An Insp Corbyn Case from Nigel Hastilow

It’s not surprising. ‘The cuts’ are to blame for everything these days. ‘The cuts’ are to blame for Jeremy Corbyn winning the General Election. Oh sorry, they’re the reason Jeremy Corbyn should have won if those terrible Tories hadn’t got more votes.

Anyway, it’s undeniable ‘the cuts’ are to blame for an eight per cent rise in crime, especially the possession of offensive weapons, robbery, violence and burglary.

If there were no cuts, we would not have to endure a 24 per cent rise in crimes of violence. Obviously Theresa May is guilty.

As ‘Dave’ says in his pre-emptive attempt to deflect blame away from his own force: ‘We think the Government needs to offer real-terms protection for policing because if you don’t, I think policing is quite unstable nationally.

‘Our challenge to Government is to say, we are quite fragile at the moment. You need to stabilise us with real-terms protection because otherwise I think policing might break.’

From a responsible and important person like Chief Constable ‘Dave’, the warning that ‘policing might break’ has to be taken seriously.

The cynic might think calling for more cash is a way of diverting attention from his own inadequacies in running the force. Naturally the sums wouldn’t stand up in court. Dave claims £146 million has been taken out of the force since 2010.

In 2010 the police budget was a whopping £583m but in 2015 the cost of policing services was just £514m. This year’s police budget is £525m.

At worst, Dave could claim a cut of £58m; at best, an increase of £11m. Clearly the way the police work is changing and the extra burden they face from the terrorist threat is real and costly.

But there is little evidence a rise in crime has been caused by ‘the cuts’. It could easily be because criminals don’t get caught and, if they do, they get off with a slapped wrist. Louts laugh at the law.

And let’s not forget crime statistics have been untrustworthy for years. Mostly, they have shown a consistent decline in the number of offences recorded.

That has allowed the police – and politicians – to bask in an undeserved glory. Apart from anything else, the figures consistently under-estimate the level of internet crime.

Secondly, there are at least two sets of ‘official’ figures, which never seem to match up.

Clearly the number of crimes reported to the police is increasing – but that’s not necessarily because more crimes are being committed. It’s because more victims are reporting them.

Take sexual violence, for instance. The growing number of child sex cases being reported around the country has led directly to an increase in alleged crimes being recorded by the police

Even so, the new crime figures are worrying and we have to take the Chief Constable’s blood-chilling warnings seriously.

Yet how do we reconcile his concerns with the announcement earlier this year by David Jamieson, the Police and Crime Commissioner for the West Midlands?

When Mr Jamieson, a Labour politician, announced his budget for this financial year, he said the force was rated ‘outstandingly efficient’ and ‘continues to offer excellent value for money’.

Mr Jamieson was so pleased with himself he said the force was recruiting 800 more officers, 200 more specialist support staff and 150 extra community support officers.

He declared that, even though the government was ‘slashing’ £6m, he was increasing the council tax precept by £5 per household to make up for this.

Interestingly, if money really is the problem, the remedy lies in Mr Jamieson’s own hands. As he points out, people in the West Midlands are paying £65 per household less than residents in neighbouring areas. If the budget is tight, that’s a local decision and not much to do with the Government.

Yet Mr Jamieson wasn’t worried about money. He said his budget would allow the force to recruit all those extra officers and support staff, he could ‘continue to invest millions of pounds into supporting the victims of crime’ and invest in mobile technology ‘so officers spend more time on the streets not behind desks’.

Bizarre. The politician in charge of our police thought only a few months ago he had enough money to tackle crime. Now, though, in the face of a rising crime rate and a vulnerable Government, it’s all Theresa May’s fault and the Government has to reverse its cuts or we’re all doomed.

There is, of course, the vague possibility the police aren’t doing their job very well.

There is the worrying possibility that society is becoming more violent for reasons which have nothing to do with the level of police spending.

But forget all that. This is another case for Inspector Corbyn of the cuts police.