I so like the way these people speak with wide eyed innocence about what has happened; it comes as a surprise to many of them. Clearly Sir Paul has been most taken aback by what has happened.
I cant help feeling that within London at least, the decay of morality and ethical behaviour has been going on for some years now. I just cannot imagine that this sort of behaviour would have happenbed in the same way 40 years ago. But there again, we are talking about a situation in the 1960's and 1970's whereby the ganglords held sway and looked after anything going on within their patch. Whats happening now however is that I feel that a large number of these spin offs from the old East End and other places have now moved into white collar crime; therefore you now have a proliferation of blagging, hacking and scamming. I also believe that the dividing line between those who are investigating crime and those committing it has got a lot thinner. In that way, there's a possibility that they are all in it together. You dont know who is who; the chief of police who is at a press luncheon, or the journalist who is sharing information with police with a view to potential hacking.
So in lots of ways, the characters are the same - Sir Robert Mark investigated corruption after the scandals of the Krays and Richardsons. Now the scenario has changed but only in the way that information is still exchanged under the guise of co-operation and corporate hospitality. But there is no doubt that it is still corruption.
Its just that whats happening appears to be that much more respectable because its done under the guise of corporate movement. Those who used to be gangsters have now moved into the area of media and exercise their influence in that way.
Nonetheless, the similarity between the 1960's and 1970's is that there obviously appear to be this unhealthy closeness between those committing crime of whatever sort (in the corprate sense) and those investigating it. And whatever is being said, there is also an unhealthy alliance between those in SW1, the Police and the Media. Too much time is being spent on all these people in "Westminster Village" with the result that the rest of London is suffering. Way too many resources are being poured into this concentration.
Where am I going with this argument? I think we require a whole new system of policing within Inner London. I dont think that the Metropolitan Police are the people for the job anymore. Therefore I think that the City of London police should be tasked to take over the position of policing for London and the Met should be disbanded and reformed into the Outer London police service. That should solve the problem of the Met having lost their way. I dont think there should be a Met Police anymore because I think the culture is getting in the way of them making any more advances in policing. Their focus has become too narrow; they are not police for London anymore but merely police for small sectionalised interests. We need a force that is for Outer London and a more specialist one for inner London. Sorry but if we cant clear up this institutionalised corruption then to me its clear that the Met have to go.
Too much history there, for my liking. As a postscript, as I am writing this, the resignation of John Yates has also been announced, Yates being the Assistant Commissioner (or one of them). It is clear that their wide eyed innocence is no longer serving them well; that what they have become embroiled in has certainly engulfed all of them and that we would now be better off if the Metropolitan Police Service were replaced in its entirety along the lines I have defined in this piece.
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