No, seriously, he does, read on.
- Firstly he has to contend with being referred to as The Milky Bar Kid. As one who can remember the original TV adverts that must be most traumatic.
- In 2006 two of Winsor’s policies established whilst he was Rail Regulator – on the structure of network access charges (October 2000) and the conditions on which new passenger train operators without franchise contracts with the British government (called open access operators) are permitted to compete with companies which do (May 2004) – were challenged in the High Court in London. The case was a judicial review brought by Great North Eastern Railway Company Ltd against the Office of Rail Regulation. Two open access operators were joined in the case as interested third parties, one of which, Grand Central Railway Company Ltd, was a client of White & Case. Winsor therefore both represented his client and gave evidence in the case as a witness. The defence of the case was successful. [My thanks to my friend Wiki for this paragraph].
- After playing with his giant train set, Mr Winsor returned to London law firm White and Case where he was gainfully employed when Theresa May MP, so called Home Secretary, appointed him to conduct a far-reaching independent review of the Police Service.
- In the course of conducting Mrs May’s independent review he interviewed a number of unfit or unhealthy officers and drew certain conclusions about the obesity of today’s Police Forces. I do believe he admitted in a radio interview that he used these figures as they were the only ones he had. Must be very difficult to get accurate stats.
- It took him literally weeks, head down, with his support staff to write his review, that is quite similar to David Camoron’s speech on Police Reform in 2006, spooky that.
- He worked so hard on it that he seems to have forgotten to claim his fee for conducting his independent review.
- He must have been tired, poor thing, as he also seems to have forgotten to conduct any Risk Assessments or Impact Assessments on his review, but maybe he didn’t need to. To be fair, although the Home Office informed me that no formal Impact Assessment had been conducted, he did in fact carry out an Equality Impact Assessment on Part 1 of his independent review.
- He also successfully maintained a Chinese Wall while White and Case were advising G4S in their negotiations with Lincolnshire Police.
- He was far and away the best candidate when he was appointed Chief Inspector HMIC. He must have been, he was appointed in the face of good competition despite never having actually been a member of any Police Force at any rank previously. Impressive, and he’s just had his appointment renewed so he must be doing something right. Mustn’t he?
- His HMIC have been writing reports on each Police Force and how they should be dealing with Austerity, only recently proclaiming that Police Forces must work ‘smarter’ in order to #DoLessWithLess.
- After much more arduous research he finally told us that official #CrimeStats could not be relied upon. This was a great shock, we didn’t know this. Who’d have thought it?
So, dear reader, there we have it. #CutsHaveConsequences (oops, nearly made a spelling mistake there), and the latest consequence is that the chief cutter has received a Knighthood in the same week as predicting smaller Police Forces. Well, at least you should all agree with me by now, very well-deserved it is too.
If there has been a not-just-UK crime trend drop since ~’95, is it genuine, has crime reporting internationally been under-reported inadvertently or has it been even deliberately – as suspected in UK?
http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/which-way-la/la-crime-is-up-or-is-it
http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-lapd-reclass-20141226-story.html
..and has the much-quoted seemingly equivalent dropping trend in UK crime surveys appeared to match police (ie Home Office) stats only because crime type migration (online &/or ‘off-survey’) has increased by a growing proportion, masking an unchanged or even rising trend (also, is a similar parallel long-term distortion in police/survey trends seen elsewhere)..?
If there has been a not-just-UK crime trend drop since ~’95, is it genuine, has crime reporting internationally been under-reported inadvertently or has it been even deliberately – as suspected in UK?
http://www.kcrw.com/news-culture/shows/which-way-la/la-crime-is-up-or-is-it
http://www.latimes.com/local/crime/la-me-lapd-reclass-20141226-story.html
..and has the much-quoted seemingly equivalent dropping trend in UK crime surveys appeared to match police (ie Home Office) stats only because crime type migration (online &/or ‘off-survey’) has increased by a growing proportion, masking an unchanged or even rising trend (also, is a similar parallel long-term distortion in police/survey trends seen elsewhere)..?
