What Is Our Police Force - SORRY - I Meant SERVICE Actually For?

We knew the police were useless – now we know they are cowards too.

They say they want to avoid an increase in community tension, but it feels as if there’s only one community they’re actually concerned about.

MICHAEL DEACON

COLUMNIST & ASSISTANT EDITOR

1 November 2023 • 

A few years ago, when Left-wing activists started calling on the Government to “Defund the police”, I ridiculed them. Now, though, I wonder whether they might have had a point. It’s not that I think we shouldn’t have a police force. It’s just that it’s growing less and less clear what we’re getting for our money.

These days, the police hardly ever solve crimes such as burglary and theft. In 2021, a mere 5 per cent of burglaries in England and Wales were solved. And if your bicycle or laptop has been stolen, forget it. You won’t be seeing them again. (I’m referring to the bicycle or laptop, although I might as well be referring to the police, since you probably won’t be seeing them, either.)

Even if officers can’t track down our valuables, surely they can at least help us to feel reasonably safe when walking our streets. But apparently not. Look at the approach the police have taken to the anti-Israel mobs overrunning our cities. It hasn’t just been ineffectual. It’s been downright cowardly.

Take the tearing down of posters depicting Israelis taken hostage by Hamas terrorists. It was bad enough seeing members of the public do it. But it’s staggering to see police officers doing it, too. Yet that’s what happened this week in London – and reportedly also in Manchester. 

In response to the outcry from Londoners, the Met released a statement. Officers, it explained, had received “at least two calls” from residents in Edgware, objecting to the presence of the posters. And the Met, it went on, had a duty to take “reasonable steps” to “avoid any further increase in community tension”.

Note that phrase, “community tension”. It seems to be the police’s explanation for everything they’re currently doing – or not doing. There is, however, just one small problem with this excuse.

It makes absolutely no sense.

After all, doesn’t removing the posters risk inflaming “community tension”? And marching through cities, calling for “jihad”? And holding mass anti-Israel protests inside railway stations (as we’ve seen in London this week) while chanting, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” – a slogan the Home Secretary has called “a staple of anti-Semitic discourse”? Do none of these activities cause “further increase in community tension”?

I’m pretty sure they do. Obviously, they heighten tension among people who are Jewish. But they also heighten tension among those of us who aren’t. We too find these scenes disturbing and intimidating. Yet the police have done next to nothing to prevent such scenes recurring. So forget our communities. When the police say they want to avoid an increase in community tension, it feels as if there’s only one community they’re actually concerned about.Officers aren’t always reluctant to take a firm line over illicit mass gatherings. In 2021, they certainly didn’t hold back during the lockdown-breaking vigil for Sarah Everard – the 33-year-old who’d been murdered by one of their colleagues. But then, that particular mass gathering consisted almost solely of women. The police weren’t scared of them.

When it comes to the mobs swarming our streets today, however, it’s a different story. Plainly, the police are scared. Scared of upsetting them. True enough, upsetting the more radical elements might be dangerous. But letting them do as they please is even more dangerous. It will embolden them – while intensifying the fear and resentment felt by everyone else. In theory, tiptoeing around “community tension” may appear pragmatic. But in practice, it means caving in to bullies. This isn’t sensitivity. It’s appeasement.