While Theresa May has characteristically responded to the terror attack on London Bridge and Borough Market on Saturday night by mouthing platitudes - “Enough is enough”, which ranks with “Brexit means Brexit” for sheer vacuity - and her most ardent admirers in the press grovelingly lap it up, elsewhere the question is being asked as to whether we have sufficient Police and security force numbers to combat the threat.
Cressida Dick
What resources does the PM propose to use in pursuit of her allegedly new and tougher stance towards terrorist attacks? Why does she, once again, deflect by ordering the gullible of Grubstreet to “look over there” at the Web? And, most importantly, why is it not her, but anyone else in the cabinet, who is being pushed forward to appear before the inquisition of the broadcasters, even those on Breakfast TV?
Her hapless Culture Secretary Karen Bradley was volunteered to appear on ITV’s Good Morning Britain, where she failed more than once to answer a straightforward question from co-hosts Piers Morgan and Susanna Reid on the number of armed Police officers (this was cut by more than 1,000 between 2012 and 2016, on Theresa May’s watch). Matt Chorley of The Times helpfully provided a graph to assist her next time.
All Ms Bradley would tell GMB viewers was that there was a choice when the electorate went to the polls on Thursday. So there is. And Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick has - perhaps not inadvertently - showed the force’s frustration at the succession of Tory cuts by suggesting that she favours choosing a party that is not the Conservatives. The evidence could not be more compelling.
Paul Harrison, senior news editor for Sky News, relayed Ms Dick’s comments, which will not make comfortable reading for The Blue Team. “#LondonBridge Met Commissioner asked if the the system is buckling under pressure, incl 3 attacks: ‘I would like more resources, yes’”. Ouch! Perhaps we could have a second source for that?
We certainly could, from ITV political editor Robert Peston: “‘We need more’ resources and power, says Met Commissioner Cressida Dick”. And what reason did the Commissioner give for her response? Peston again: “[Ms] Dick says we needs more powers and resource because terrorist threat intensifying”. As Karen Bradley kept on saying to Morgan and Ms Reid as she desperately tried to avoid actually answering the question, voters have a choice on Thursday. They have a particular choice on Police resources.
That choice is for more of the same under the Tories and Theresa May, with fewer Police officers available over time, or for an increase of 20,000 officers offered by Jeremy Corbyn and Labour. The Red Team is also committed to increasing manpower in the security services, the people who have to obtain and utilise intelligence on terror threats, and then ensure those who may be planning attacks are monitored and, if necessary, stopped.
So this morning the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police has effectively told anyone capable of deciphering her straightforward message to Vote Labour. No surprise there.
11 comments:
I think under the circumstances I'd be all for giving the cops more resources.
More powers? Not so much.
Oddly the Mail has put the boot in.
PIERS MORGAN: Mrs May talks tough now but what did she do when she was in charge of the Home Office? She cut police numbers by 20,000. And now we’re paying the price in blood.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4571186/May-cut-police-numbers-paying-price.html#ixzz4j7hMpiTI
A better vacuous slogan should surely be "Anything more than nothing is too much" or is this the governments attitude to public service budgets and resources?
Karen Bradley attempted to deflect the police numbers discussion, repeatedly stating that the important thing was the extra powers that Mrs May would grant them.
Anybody who has been paying attention will know what extra powers Mrs May favours.
* Blanket Surveillance - wasteful and disruptive to normal citizens.
* Unpicking internet encryption - a gift to malevolent hackers and ransomware attackers.
* Doing more with less - until the day when that "less" gets stretched to nothing.
She really gave the game away when she claimed "the public sector" is guilty of molly coddling extremism. Somehow "the private sector" avoided any such claim.
It shows how crackpot she is even by tory standards.
May is an unelected moron.worst home secretary of all time and to have decimated the police amongst many other needless cuts..shows her ignorance..The police federation warned her the danger of her cuts...she stupidly said they were scaremongering...still feel that way you bloody idiot...who nestled up to and sells arms to the odious Saudi regime who fund Isis and most other terrorists..may you have blood on your horrid hands..and we All know it..resign terrorist enabler !
This is the first sensible thing I haver ever read in the mail. Hopefully their readers will also see sense in it.
I'm surprised Cressida Dick as a Public Servant would make a such a political statement asking for more money in the days prior to an election and can only think she's opted for the James Comey 11th hour approach to police interventions in elections.
So let me get this straight... we have scientists, academics, n.h.s. staff, teachers along with head teachers, basically the most intelligent man on the planet (stephen hawking) plus many many others all asking, or in some cases pleading for us to vote for a Labour win, and there are still people out there who are in doubt? I'm sorry, but I will be voting for Labour, as I would not be able to look my child, mother, father, any disabled person, homless person, doctor, nurse, copper, soldier in the eye and tell them otherwise when it all goes tits up
Worst home secretary until Amber Rudd came along.
They don't need more powers just more numbers to enforce the ones they have.
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