Letter: Police Commissioner is On the Wrong Tack

Published on: 16 Apr, 2025
Updated on: 16 Apr, 2025

From David Roberts

In response to: Police Commissioner’s Plan Takes a ‘Back to Basics’ Approach to Tackle Surrey Crime

Most crime in Surrey is white-collar, which isn’t surprising given its professional demographic and closeness to London. And over 40 per cent of crime nationally is fraud, according to the ONS and NCA.

A lot of other, ordinary crime has been in steep decline for decades.

Shouldn’t the PCC’s strategy strongly reflect these overarching facts?

Unfortunately, few think that our local police forces are up to the job of curbing the current tsunami of online and international crime, lacking both the necessary skills and resources. Is our Conservative Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) even interested?

She was elected on a crude platform of populist policing championed by her party, which dictates that “bobbies on the beat” are the answer to everything and that strategy consists of channelling whatever moral panic happens to be passing – paedophiles today, mental health tomorrow, shoplifting the day after.

The one redeeming feature of having a directly elected mayor of Surrey will, I hope, be that the role will subsume that of the PCC. It was a basic blunder of the Cameron government to introduce directly elected PCCs in crude imitation of American county sheriffs.

The British public never wanted this, and most don’t even vote in PCC elections. We don’t elect our judges or our NHS or county education leaders, but policing is politicised.