Sir, The past week has been a very sad time for the Metropolitan Police. For 180 years the Home Office rebuffed any involvement by London local authorities in the control of the Met because of its national and international responsibilities, with a 1930s comment, for instance, about the need to protect the Met’s “imperial duties”. That legal position changed in the mid-2000s.
Dame Cressida Dick’s departure is a mirror image of mine in 2008. A mayor of one political party disagreeing with a home secretary of a different party, just the other way round in terms of political affiliation. The system of governance is broken.
However, the other thing that has changed is that policing is now a very highly regulated profession. With all respect