Yet again we have a senior chief constable calling for a single national police force (In England and Wales, where you live determines the kind of policing you get. That isn’t right, 18 November). Gavin Stephens rightly points out the logistical difficulties created by having 43 separate and independent police forces in England and Wales, but he fails to mention the other side of the coin: the increased danger in reduced accountability and the potential increases in the abuse of power by concentrating the considerable powers of chief constables into a single authority.
The importance of pluralism in police provision is occasionally seen in the identification of poor performance and the rectification of abuses by chief constables. To do this would be far more difficult in a single national force. My time on the West Yorkshire police authority when it was an integral part of the West Yorkshire metropolitan county council was salutary. Its policing of the 1984-85 miners’ strike was significantly different from the more confrontational actions in South Yorkshire. It is not possible to guarantee which policy would be followed by a single national force. I would not wish the latter style to become nationally dominant.
Michael Meadowcroft
Leeds
