Editorial Comment:

Congratulations to Cressida Dick for being appointed the next Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police. She will be the first woman to lead the service in its 188-year history. Ms Dick brings extensive experience to the role, having first joined the Met as a constable in 1983. She will certainly need it.

Britain’s biggest police force is daunting to manage at the best of times, and she is not helped by the state it has been left in by the man she succeeds. With his commitment to a “total war on criminals”, Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe showed promise after taking over in 2011, but he erred by taking decisions that had a distinctly political air. Operation Midland, which concerned allegations of historic sex abuse by public figures, traumatised the families of Lord Brittan and Sir Edward Heath. The investigation also targeted Lord Bramall, a D-Day veteran, and left Harvey Proctor destitute. Yet it was launched on specious grounds; a later inquiry found that detectives had been taken in by “false allegations”. Other operations, including fruitless investigations into journalists and their sources, showed a similarly disturbing willingness to chase headlines instead of criminals.

Ms Dick knows the perils of wading into politics from her time working with another very political commissioner, Sir Ian Blair. To succeed as Met Commissioner, she must learn from the mistakes of her predecessors. Her focus should be on tackling the crimes that worry people most, whether it be burglaries or terrorism. As Commissioner, Ms Dick must remember that she is there to serve the public, not the politicians. If she does so, her tenure will deserve its place in history.