Priti Patel partly responsible for lack of trust in police, says Labour

Priti Patel with Cressida Dick at a memorial service in November. Yvette Cooper said the home secretary had been ‘silent’ on policing for a year. Photograph: Henry Nicholls/Reuters

Priti Patel must shoulder some blame for the public’s plunging trust in the police in the wake of Cressida Dick’s resignation, her Labour counterpart said on Sunday.

It comes as Keir Starmer placed the Tories’ record on crime at the heart of Labour’s local election campaign which launched just days after the Met commissioner’s departure, and as Boris Johnson faces possible fines for attending parties during lockdown.