It isn't meaningless, but is of reduced value. The HRA allowed cases (and ECtHR case law) to be dealt with domestically, rather than having to go to Strasbourg.
So the passing of the HRA probably increased the use of ECHR arguments, dubious claims, and successful defenses. Repealing it would probably place us back in the prior position where fewer cases went to the ECtHR.
Excellent. But include reform of prison officers - understaffed, underpaid, and barely coping. They need beefing up in pay, status and conditions. Sentencing rules handed down to and constraining judges need to be revised. Repeat offenders need to be off the streets for much longer.
(i) once imprisoned, time may be added for bad behaviour, but not taken off for good behaviour, since the latter = following rules, i.e. the bare minimum, & does not really merit reward.
(ii) remember that some prisoners are in prison at least partly due to some combination of bad luck, ignorance, poor education and poor opportunities -- there but for the grace of God, etc -- so it would be humane (and wise) to provide at least a subset of them with rehabilitation programmes that work (a whole different topic).
(iii) ensure new prisons are actually safe for both inmates and warders; separate those who might work together to form a threat inside or outside prison; ensure drugs etc cannot be smuggled into the prison (it beggars belief that this is actually possible let alone common).
There is a theory behind systematic early release, namely that such folks can be recalled to prison (if we had the places) to serve the rest of their sentence. Hence it is supposed to ensure good behaviour of them, at lower cost.
Apologies if I've missed this, but I see no role for the current Police and Crime Commissioners. They seem to be another layer of unaccountable management
I believe the College of Policing is responsible for issuing much policing 'guidance' - some of which tends to comprise of politically correct woke nonsense. I think the non-crime hate incident stuff came from them. Harry Miller has been quite critical of them. Might be worth looking into them to see if they are another establishment that needs either reforming or abolishing.
The problems with policing that you articulate mostly come from the politicalisation of the governance of police forces that started with the coalition government in 2010.
Chief Constables (CC) and their Deputies (DCC) and Assistants (ACC) - the Chief Officers of a police force - are appointed by directly elected (i.e: partly political) Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) and Metro Mayors. The PCCs are, in turn, overseen by local police and crime boards with local council (party political) appointees and a few co-opted independents. Policing priorities and agendas have become very political - particularly when the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing (CoP) that set national policies, reflect the political agendas of the PCCs who appointed the CCs who sit on the NPCC and get guidance and projects from the CoP (it is a beautiful circle of group think).
The Police Commissioner publishes an action plan, called a "police and crime plan", that includes initiatives set by the CoP and NPCC (for example DEI quota appointments of police officers).
The problems you identify in your draft manifesto come from party political agendas for policing that the elected government and even the Home Secretary can't really influence.
One way to remove politics from policing might be to adopt the John Lewis model of governance for Police Forces.
That would enable serving Police Officers to elect both their own PCC and the members of their Local Force Governing Body.
The Police and Crime Commissioners and the governing boards would appoint the Chief Constabe and the "chief officers" just as they do now. But the party political agendas would be replaced by priorities set by serving Police Officers.
As politics is currently practiced, manifestos are not summaries of anything. Their vacuity is well known. There is nothing to drill down into.
Mr Variant is to be applauded, therefore, for going about this in the opposite direction. That is, his working document is a detailed analysis and reflection on what needs to be done. It is what you will get if you drill down from what would be a manifesto presented in the conventional way of not overburdening voters and journalists (whose attention spans have degraded along with the rest of the population). It will therefore be completely different from current manifestos. There will be susbstance behind it.
The answer to the question raised below about who would read the long document that is emerging is I will. And so should everyone on here. Even when the detailed document is finalised we should then help with the next phase which is to produce a summary for more popular consumption. That will be no less skilled and difficult a task than the effort already going in to producing the detailed version. We should aim for a pamphlet summary (with links to the detail). A pamphlet worked for Karl Marx.
We suggest how it might be condensed. Precis skills used to be taught in schools so oldies on here can probably help. The trick is to find summaries that resonate but are faithful to the detail being summarised.
1) Reform police training post basic training so that all serving officers have a series of competencies to increase force capacity within a significantly shortened time window. These are to include - blue light training, breathalyser testing, stinger deployment and to also consider taser training. Many officers can spend a long time waiting to get on the courses thereby diluting the overall capacity.
