Cutting the police was always going to be difficult without a terror attack just before the spending review, but naturally the events in Paris have made it much more difficult for the Treasury to stand up to the Home office in a fight that was going to happen anyway.
The leaked letter from one of the most senior police officers to Theresa May warning that cutting police numbers would ‘reduce very significantly’ the UK’s ability to respond to a terror attack is very helpful indeed to the Home Secretary. So helpful that she is unlikely to be the one calling for a leak inquiry.
Similarly, Andy Burnham’s original push for the cuts to be limited to 10 per cent was sufficiently helpful for the government that David Cameron was able to latch onto it at Prime Minister’s Questions this week, suggesting that the government would try to seek some consensus with Labour, at least so that ministers could turn around and quote Burnham’s words back at him whenever he complained about the cuts.
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