Is British policing broken beyond repair?

As ye shall not be the least bit surprised, I wasn't impressed by Restore's verbose policing policy. When you break it down, at least half the document is padding with a completely unrealistic and pointless implementation plan. Most of all, it's badly structured and badly written, lacking any obvious appreciation of the state we're in, or how the government intends to reform policing.

In my view, the 2026 Home Office white paper is the basis from which to build a policy response. Many of the gripes Restore raises about British policing are already well understood by the Home Office, and some of the measures the government's white paper proposes are actually quite sensible. Others, not so much. It is for political parties to look at the current state of play, and outline their course corrections rather than creating blue-sky fantasy blueprints based on hackneyed nostalgia.

In a PhD thesis, after the introduction, the first substantive section should be the literature review, with summarises the state of play. Only then can you establish your own thesis, which is supposed to build on what is, rather than attempt to reinvent the wheel. Policy making works much the same way. What the Restore paper does - apart from anything else - is re-emphasise that policy-making is a specific discipline, which very much has its own rules. It is not for amateurs, and requires a skill-set that is clearly lacking in most of those who are attempting it. I’d even include myself in that. I have half a clue, and that’s more than most, which is why I make the attempt.

As far as a policy outline goes, I think you can do a lot more with a lot less. Spurred by Restore's effort, I put a few hours into updating the policing section on the Manifesto Project, linking it with the broader ambitions for a right wing government.

Part of the problem with our police, I find, is a lack of of a driving mission, which explains its structural incoherence. The mission should dictate the structure. Restore, instead, opts for an ideological restructure to "restore" the police to a previous iteration - when modern Britain requires a much more mission driven approach - namely that of tackling the rampant organised crime and other issues related to mass immigration.

My effort is still a work in progress. Running at nearly seven thousand words, I could easily expand it to be twice as long and still come in at half the length of Restore's paper, while saying a great deal more. Readability, I think, is key, though its a moot point since the brains of Restore supporters capsize at the sight of a five paragraph tweet. They're not going to read either.

For my part, it's a just worthwhile thought exercise, and unlike Restore, I actually welcome ferocious criticism. My main difference in approach, policy wise, is that I don't place the same emphasis on present day gripes such as "woke police" and I don't think fixing the police in isolation is going to make much of a difference. Unless you also have a plan to fix the courts, the prisons, addiction services, local authority enforcement systems, welfare, and much else, even the best police force is just going to be sweeping leaves on a windy day. That's why a joined-up manifesto is necessary. Addressing policy in distinct silos is where politics as a whole is going wrong.

That said, I think we’re past the point where even good policy can repair the police. Being on X most of the time, I regularly see footage of the police when they’re not covering themselves in glory. I measure this against my own experience last year when I was arrested for a tweet. The consistent theme in these incidents is that the average plod is is thick, hopelessly indoctrinated, gullible, and unfit for the role. Fundamentally, it’s a people problem.

That’s where it gets depressing. We need intelligent, savvy, conscientious, courageous and physically fit people to do the job, and if those people exist (which they don’t), they wouldn’t pass the vetting, and they wouldn’t do such a shit job, especially with what we’re paying.

But it mainly comes down to the fact that such people no longer exist. Garbage in, garbage out. We are not a serious country, we are not a serious people, and we’ve let things get so badly degraded that it’s probably beyond our capacity to correct without strong leadership and coherent political direction - neither of which is coming any time soon. As unserious as Restore is, Reform is no better - and we still don’t yet know what kind of damage Andy Burnham will do. We might be in trouble.