THE GUARDIAN

Policing in Britain

Promising to spend more money on policing has proved politically popular and effective in Britain. Whether extra spending is actually an effective use of public money is a different question. Home secretary, Amber Rudd, admitted that there is indeed a problem of stretched resources. But it is a mistake to think about police cuts in exactly the same way as other cuts. As prime minister, May faces the reality that police effectiveness is being stretched too far, first on counterterrorism, then on neighbourhood policing, and now on the threat from cybercrime. All these are issues in which the state has core responsibilities to protect the public and that cannot and must not be shirked.