2) Implement a policy that any taser trained officer who wishes to carry a sidearm to be permitted to do so subject to appropriate assessment of capability to do so responsibly, regular training and strict guidance as to when it can be drawn. This one might be a bit more controversial but this was recently a logic advanced by serving officers as potential compromise to the calls for routine arming. I can see the sense in it, given increasing number of incidents that appear more sporadic in nature.
A couple of immediate things spring to mind that might be worth commenting on
The first are some general principles such as Law and Order being one of the bedrocks of a functioning society. Policing is at the forefront of a stable society. If UK policing is based on the consent of the public, that relies on a public being participants in the social contract where we largely police ourselves on the little things. If the policing is ineffective regular people conclude there is no point in playing by the rules. The result is a downward spiral.
As a general principle of what I’m about to comment on is that the police often have the finger pointed at them for failures that lie elsewhere in the system by underperforming institutions that are quite happy to sit quietly whilst the public and the media direct their criticism at the police as a convenient scapegoat.
Firstly this section needs to factor to something in about the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). They are responsible for most of the charging decisions investigated by police. As a general principle some form of reform is and action is required to move them from a risk averse culture which often sets an impossible evidence bar to bring a charge. As an organisation it can often drag out the investigation time either by delaying its response to investigating officers or by repetitive requests for more evidence.
The issue this brings is that overstretched police forces end up unwilling to go beyond basic filing of paperwork when they know the system is ultimately going to send it down a dead end.
Finally the issue of policing being a stop gap for other services that are under resourced needs a mention I think. Officers are often called to fill in for mental health crisis teams and social services. Some of these services are routinely relying on the police to attend to the point where it has a become an expectation from that service and effectively allowing them to devolve their responsibilities to the police. I would suggest that all central govt or the relevant police boards you propose follow the example of Humberside police and give 12 months notice that they will not routinely attend calls that fall under the fundamental offer of other services so that police resource is freed up to carry out it’s core mission for a public who should be entitled to this.
A great read, and full of content that I could and would vote for. I agree with the comment about numbering the paragraphs, although I imagine any final draft may well be numbered. This would make it simpler to discuss certain sections. I am curious to know what would you do with PCSOs, as that is a large pool of people that could be put to good use in a number of ways such as helping where numbers are needed urgently; for instance public events, sporting events, state visits and similar?
I’m looking for a bonfire of overly bureaucratic, niche laws and a return to something simple, per my Do no Harm law to replace several thousand others. Everyone understands the concept, making it easy to interpret, prosecute, defend and implement. It also introduces a key concept into our culture as a foundation for your well laid out issue of trust.
< “We will restore real community policing by rebuilding local police stations and detention facilities.” >
< “Headcount and salaries will improve…” >
< “The first order of business will be to build three new super-prisons.” >
< “If we lack the prison space, we will build more prisons.” >
You also admirably state why.
But what you don’t state is the how.
I suspect the police service has deteriorated in large part not only through < “amalgamations, streamlining and politicisation” > but also, at least, through inefficiencies and lack of finance.
Don’t you consider your mandate should include how to achieve the correcting, at least, of inefficiencies and lack of finance?
Length of manifesto -- it is surely unavoidable to have a beefy document for such a broad and complex topic. Also, it is a work in progress, and doubtless will be tightened up and provided with an Exec Summary etc, as it takes shape.
It doesn't matter if nobody reads it. The point is, it exists. I look at a party like Reform, which hasn't done this work, and its "manifesto" doesn't reflect any serious thinking. As such, there is no reason to take it seriously. This document is the foundational work for a summary manifesto, and an adopting party will not only be able to point to the arguments, it provides the talking points and the communications material. It's an exercise in building credibility among opinion influencers. Moreover, once published, there is no actual excuse for making it up on the fly, making all the avoidable errors that stem from having no intellectual foundation.
Yes. Let none of us fool ourselves that anything we say or do is either meaningful or influential. Yet we must say it, and we must act. Or else we are truly non-existent
The Human Rights Act was 1998 not 1988.
You might want to include leaving the European Convention on Human Rights and The Council of Europe as without that scrapping the HRA is meaningless.
It isn't meaningless, but is of reduced value. The HRA allowed cases (and ECtHR case law) to be dealt with domestically, rather than having to go to Strasbourg.
So the passing of the HRA probably increased the use of ECHR arguments, dubious claims, and successful defenses. Repealing it would probably place us back in the prior position where fewer cases went to the ECtHR.
