Many people will share the mayor of London’s anger and disgust at the Metropolitan police’s glaring failures, including some within the service itself. On Wednesday, Sadiq Khan warned that Cressida Dick, its commissioner, has “days or weeks” to win back trust, signalling he is otherwise ready to oust her.
For some, her command of the operation that led to the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes in 2005 should have barred her from the top job in the first place. After 2017, when she took over, confidence in the Met fell steeply. An explosion in the use of stop and search unnecessarily alienated communities, with little evidence it has led to sustained falls in violence.
