The Met in turmoil
The search for a successor to Britain’s most senior police office was under way this week, following the surprise resignation of Cressida Dick. The Metropolitan Police commissioner announced she would leave the post after London’s Mayor, Sadiq Khan, said he was not satisfied with Dick’s plans to “root out” misogyny and racism in the Met. “It is clear that the Mayor no longer has sufficient confidence in my leadership to continue,” she said. “He has left me no choice.”
Her exit follows a rocky period for the Met. Most recently, the force was hit by news that officers at Charing Cross police station had shared misogynistic and racist remarks on WhatsApp; it has also been criticised for its handling of Partygate and for its failure to stop PC Wayne Couzens before he murdered Sarah Everard last year. The head of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents rank-andfile officers, said its members had “no faith” in Khan.
What the editorials said
“In the end, she had to go,” said The Times. A hard-working and dedicated officer during her 40-year policing career, Dick had shown a commendable desire to push through reforms needed to change the “toxic culture” of her force. But ultimately, “the scandals were too many, the responses too lame and the image of the country’s biggest police force too tarnished” for her to carry on, and she “quit before being sacked” by Khan – who was well within his rights to act as he did.
The question of who replaces her is of national importance, said The Independent. True, the commissioner is primarily focused on London; but the Met also acts as a national agency on issues like terrorism, serious crime and fraud. It’s a huge job, agreed The Guardian – and it’s all the more important in light of the ongoing police investigation into Downing Street parties, a probe that could ultimately spell the end of Boris Johnson’s premiership. Dick’s successor will be picked by Home Secretary Priti Patel, after consultation with Khan – but whoever is chosen must be left free to complete the Partygate investigation unimpeded.
What the commentators said
Frankly, I’m amazed Dick lasted as long as she did, said Sam Greenhill in the Daily Mail. Even before she got the top job, her career might have ended owing to the 2005 operation in which an innocent man, Jean Charles de Menezes, was shot dead by officers who mistook him for a terrorist. In recent years, there have been several “disasters” on her watch: from Operation Midland (fictitious VIP sex abuse allegations) to her response to Everard’s killing by a serving PC, which she put down to the odd “bad ’un” in the Met’s ranks. A “jaw-dropping” report last year into the 1987 killing of private investigator Daniel Morgan said the Met was “institutionally corrupt”, and that Dick personally obstructed the search for the truth. Her bread-and-butter policing record was no better, said Leo McKinstry in the Daily Express. Last year, a record 30 teenagers were killed in London, where only 3.8% of burglaries were solved.
Even so, said Fiona Hamilton in The Times, this was a dramatic fall for an officer once viewed as “the best of her generation”. Senior colleagues rated her “calm but resolute manner”; rankand-file officers liked her willingness to go out to bat for them. Yet her “Met lifer” instinct to defend colleagues ultimately contributed to her downfall: she continued to deny there were widespread problems in the face of mounting evidence. Now, the debate turns to who should take over a job many see as a “poisoned chalice”, running a vast organisation facing budget cuts running into the billions and ebbing public confidence. The job looks too big for one person to do properly, said Henry Hill in The Daily Telegraph. So why not split the unwieldy Met up? A normal constabulary could focus on “better policing for Londoners” and answer to the Mayor; and a national body could be accountable to the Home Office and take charge of areas such as close protection, counter-terror and aviation policing. Dick’s departure “offers a long-overdue opportunity for an overhaul of this country’s largest police force”. Let’s seize it.
What next?
Dick will remain in post for an unspecified period to ensure an orderly handover to her successor. Paid a salary of about £230,000, she’d recently signed a twoyear extension to her contract, which had been due to expire in April. Her payoff could exceed £400,000, reports The Times.
Early front-runners to succeed her include Sir Mark Rowley, an ex-head of anti-terrorism; Andy Cooke, the former Merseyside chief; Louisa Rolfe, a senior Met officer and specialist on tackling violence against women; and Steve Kavanagh, the former Essex chief.