Only those of the most exalted rank in our fighting services, have as many Officers under command, as does the Metropolitan Commissioner of Police. Between Peel’s foundation of the Police Force and 1930, the allegation was that it had become not all we aspired it to be. After Lord Trenchard was appointed Police Commissioner in 1931 he set about getting the force to clean up its act. It was he who a year before his retirement in 1935, created the Hendon Police College. This College was to recruit the brightest and the best into the Police Force, persons who would emerge with the newly created rank of Junior Inspector, and the expectation of early promotion to the Rank of Inspector. Some criticised the College saying that it would lead to the militarization of the Police, because it mimicked the Army Officer entry through Sandhurst , and the like. Well those critics were wrong, for it didn’t. None the less the College was abandoned at the outbreak of war, later to become an all rank Police Training College. Now all Officers start their career as ‘one of the Boys or Girls’ of the alleged Canteen Culture. That being so it seems logical , that compromise will thereby persist throughout the hierarchy.

Sir Robert Mark when appointed Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police was reported to comment that the test of any Police Force was that it should catch more criminals than it employed. He was thereby suggesting that the Metropolitan Police had reverted to its pre 1930 ways. Did this remark not indicate that the abandonment of the Trenchard College soon after the outbreak of war was an error of judgement? One gathered from his book, ‘In Office Of Constable’ written in his retirement, that the departing Hendon old guard and his new , didn’t quite see eye to eye. If now things really are as bad as ever they were, is it not time for the reinstatement of Trenchard Style Recruitment. May I commend to your attention Lord Trenchard’s 1946 speech in the House of Lords .
hansard.millbanksystems.com/lords/1946/. ../hendon-police-college

The Police Forces do a very difficult job on behalf of us all, but none should be recruited to it, or be promoted in it on the basis of Political Correctness. If ‘happened upon’ by a Police Officer one needs to know that he or she is someone serving on merit, rather than holds office as a sop to social disadvantagement. Seemingly The ‘Met’ is no better now than it was in 1930 .

FURTERMORE One hears tell of something called the’ Black Police Officer’s Association’. This seems an abomination in the face of the Race Relations Act. 1976, much as any single sex candidate list seemingly offends the 1975 Sex Discrimination Act. That no one is prosecuted over such offences illustrates the inadequacy of our Leadership. Positive discrimination is an evil of our time whether it be in a Public Service or the selection of Parliamentary Candidates. One needs to select the best man or woman for every job, regardless of gender or ethnicity. Doing anything else dissuades would be applicants from offering their services, whilst encouraging good ‘men’ already holding office to resign. OUR COUNTRY NEEDS EFFECTIVE LEADERSHIP NOT INEFFECTUAL HANGERS ON.