Excellent. But include reform of prison officers - understaffed, underpaid, and barely coping. They need beefing up in pay, status and conditions. Sentencing rules handed down to and constraining judges need to be revised. Repeat offenders need to be off the streets for much longer.
Suggestions:
(i) once imprisoned, time may be added for bad behaviour, but not taken off for good behaviour, since the latter = following rules, i.e. the bare minimum, & does not really merit reward.
(ii) remember that some prisoners are in prison at least partly due to some combination of bad luck, ignorance, poor education and poor opportunities -- there but for the grace of God, etc -- so it would be humane (and wise) to provide at least a subset of them with rehabilitation programmes that work (a whole different topic).
(iii) ensure new prisons are actually safe for both inmates and warders; separate those who might work together to form a threat inside or outside prison; ensure drugs etc cannot be smuggled into the prison (it beggars belief that this is actually possible let alone common).
There is a theory behind systematic early release, namely that such folks can be recalled to prison (if we had the places) to serve the rest of their sentence. Hence it is supposed to ensure good behaviour of them, at lower cost.
Apologies if I've missed this, but I see no role for the current Police and Crime Commissioners. They seem to be another layer of unaccountable management
If you do away with PCCs who would you trust to appoint chief constables?
However they used to do it previously.
Suggest you number paragraphs to facilitate debate. This is important work. Congrats.
I believe the College of Policing is responsible for issuing much policing 'guidance' - some of which tends to comprise of politically correct woke nonsense. I think the non-crime hate incident stuff came from them. Harry Miller has been quite critical of them. Might be worth looking into them to see if they are another establishment that needs either reforming or abolishing.
The problems with policing that you articulate mostly come from the politicalisation of the governance of police forces that started with the coalition government in 2010.
Chief Constables (CC) and their Deputies (DCC) and Assistants (ACC) - the Chief Officers of a police force - are appointed by directly elected (i.e: partly political) Police and Crime Commissioners (PCC) and Metro Mayors. The PCCs are, in turn, overseen by local police and crime boards with local council (party political) appointees and a few co-opted independents. Policing priorities and agendas have become very political - particularly when the National Police Chief’s Council (NPCC) and the College of Policing (CoP) that set national policies, reflect the political agendas of the PCCs who appointed the CCs who sit on the NPCC and get guidance and projects from the CoP (it is a beautiful circle of group think).
The Police Commissioner publishes an action plan, called a "police and crime plan", that includes initiatives set by the CoP and NPCC (for example DEI quota appointments of police officers).
The problems you identify in your draft manifesto come from party political agendas for policing that the elected government and even the Home Secretary can't really influence.
One way to remove politics from policing might be to adopt the John Lewis model of governance for Police Forces.
That would enable serving Police Officers to elect both their own PCC and the members of their Local Force Governing Body.
The Police and Crime Commissioners and the governing boards would appoint the Chief Constabe and the "chief officers" just as they do now. But the party political agendas would be replaced by priorities set by serving Police Officers.
As politics is currently practiced, manifestos are not summaries of anything. Their vacuity is well known. There is nothing to drill down into.
Mr Variant is to be applauded, therefore, for going about this in the opposite direction. That is, his working document is a detailed analysis and reflection on what needs to be done. It is what you will get if you drill down from what would be a manifesto presented in the conventional way of not overburdening voters and journalists (whose attention spans have degraded along with the rest of the population). It will therefore be completely different from current manifestos. There will be susbstance behind it.
The answer to the question raised below about who would read the long document that is emerging is I will. And so should everyone on here. Even when the detailed document is finalised we should then help with the next phase which is to produce a summary for more popular consumption. That will be no less skilled and difficult a task than the effort already going in to producing the detailed version. We should aim for a pamphlet summary (with links to the detail). A pamphlet worked for Karl Marx.
We suggest how it might be condensed. Precis skills used to be taught in schools so oldies on here can probably help. The trick is to find summaries that resonate but are faithful to the detail being summarised.
Another couple of suggestions
1) Reform police training post basic training so that all serving officers have a series of competencies to increase force capacity within a significantly shortened time window. These are to include - blue light training, breathalyser testing, stinger deployment and to also consider taser training. Many officers can spend a long time waiting to get on the courses thereby diluting the overall capacity.
