When the Dame was young all senior policemen looked like Watson...the sort of face that instantly made the bad nervous. Now, police leadership looks as if it had been recruited from a failing provincial 'uni'...all spouting pseudo-sociological nonsense.
Watson is a very different breed...a natural-born leader who, in short order, took GMC out of Special Measures. He had this to say about past failings..
"Our route into 'special measures' has been thoroughly analysed and much discussed. There are several reasons as to how we came to bear our recent travails, a failure of leadership principle amongst them. As I have stated repeatedly, however, the fundamental failing was simply that we stopped doing the basics well, we stopped being the police and we stopped doing many of the things that our public have every right to expect."
This is what the Manchester Evening News has to say about how Watson has achieved what seemed impossible READ HERE
We need a Watson here in London NOW!
Maybe he mentor our Met Commissioner...or better still let's poach Watson
ReplyDeleteDear Dame,
ReplyDeleteBe careful what you wish for.
In 1986, Anderton, a former Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police, said he would "take up the birch" ............."and homosexuals were living in a cesspit of their own making." Ken Clark, the Home Secretary, said he liked and Anderton and refused to sack him.
If he wants to birch muggers I am all for it
DeleteWhat about gays?
DeleteGreater Manchester Police used to keep a card index of known homosexuals in the area.
Watson has come up through the ranks. He is probably imbued in police culture; brutish, butch, 'ard.
Sounds like can urban myth
Delete12:29 What a crass comment! We are tired of fourth rate leadership within the police force. Attempting to slur Watson as you have is really quite puerile. The facts speak for themselves. Watson has taken GMC out of special measures and reassured the general public the police force there is doing a good job.
DeleteIt is hard to have confidence in Greater Manchester Police when one considers it has been largely dysfunctional since the mid 1980's. The police culture does not change because someone like Watson implements a plan. The Inspectorate has relaxed the special measures classification but the Chief Inspector of Constabulary still finds it wanting. Watson has been successful so far but that is not the same as "reassuring the public" and he does not reassure me. But what would I know as a victim of a serious crime in 2001.
ReplyDeleteSir Robert Marks rooted out some bent coppers in the Met back in the 1970's. He was hailed as a great bloke. But the Met continued to be dysfunctional and corrupt from the seventies onwards. Remember - Blair Peach, Brixton Riots, Southall Riots, Stephen Lawrence murder, Ricky Reel and most recently Wayne Couzens and two officers being sent to prison for photographing a corpse - as well as homophobic, racist and mysogonystic abuse at Charing Cross. Yes, GMP has been taken out of special measures but the Inspectorate stll finds it wanting. Watson, like Marks, has made a difference but it does not mean that it will continue to improve or that he is the saviour of policing in GMP. Having a tough butch look does not do it for me.
Do you remember that, about eighteen months ago, a member of the public videoed a Greater Manchester Police Officer threatening a young man with,
ReplyDelete"I'll make some thing up and who are they going to believe you or me?"
The Officer was suspended pending disciplinary action and, yes it is very unfair to all the decent police officers who would not dream of making such a threat but it is very difficult to change the culture of an organisation like the police where wrongdoing has many facets to it.