If you’re trying to find New Labour’s deepest flaw, just ask a policeman

In his Dimbleby Lecture last year, the Metropolitan Police Commissioner, Sir Ian Blair, declared that ‘policing is becoming not only central to our understanding of citizenship, it is becoming a contestable political issue as never before’. He called for ‘open thought’ and an ‘open debate’. He said it was time for the police service to transform itself into ‘one holistic service’.

In most police canteens they probably think that ‘holistic’ is a kind of glue. But Sir Ian is, if nothing else, a very unusual copper. He has the troubled countenance of a regional manager for Kwik-Fit Euro who is failing to make his targets and dreads every call from head office. Yet he speaks like a sociologist: more Howard Kirk from The History Man than Dixon of Dock Green.

Well, Sir Ian might say, so what? Where does it say that Knacker is only allowed to read the Riot Act, and can’t dip into a little Durkheim or Gramsci? And the Met Commissioner would be right, I suppose.