Thx – a good ‘un!
Wouldn’t be so bad if we could be certain crime has genuinely fallen – rather than just migrated online or off-survey.
Or that fewer police stations & so fewer approachable officers haven’t resulted in the reporting of crime being artificially suppressed.
Or that the experience of reporting crime without a timely follow-up or response or investigation or result, due to the ever-reduced resources, hasn’t just dampened the eagerness to report crime.
Whatever Winsor/May claim about falling crime, Boris doesn’t believe it. Chris Grayling doesn’t either.
In 2008 “..Boris Johnson..heaped scorn on claims by his predecessor Ken Livingstone that crime was coming down. “We need to stop kidding ourselves..We all know that we are suffering from an EPIDEMIC OF UNREPORTED CRIME”.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/jan/04/does-anyone-really-know-whats-happening-to-in-london
Having let that thought out of the bag then, to the presumed dismay of his party now, the Tories can hardly expect the public to believe crime rose under Ken (as Boris believed) yet only started falling under Boris – because the fall is supposed to have begun way back in ’95 and continued without major interruption ever since, matching international trends.
In 2009, Chris Grayling claimed a “credit crunch crime wave” existed & LibDem Chris Huhne saw “clear evidence of rising crime”.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/31/tough-case-mystery-britains-falling-crime-rate
No merit for matching long term international crime falls can be claimed by an only-recent Tory administration.
If the UK fall partially veils crime migration, Boris & the Tories can’t claim credit for any large figure like 10% nationally or 9% across greater London (Tories) or 11% (by Boris over his reign).
And, as the true fall in crime (assuming it does follow the trend) hasn’t been established with any convincing accuracy (even to Boris, Grayling, Huhne etc), Sir Tom can’t state with a straight face that the police cuts – which he & the Tories use crime fall figures to justify – haven’t had serious consequences already for public safety & so more cuts based on further unbelievable projections could only be made from within his “Sir” strait jacket, no doubt knitted by those harmless Home Office civil servants following a pattern for May..
Thx – a good ‘un!
Wouldn’t be so bad if we could be certain crime has genuinely fallen – rather than just migrated online or off-survey.
Or that fewer police stations & so fewer approachable officers haven’t resulted in the reporting of crime being artificially suppressed.
Or that the experience of reporting crime without a timely follow-up or response or investigation or result, due to the ever-reduced resources, hasn’t just dampened the eagerness to report crime.
Whatever Winsor/May claim about falling crime, Boris doesn’t believe it. Chris Grayling doesn’t either.
In 2008 “..Boris Johnson..heaped scorn on claims by his predecessor Ken Livingstone that crime was coming down. “We need to stop kidding ourselves..We all know that we are suffering from an EPIDEMIC OF UNREPORTED CRIME”.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/davehillblog/2015/jan/04/does-anyone-really-know-whats-happening-to-in-london
Having let that thought out of the bag then, to the presumed dismay of his party now, the Tories can hardly expect the public to believe crime rose under Ken (as Boris believed) yet only started falling under Boris – because the fall is supposed to have begun way back in ’95 and continued without major interruption ever since, matching international trends.
In 2009, Chris Grayling claimed a “credit crunch crime wave” existed & LibDem Chris Huhne saw “clear evidence of rising crime”.
http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/aug/31/tough-case-mystery-britains-falling-crime-rate
No merit for matching long term international crime falls can be claimed by an only-recent Tory administration.
If the UK fall partially veils crime migration, Boris & the Tories can’t claim credit for any large figure like 10% nationally or 9% across greater London (Tories) or 11% (by Boris over his reign).
And, as the true fall in crime (assuming it does follow the trend) hasn’t been established with any convincing accuracy (even to Boris, Grayling, Huhne etc), Sir Tom can’t state with a straight face that the police cuts – which he & the Tories use crime fall figures to justify – haven’t had serious consequences already for public safety & so more cuts based on further unbelievable projections could only be made from within his “Sir” strait jacket, no doubt knitted by those harmless Home Office civil servants following a pattern for May..