In today’s Telegraph, Simon Heffer reminds Jack Straw of a few home truths. Here is an extract.
Since Labour has an election to win, and since if it doesn't win it Jack Straw will probably be a candidate to pick up the poisoned chalice of leading the party, it is little wonder the Justice Secretary has jumped on the police-bashing bandwagon. He knows most people only encounter the police when being stopped for a minor motoring offence, or when the police are failing to clear up a deeply distressing crime. He knows how dismayed the public is by stories in the media about the police pursuing people who (for example) express disapproval of homosexuals, while failing to pursue burglars. So, in the words of one senior officer who disliked Mr Straw's remarks, this was a cheap shot.
In fact, his comments were worse than that – they reeked of hypocrisy. It was in Mr Straw's four years as home secretary from 1997 to 2001 that the cancerous attitudes that have benighted our police really set in – and they were led from the Home Office. The police ceased to be a force and became a service. They ceased to be a crime-fighting operation and became instead an instrument for the imposition of political correctness. New Labour came in to power with a set of beliefs about minorities of all sorts, and sought to make the police the enforcers of that creed. The wheels fell off at that point.
It’s hard to disagree with him. Since coming to power, Labour has done everything it can to neutralise the effectiveness of police officers by creating more than 3000 new offences and giving them more burdensome and in many cases, unnecessary paperwork to complete. Ministers praise the police when it is expedient for them and criticise them if they think they can get votes out of it.
To read the full article, click HERE.
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