Police

Do you remember the great parliamentary battle over privatisation of police services? Me neither, which is why Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is proving a better minister than Andrew Lansley, the Health Secretary. The drive for savings in the police budget is leading two constabularies, West Midlands and Surrey, to outsource certain services. The Guardian has got hold of the tender documents and splashed with the story today. Yvette Cooper is angry — but, crucially, there’s nothing she can do. Theresa May doesn’t need legislation to enact this reform; it’s not even being done under orders of the Home Office. This is two police forces who would rather save money

The Spectator‘s cover, a few weeks ago, borrowed one of The Sun‘s most famous headlines: ‘Gotcha’ — but, this time, with tabloid journalists caught in the trap. It was supposed to be a parody. But, this weekend, the Metropolitan Police arrested a further five journalists from The Sun using methods normally meted out to drug dealers: pulling them out of their beds, searching their houses for concealed evidence. No one has been charged, but all five are suspected of paying sources for information: i.e. ‘aiding and abetting misconduct in a public office … and conspiracy in relation to both these offences.’ If the definition of bribery extends to buying sources outrageously-priced

There have been signs recently that ministers are slipping back into the policy-by-headline mindset that defined the last Labour government. We’re seeing the sorts of policies that lack evidence, are launched without any detail on timetables or implementation, and are usually geared around an initiative — if possible, a pilot or a local trial that is short-lived and guaranteed not to alter very much. Today the Home Office brought us a classic of the kind: the ‘community trigger’ to address anti-social behaviour. The Home Secretary’s motivation is sincere, but the method — devised by her officials — is deeply flawed. With what detail we have, we know that it will be piloted

“As an American who spent many years in this underground industry, I can tell you that the British phone hacking scandal has exposed only a tiny part of a vast criminal network.” So Frank Ahearn wrote in The Spectator a few weeks ago: he spent his life as a “skip-tracer” (as they’re called in America), dealing in the black market for information. There are many clients, he says, and journalists are just one part of it. The people he worked for included husbands investigating wives, insurance companies trying to expose dodgy claims and – yes – even the police, using “skip-tracers” to solve cases. Finally, this aspect of the British

Kelvin MacKenzie reveals in tomorrow’s Spectator that he was interviewed as a potential victim of the News of the World phone hacking scandal. Here’s his story: It was the kind of building George Smiley would have been happy to call home.Anonymous and bleak, it’s the home of Operation Weeting, where 60 officers flog themselves to death every day in the biggest Scotland Yard inquiry in anyone’s memory. I am here by appointment. A charming woman detective has called me a couple of times — when you are a former tabloid editor that’s worrying in itself  — and asked me to drop by ‘at my convenience’ to look at the fact

The Daily Telegraph is tonight alleging that Neil Wallis was paid by the News of the World to provide crime exclusives while working as a consultant for the Metropolitan police. The paper claims that the News of the World paid Wallis £25,000 for information including the details of Scotland Yard operations during this period. According to the Telegraph, £10,000 of the £25,000 was for a single story. This revelation will increase the pressure on the police to reveal fully the extent of contacts between it and News International. But with Paul Stephenson already having resigned over the hiring of Wallis as a consultant, further resignations are unlikely. The other hack-gate

As the wave of rioting and looting swept through London earlier this month it was disturbing to see how the actions of a minority could engender fear and disorder on such a grand scale. As the dust settles and the reality of this episode fades away, there is a simple fact that is at risk of being buried under the heap of condemnation of criminals and praise for the police – namely, that such a relatively small number (just over 2,000 were arrested in London out of a population of 8 million) of people deployed themselves so effectively as to bring London to its knees.  Yet thankfully effective deployment is