A Times report says the BNP is planning to seize control of policing when the government introduces direct elections for policing bodies. All three parties are now committed to some kind of ‘local accountability’ for the police. I have always been against this. In general, I agree that the way to rescue public service from the oppressiveness, incompetence and injustice of our public sector is to put the public in the driver’s seat in services such as education or health. Policing, though, is different and has to be an exception. Public safety and security involve a public interest which can all too easily be fatally compromised by giving local groups of whatever stripe the power to dictate the police agenda. ACPO is dead right to be concerned. And as Sean O’Neill points out in a
Monday, 17th November 2008
Fantasy foreign policy
8:09pm
Walid Phares is rightly incredulous at the noises coming out of the Obama transition team about talking to Iran and the Taleban to ‘win’ the war in Afghanistan. As he says, this is based on the following ridiculous assumptions: that Iran turns overnight from being the enemy of America into its ally; that a deal can be reached with the ‘good’ Taleban while the ‘bad’ Taleban simply vanishes into thin air; that Iran will be happy to install Sunni extremists in Kabul; and that America replaces Pakistan as its ally by its two mortal foes. As Phares writes:In this dizzying maze a la 1990s, one begins to wonder if we are flipping the enemy into an ally, and vice versa, merely so that the slogan of ‘change’ is then materialized. My feeling is that post
...Thin blue end of the wedge
8:03pm
Monday, 17 November 2008
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