman Rights Act, combined with opportunist lawyers, causes such trouble and waste of time, letalone wasted taxpayers money (into lawyers pockets), that it is hardly justifiable, even under the Human Rights Act!

[Northern Conservative]

POLICING: The British public generally support the police, but I have seen this respect whittled away over recent years and the police themselves carry some responsibility for this.
They often appear to go along with 'revenue earning schemes' against the motorist for example and spend time on politically correct actions rather than more time on the task of trying to catch those who commit serious crimes - perhaps it makes for an easier life!
If it is true that the police can only operate with the consent of the public, senior police ought to take a hard look at their actions before disappointment turns to resentment.

[Opinicus]

@Sally Roberts

The readers of the Guardian and Independent may be your enemies in inverted commas only but they are no friends of the Conservatives. I don't know where you get the idea that they are read by many floating voaters, they are not read by many people period. Their total readership is not as many as the Sun's floating voter readership and it is silly of you to pretend otherwise.

Repeat after me
Green initiatives to the Guardian
Media initiatives to the Independent
Police initiatives to the Sun
Women's issues to the Mail
Economic messages to the Mail and Telegraph
Pensions issues to the Express and Telegraph

Remind me what we pay Andy Coulson to advise us on?

[Sally Roberts]

"Repeat after me
Green initiatives to the Guardian
Media initiatives to the Independent
Police initiatives to the Sun
Women's issues to the Mail
Economic messages to the Mail and Telegraph
Pensions issues to the Express and Telegraph"

Green initiatives to the Guardian...Media initiatives to the Independent...Police ....zzzzzzzzzzzz snzzzzzzz!!!!

[James Maskell]

Theres a difference though between the police understanding what the local public want and having elections over it. Jacqui Smith was right (I think thats quite possibly the first time and the last time Ive ever typed that!) to rule out elections for commissioners. It would politicise the police overtly and would lead to the police chasing votes rather than criminals. I know the Tories have this as a core proposal but I have serious doubts about the benefits of this. There are surgeries now for the police on a ward by ward basis nowadays and the police are very much involved with their communities. I think the police are reaching saturation point on this.

Making the police accountable is one thing, having elections for police officers is a whole different thing.

[Malcolm Stevas]

J Maskell:
"Jacqui Smith was right .... to rule out elections for commissioners."
I disagree - it would be an interesting experiment that could prove dramatically productive, and restore the public's trust.
"It would politicise the police overtly and would lead to the police chasing votes rather than criminals."
I'd have thought the two would go together. The overwhelming majority of people would leap at the chance to vote for chiefs of police who vowed to get off citizens' backs and concentrate on feeling the collars of lowlifes; those communities that got their priorities wrong and voted on an irrational or politicised basis, rather than sound policing, would get their just desserts in the form of incompetent policing and a high crime rate.
"There are surgeries now for the police on a ward by ward basis nowadays and the police are very much involved with their communities. I think the police are reaching saturation point on this."
I am not sure what this means - "surgeries", "wards", "saturation point" - ? The plods certainly send me a questionnaire once or even twice a year since I am self-employed and "run a business" in their eyes, but it's a deeply stupid and annoying questionnaire of limited utility. One also gathers that there is a "community plod" but I've seen a plod on foot in my village just once in 15 years. I have an extremely poor opinion of our police, as I believe do a great many others. I'd like to see a trial run for elected chiefs of police. And I don't think Jacqui Smith has ever said or done anything right: she's a sinister oddball Stalinist bint who should disappear from public life asap.

[Steve Foley]

I am a great supporter of the Police and I know they are fallible like all of us, but feel that until they know that their morale will continue to decline until they have the support of the Courts etc and do not have someone watching their every move and ready to jump in to back the criminal against them.

I am also a bit wary of Dominic Grieve's advice regarding adults admonishing our feral children. There have been too many cases of people being stabbed or a dying of a heart attack afterwards when for example approaching such little scrotes committing acts of vandalism etc. I'd get on my mobile and phone 999 in such circumstances rather than be the dead hero.