Can the Met be trusted?

[thirdcrank]

The other point is that she wasn't in post immediately before that so - even by standards of the renowned slipshod sub-editing at the Garudian - it's technically correct

[DaveReading]

Screenshot 2022-02-16 at 17.15.10.png
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/202 ... polls-show

Jonathan

PS: I've written to the Guardian to complain about the "... since... " title.

I'm sure most Guardian readers are capable of understanding the difference between since (preposition) and since (conjunction).

[Psamathe]

To be fair to the Grauniad, the curve on that chart only covers the period since 2017

PS I see the source is the Mayor's office so it seems to reinforce my point that he's been slow in expressing his own lack of confidence

Not on the timescales of the graph but I saw Khan interviewed some time back when he did start raising the confidence issue and it did emerge that he had asked Ms Dick for her plan some time before he them publicly raised the matter. So she did have longer to draw-up her plan than the time between reports of "days or weeks" and Ms. Dick declining to present her plan to Khan.

Ian

[Jdsk]

PS: I've written to the Guardian to complain about the "... since... " title.

I'm sure most Guardian readers are capable of understanding the difference between since (preposition) and since (conjunction).

: - )

I hadn't checked their style guide... here's the entry:

as or since?
“As” is causal: I cannot check the online style guide as the connection is down; “since” is temporal: Luckily, I have had the latest edition of Guardian Style on my desk since it was published
https://www.theguardian.com/guardian-ob ... or%20since

!

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

As it's now normal on here, have you a source for that?

It doesn't really make that much difference now, because the main thing is what happens in future. IMO it's naïve to believe that the commissioner post is suitable for an individual in the modern era. What's Sadiq Khan's view on change of the structure of the Met? eg Shedding the national functions and transferring the entire responsibility for policing London to the Mayor - in line with the rest of the country.
==================================================
The Guardian's style guide seems to be a diversion from the truly important problems

[Hellhound]

PS: I've written to the Guardian to complain about the "... since... " title.

Do people really do that?

[Jdsk]

PS: I've written to the Guardian to complain about the "... since... " title.

Do people really do that?

Yes. Lots of us do. And they have a Readers' Editor who replies. And occasionally they write a piece about what has been discussed.

Lies and other dishonest reporting by the media comes up quite often in this forum. This is a pragmatic countermeasure.

Jonathan

[thirdcrank]

There's nobody more critical of both spin and sloppy reporting than I am. In this case, IMO the apparent pronounced and continuous fall in the ratings for CD is important, imo particularly in the context of the Mayor's Office apparently releasing it only now, which looks to me like trying to justify the Mayor's actions, rather than a contribution to any plan or proposals for the future of policing of London at this crucial time.

A free press is vital and a newspaper responding to to the concerns of its readers is a good thing. The caption of that chart may be of importance to Guardian readers who are, after all, from a different mould to say Daily Mail readers and worthy of a quinquireme-type readers' discussion, but that's it.

[Hellhound]

PS: I've written to the Guardian to complain about the "... since... " title.

Do people really do that?

Yes. Lots of us do. And they have a Readers' Editor who replies. And occasionally they write a piece about what has been discussed.

Lies and other dishonest reporting by the media comes up quite often in this forum. This is a pragmatic countermeasure.

Jonathan

I don't read newspapers,never have,but if I did I doubt something would bother me enough for me to actually write in!

[Jdsk]

"CPS authorise charges against three police officers over WhatsApp comments":
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-aut ... p-comments

Jonathan

[Psamathe]

"CPS authorise charges against three police officers over WhatsApp comments":
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-aut ... p-comments

Jonathan

Makes a change that even the individual who has since left the force is being charged as it's a criminal offence. So often Police launch an inquiry and those being investigated are not investigated as they have since left the force.

Ian

[thirdcrank]

"CPS authorise charges against three police officers over WhatsApp comments":
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-aut ... p-comments

Jonathan

Makes a change that even the individual who has since left the force is being charged as it's a criminal offence. So often Police launch an inquiry and those being investigated are not investigated as they have since left the force.(My bld)

Ian

This seems a trivial point for me to make in this context, but in most jobs the sack is the heaviest sanction available for an employment-related matter. Under the former quasi-judicial discipline system, it was possible sometime to play the system eg by going sick. The current system is more closely-aligned with employment practices more generally, except that it involves a quasi-judicial hearing. Even if somebody has already left the police, it's open to the panel to rule that the accused (?) would have been dismissed had they still been serving and place them on a national list to prevent them rejoin another force.

FWIW, all these changes took place since I retired, so I only know the above from what's appeared in the media: ie open to anybody, not an obscure subject.

To try to relate this to the reform of the Met in particular and the police more generally, AIUI from media reports, this investigation was carried out by the Independent Office For Police Conduct. The investigators seized the personal phones of people suspected to have shared messages with him. And fair enough, but (and with a nod to the Guardian readers) this looks like a Herculean task, akin to cleaning the Augean Stables, so how will that be achieved by one mortal?

[AlaninWales]

"CPS authorise charges against three police officers over WhatsApp comments":
https://www.cps.gov.uk/cps/news/cps-aut ... p-comments

Jonathan

Makes a change that even the individual who has since left the force is being charged as it's a criminal offence. So often Police launch an inquiry and those being investigated are not investigated as they have since left the force.(My bld)

Ian

This seems a trivial point for me to make in this context, but in most jobs the sack is the heaviest sanction available for an employment-related matter. ...

I think the point made here is that a criminal offence is what is being investigated. Police investigations of their own officers do (as you suggest) treat such investigations, very frequently, as 'employment-related'; indeed you seem to suggest that this is the case here: However when the investigation is into what in other circumstances would be a criminal matter, the sanction should not stop with resignation (or 'going sick'). After all, it wouldn't for the rest of us: Matters empolyment related which uncovered criminal behaviour, would be referred by any normal employer, to the police to follow up as criminal investigations.
That Jonathan raises this continued investigation as unusual, demonstrates how many (including I) see the police as failing to properly pursue 'their own' when it comes to criminal conduct.

[Slowtwitch]

PS: I've written to the Guardian to complain about the "... since... " title.

Do people really do that?

They do. But they are the kind of people if you met them in a pub, you'd take your drink and go and sit somewhere else

[thirdcrank]

Makes a change that even the individual who has since left the force is being charged as it's a criminal offence. So often Police launch an inquiry and those being investigated are not investigated as they have since left the force.(My bld)

Ian

This seems a trivial point for me to make in this context, but in most jobs the sack is the heaviest sanction available for an employment-related matter. ...

I think the point made here is that a criminal offence is what is being investigated. Police investigations of their own officers do (as you suggest) treat such investigations, very frequently, as 'employment-related'; indeed you seem to suggest that this is the case here: However when the investigation is into what in other circumstances would be a criminal matter, the sanction should not stop with resignation (or 'going sick'). After all, it wouldn't for the rest of us: Matters empolyment related which uncovered criminal behaviour, would be referred by any normal employer, to the police to follow up as criminal investigations.
That Jonathan raises this continued investigation as unusual, demonstrates how many (including I) see the police as failing to properly pursue 'their own' when it comes to criminal conduct.

I have no problem with trimming long long quotes to get to the point, but whenever I do it, I try to keep the sense of what was being said. My feeling that you may not have taken care reading what I said is only reinforced by the suggestion I was replying to Jonathan when I quoted Psamathe and replied to what he said.

If we accept the implication that nothing will improve until others investigate police misconduct of every sort, then that's still suggests that simply replacing the outgoing commissioner with another will be unlikely to resolve all the perceived problems.