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Hard cell
Labour detain plans to vote for boys in blue
‘OK, a question for Copper #2. If you found me sneaking about at night, how would you treat me, and why?’
photograph: Statto
Home Secretary Jacqui Smith announced this week that the Home Office would ‘step back’ from plans to ‘democratise’ the police, contrary to her traditional policy strategy, ‘if if ain’t broke, smash it up a bit and see if that looks any better’.
The Government had announced the move during the Queen’s Speech, apparently under the impression that what the Police Service really needed to do was ‘be more accountable to the community,’ rather than arresting those members of the community who were accountable for breaking the law.
The move would have allowed a number of police officials to be voted for by the local community. Having been elected, the candidate who’d won the backing of the locals could then represent their views, taking the focus of local policing away from the rampant knife- and drug-crime on the run-down housing estate where the electorate live, and instead arranging a 24-hour stake-out at the neighbouring primary school to watch out for middle-class mums not strapping their children in properly, or failing to use the correct type of booster seat if their child is below 135 cm tall.
Junior Minister Claire Timkins, speaking on behalf of Jacqui Smith, told KTAB ‘forcing democracy on institutions has worked so well in Afghanistan and Iraq, we thought we could give it a whirl back home. Fundamentally, we are still in favour of this proposal. But since it has become apparent that we’re the only people who are, we’re shutting up for a while, in case it makes us unpopular.’
Police spokesman Roger Bighouse told KTAB ‘People like to know we’re out and about on the beat, not worrying about the next election. That’s for politicians to do, and look how much the public likes them!’
Liberal Democrat spokesman Marvin Wilcox told KTAB ‘People like police.’
The Tories—who favour locally-elected ‘sheriff’-style police chiefs—had opposed the plan on the grounds that ‘It’s not quite what we had in mind when we suggested something quite like this,’ while a large number of Labour supporters rejected the idea on the grounds that ‘This is exactly what the Tories had in mind when they proposed it in 2003.’
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