If they were catching criminals that would be fine but much of the time policemen
If they were catching criminals that would be fine, but much of the time policemen are stopping bishops, civil servants and indeed, the chair of the London Assembly. In fact, when I was asked to write this article, the editor suggested that I should find someone who has been stopped and searched, though that might be difficult given the lack of time I laughed until I cried. There is no adult black male of my acquaintance who has not had the special pleasure of seeing the blue light behind him, being pulled over, questioned, searched, and then hearing the words “IC3 male” crackling over the radio. Anyone who seriously cares about crime would not rest their strategy on a foundation as flimsy as the use of stop and search.The fact is that isn’t what Hague is concerned about.
Anyone with Hague’s intelligence, analytical ability and education would see in a moment that, as with Powell, the argument falls down at every stage. Hague says that police numbers are falling and that recruitment is difficult. The cause is falling morale; the reason for falling morale is Macpherson’s report; and the consequence of Macpherson is a craven abandonment of police work; and the final result is a crime wave. It wouldn’t get past the front door of Hague’s old employer McKinsey.First, the real reason recruitment is down is that the job is difficult and poorly paid. It was the Cabinet of which Mr Hague was a member that robbed officers of their housing allowances; it is Mr Straw who is restoring pay and support for accommodation.Second, morale has been a problem long before Macpherson. For the 20 years I have been a journalist, police officers have complained of a lack of status, of public disregard and poor conditions.
Third, stop and search is still too widely used – a quarter of a million times a year in London alone, and fourth, there is no proven relationship between the use of stop and search and crime prevention.What we heard from William Hague yesterday has nothing to do with crime fighting or public safety It has everything to do with politics of the nastiest kind. It is the first shot in what looks like being a long election campaign. On yesterday’s form, the Conservative are bringing out their ugliest face for the campaign.The author is chair of the Greater London Assembly. The Vice-President to Richard Nixon and bribe-taker to many, Spiro Agnew, was once inspired to say, “The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country.”
The Vice-President to Richard Nixon and bribe-taker to many, Spiro Agnew, was once inspired to say, “The United States, for all its faults, is still the greatest nation in the country.”
Today, even in the wake of the Supreme Court’s purloining of the election for the 43rd president, Spiro must be standing tall among his fellow shades. Have we not come through, yet again? As we did in 1888, when Grover Cleveland’s plurality of the popular vote was cancelled by the intricacies of the electoral college, and as we even more famously did in 1876, when the Democrat Samuel Tilden got 250,000 more votes than the Republican Hayes, whose party then challenged the votes in Oregon, South Carolina, Louisiana and – yes, that slattern Florida.
