" We don't want politics in policing..."

Jacqui Smith has called off her plans to permit elections to local Police Boards. At the moment the people who are said to monitor police activities are a mixture of Council appointees (hardly non-political) plus a few outsiders who are mostly unknown to most electors.

The arguments adduced are varied, - that elections could allow political extremists such as the the BNP to have influence, that Boris Johnson showed how a "politician" could remove a police commissioner (appointed by another politician - Jacqui Smith or predecessor). The first argument is specious, we are talking about elections across police areas. If hundreds of thousands of electors permit a few thousand BNP supporters to out-vote them, then indeed our democracy is in a bad way.

Police chiefs are increasingly (party) political, none more so than Sir Ian Blair. Having heard our local chief come out with standard NuLabour speak, and heard something of instructions sent down from the Home Office, our system is politicised.

Who was it decided that police forces had to be reorganised, against the wish of local people, into bigger and more remote forces?Answer - London. Who decides what targets are set, what principles are employed, what resources will be devoted. Answer again, NuLabour.

It took me some time to agree with the Conservative proposals, that local police should be made accountable to those most affected by their activities, by electing a local commissioner for a fixed period before seeking re-election, mostly because it seemed so revolutionary, so American.

It does have the virtue of making everything open, and not hidden by central government, of making the commissioner and police reflect local priorities, and of making change if the commissioner fails.

We are reaching close to a national police force, controlled in London and producing such disappointing results that local people are having less and less respect for the police. This is a frightening prospect, wanted by no-one, but we are sleep walking towards it. If Jacqui Smith's timid proposals have been withdrawn, we need some other change quickly and the Tory proposals are tied and tested in other countries.