“If anybody here questions the need for the police to change, I am here to tell you that it’s time to face up to reality.”
After yet another shameful week for the police, those words could have been spoken yesterday. But in fact they date back seven years to a furious showdown between the then home secretary, Theresa May, and a stony-faced Police Federation. The cherished British ideal of policing by consent was, she told them, in danger of being destroyed by scandals ranging from the covert surveillance of murder victim Stephen Lawrence’s family to allegations of corruption, bribe-taking and covering up fatal police errors during the Hillsborough football stadium disaster. At the time, May thought it was worrying that only two-thirds of the public trusted the police to tell the truth. Now that feels like a figure from some lost golden age.
