Humanity Hallows Issue 6 Out Now
Pick up your copy on campus or read online
By Daniel J. Broadley
Theresa May and the Conservative government have outright lied over the number of extra police officers and armed officers on the street in the wake of the London and Manchester terror attacks, according to former MET Senior Investigator Peter Kirkham.
In an interview with Sky News, Mr. Kirkham revealed that the so called ‘extra officers’ are officers who have had their rare leave days cancelled, had their twelve hour shifts ‘routinely’ extended to SIXTEEN hours or have been sourced from other areas.
As a result, police forces across the UK are ‘burned out’ because of the cuts the Conservative government have made over the last seven years.
When asked about there being a record number of armed officers on the streets, Kirkham bluntly replies ‘no’. He says the Defence Secretary is outright lying about this as the number of armed police officers was over a thousand in 2010. He warns that although the responses in London and Manchester were good, perhaps because they are major cities, there might not be such good responses in other, less ‘high risk’ areas of the UK.
In order to tackle terrorism, Kirkham says we must reverse cuts to ordinary policing as they are vital to collecting intelligence from communities and monitoring ‘people of interest’ for intelligence agencies such as MI5 and the counter terrorism police.
This is something Theresa May has not addressed, instead deciding to focus more on internet regulation as a means of tackling terrorism.
It is clear then that the cuts the Conservatives have made to front line and community policing over the last seven years have, some think, put our national security and the lives of the general public at risk, with many accusing the government of using nothing more than empty words.
See the full interview below:
Sky news so it's unlikely this interview will be repeated. If you want an impartial honest summary of policing under Conservatives and 6 years of the current Prime Minister as Home Secretary, here it is.
Posted by Chris Barrett on Sunday, 4 June 2017
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