Back on the beat

When an institution is plagued by internal feuds, a loss of public trust and a muddled sense of mission, the elevation of an internal candidate to its helm is rarely a matter for celebration. But the appointment of Sir Paul Stephenson to be the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police is an exception to this generality. Unlike his predecessor, Sir Ian Blair, and his chief rival for the job, Sir Hugh Orde — head of the Police Service of Northern Ireland — Stephenson is not a politician in uniform. The new commissioner, who still commutes from his home in rural Lancashire, should bring a much-needed dose of common sense to the Met and return it to its core mission of fighting crime.

The appointment process, and the fate of his predecessor, will have alerted Stephenson to one of the biggest challenges that he faces: keeping both a Tory Mayor of London and a Labour Home Secretary happy.