Britain is running out of patience with our woefully incompetent police

Telegraph

4 days ago

You see it in the failure to confront the grooming gangs – where fear of being labelled racist or Islamophobic meant that young, white, working-class girls were left to be raped, assaulted, and even killed. You see it in the symbolic and politicised gestures of recent years: officers taking the knee for Black Lives Matter, wearing rainbow lanyards, flying Progress Pride flags above police stations, and daubing rainbows on faces, uniforms, and patrol cars.
And you see it in the collapse of public confidence as the fight against crime and disorder shudders to a halt. This isn't just a cultural drift – it's a failure of leadership. The College of Policing, part of Theresa May's botched policing reforms of the 2010s, was supposed to be the profession's North Star – driving up standards and improving service to the public.
Instead, it has failed to earn the trust of frontline officers and has arguably done more to undermine effective policing than support it. It was therefore striking to see Sir Andy Marsh QPM, head of the College and former Chief Constable, recently rebrand himself in an interview as a champion of common sense and crime-fighting zeal.
Marsh called for a crackdown on cannabis – something any right-thinking citizen can support. The stench of this psychosis-inducing, life-wrecking drug should be sufficient to motivate chiefs to tackle it. But it was the College that issued wrong-headed guidance telling officers the smell of cannabis alone shouldn't justify a stop and search.
Marsh invoked former NYPD and LAPD Commissioner Bill Bratton and the 'broken windows' approach. Yet neither Marsh nor the College has previously spoken in favour of it. In fact, the College's own guidance still claims such policing 'has not had a statistically significant effect on crime.'
He claims policing needs to 'refocus on enforcing the law' – but this from the man who oversaw officers standing by as a mob in Bristol toppled and dumped the statue of Edward Colston.
In the aftermath, Marsh defended the inaction: 'Can you imagine scenes of police in Bristol fighting with protesters who were damaging the statue of a man who is reputed to have gathered much of his fortune through the slave trade?' Yes. That's what the rule of law demands. Instead, Marsh signalled that enforcing the law was optional if it might look bad.
Marsh also extols the virtues of neighbourhood policing, calling it 'one of the basic foundations of our ability to tackle crime.' Yet the College has been instrumental to defanging the bobby on the beat. Its 37-page neighbourhood policing guidelines for bobbies reference 'enforcement' just twice, and only to warn it may 'deliver some short-term results' or be 'counterproductive.' 'Engagement,' by contrast, is mentioned 29 times and enshrined as 'Guideline #1.'
A colleague at The Public Safety Foundation recently had his car broken into. The local police have known for over six months that the area is a hotspot. Yet instead of proactive policing (stops, searches, arrests) the local team offered 'engagement.'
The combination of a huge surge in recruitment, sub-par training, and shoddy guidance – all signed off by the College – means policing is rapidly forgetting its purpose. Marsh now claims to be opposed to policing aligning itself with activist causes, but for years he wore rainbow lanyards and even said he'd support police officers taking the knee for Black Lives Matters.
And, when a former Home Secretary – Suella Braverman – rightly called on policing to step away from contested and divisive political agendas, the College was barely to be heard. No guidance. No support. No leadership.
Sir Andy's recent interview may ring hollow – but it's a useful weather vane. It suggests police chiefs – many steeped in progressive dogma – are starting to realise the tide is turning, or at least that they must become more covert. They likely don't realise it, but they have four years to show that British policing is back on the side of the law-abiding – and worthy of public trust and funding.
If not, the next general election will likely command a full factory reset of this vital institution. One that is fundamental to the first duty of government: keeping the public safe from crime and disorder