The chief constable of one of Britain’s largest forces was sharing a car with the commissioner of the Metropolitan Police when they found themselves stuck in traffic in Whitehall. A PC was standing nearby, and the chief constable suggested they wind down the window to chat to him. “Oh, a PC won’t know who I am,” the commissioner said. “There are chief superintendents in the Met who wouldn’t know me…”
The chief constable, now retired, tells the story to show how the Met is not just remote from Londoners, but is so unwieldy that the communication and discipline essential for managing a force that employs 25 per cent of police officers in England and Wales has failed. The result is a Met that Louise Casey condemned in her review, published on 21 March, as institutionally racist, sexist, homophobic and corrupt. The same former commissioner told the chief constable that he never believed he controlled the Met: “It’s like riding a tiger – you just cling on.”
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