Crime and Policing

Obviously, there will be a distinction between police commissioners getting involved in day-to-day operational duties and their other role, but I think it will be perfectly in order for candidates to debate that question and how we deal with the clear-up issue. That is a matter of legitimate public concern and debate, so I do not see any problem with dealing with that. It would be a different matter if on a day-to-day basis, a particular case were in some way influenced by a commissioner. In terms of the remit of that elected official, that would be to stray into the wrong territory. There was a rather absurd reversal of roles, whereby senior Ministers—a succession of Labour Home Secretaries—wanted to outdo each other in order to sound tough on crime. The right hon. Member for Kingston upon Hull West and Hessle (Alan Johnson) is not in his place, but he described his era as a golden age: a year of broad sunlit uplands, peace and tranquillity, as he stood with a shining sword in hand, on his way to the new Jerusalem. Juxtaposed with that, senior police officers increasingly sounded like politicians and had to defend the indefensible. Their language became more and more obscure, and they did not sound like police officers anymore or like the representatives of a police force—a point that my hon. Friend the Member for Broxtowe made and I strongly support. Something was rotten in our state, and, if this Government had not acted quickly to recognise that, something would continue to be wrong.