2) Implement a policy that any taser trained officer who wishes to carry a sidearm to be permitted to do so subject to appropriate assessment of capability to do so responsibly, regular training and strict guidance as to when it can be drawn. This one might be a bit more controversial but this was recently a logic advanced by serving officers as potential compromise to the calls for routine arming. I can see the sense in it, given increasing number of incidents that appear more sporadic in nature.
A couple of immediate things spring to mind that might be worth commenting on
The first are some general principles such as Law and Order being one of the bedrocks of a functioning society. Policing is at the forefront of a stable society. If UK policing is based on the consent of the public, that relies on a public being participants in the social contract where we largely police ourselves on the little things. If the policing is ineffective regular people conclude there is no point in playing by the rules. The result is a downward spiral.
As a general principle of what I’m about to comment on is that the police often have the finger pointed at them for failures that lie elsewhere in the system by underperforming institutions that are quite happy to sit quietly whilst the public and the media direct their criticism at the police as a convenient scapegoat.
Firstly this section needs to factor to something in about the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS). They are responsible for most of the charging decisions investigated by police. As a general principle some form of reform is and action is required to move them from a risk averse culture which often sets an impossible evidence bar to bring a charge. As an organisation it can often drag out the investigation time either by delaying its response to investigating officers or by repetitive requests for more evidence.
The issue this brings is that overstretched police forces end up unwilling to go beyond basic filing of paperwork when they know the system is ultimately going to send it down a dead end.
Finally the issue of policing being a stop gap for other services that are under resourced needs a mention I think. Officers are often called to fill in for mental health crisis teams and social services. Some of these services are routinely relying on the police to attend to the point where it has a become an expectation from that service and effectively allowing them to devolve their responsibilities to the police. I would suggest that all central govt or the relevant police boards you propose follow the example of Humberside police and give 12 months notice that they will not routinely attend calls that fall under the fundamental offer of other services so that police resource is freed up to carry out it’s core mission for a public who should be entitled to this.
A great read, and full of content that I could and would vote for. I agree with the comment about numbering the paragraphs, although I imagine any final draft may well be numbered. This would make it simpler to discuss certain sections. I am curious to know what would you do with PCSOs, as that is a large pool of people that could be put to good use in a number of ways such as helping where numbers are needed urgently; for instance public events, sporting events, state visits and similar?
Also, they are a useful method of finding future policemen. This works both ways, for the Force and the potential recruit.
I’m looking for a bonfire of overly bureaucratic, niche laws and a return to something simple, per my Do no Harm law to replace several thousand others. Everyone understands the concept, making it easy to interpret, prosecute, defend and implement. It also introduces a key concept into our culture as a foundation for your well laid out issue of trust.
Pete, you state what needs to be done, such as:
< “We will restore real community policing by rebuilding local police stations and detention facilities.” >
< “Headcount and salaries will improve…” >
< “The first order of business will be to build three new super-prisons.” >
< “If we lack the prison space, we will build more prisons.” >
You also admirably state why.
But what you don’t state is the how.
I suspect the police service has deteriorated in large part not only through < “amalgamations, streamlining and politicisation” > but also, at least, through inefficiencies and lack of finance.
Don’t you consider your mandate should include how to achieve the correcting, at least, of inefficiencies and lack of finance?
Please don’t ask me for suggestions!
I will get round to the "how". That's the hard part.
Looking forward to the "how"...
Do you mean a fitness test every 6 months (biannual), or one every two years (biennial)?
The former seems like it would be over kill.
One can sink a long way in two years.
It ought to be annual.
Length of manifesto -- it is surely unavoidable to have a beefy document for such a broad and complex topic. Also, it is a work in progress, and doubtless will be tightened up and provided with an Exec Summary etc, as it takes shape.
Executive summaries are a sine qua non, as are conclusions (final summary).
Say what you are going to say
Say it
Say what you've said
That's how it works
"who do you imagine is going to read this?"
It doesn't matter if nobody reads it. The point is, it exists. I look at a party like Reform, which hasn't done this work, and its "manifesto" doesn't reflect any serious thinking. As such, there is no reason to take it seriously. This document is the foundational work for a summary manifesto, and an adopting party will not only be able to point to the arguments, it provides the talking points and the communications material. It's an exercise in building credibility among opinion influencers. Moreover, once published, there is no actual excuse for making it up on the fly, making all the avoidable errors that stem from having no intellectual foundation.
Yes. Let none of us fool ourselves that anything we say or do is either meaningful or influential. Yet we must say it, and we must act. Or else we are truly non-existent