UK - A Leftist Mind At Work . . .

One of the biggest complaints I have heard from my UK friends and acquintances has been about the police - or rather the lack of local policing. Police in the UK are centralized and run by the government. Many local communities suffer from a lack of responsive and efficient police services.

It would seem patently obvious that if you want to make the police responsive to local concerns, you would give the locals the hiring and firing authority through elections. No more appointments from above. The people elect their constables and sherrifs, and the constables and sherrifs are then given full hiring and firing authority over their personnel. Budgeting for them is set at the local level with grants from the central government. The central government can set the minimum standards and ground rules, but all beyond that is between the locals and their elected police officials.

Ah, but that would violate the very first tenet of the multicultural left - that they are superior and the decisions should be left to them. Therefore, when John Reid, Labour's current Home Secretary, looks at how to better increase the accountability of local police to the local populace, the mere mention of local elections does not even pass his lips. Instead, he suggests that the Brits be brave when tackling this issue, and that they start giving out phone numbers directly to the police station:

. . . [L]et's explore how to increase local accountability while decreasing central direction. Ensuring that the police are accountable to the public they serve is essential in retaining confidence in the work they do. We should not be frightened of exploring new ways of doing this. We need to look at what works. Ideas like providing dedicated local phone numbers for the public to contact their neighbourhood policing teams directly, where they know who is responding to their concerns. The best are already doing this and building trust and better relationships with the communities they serve. We need to go further.

This is so ridiculous. Do read the piece John Reid authors in The Telegraph - it is so full of platitudes it absolutely reeks. It is a leftist manifesto of promises that can best be met not by devolving power and responsibility to the unwashed masses, but by following the ideas of those with superior intelligence - i.e., the leftists. God save the Queen. Its going to take divine intervention to turn this ship of state.