Fire the parasites in Britain's local government, not cops and soldiers



No one denies that there are some outrageous Old Spanish Practices still to be tackled when it comes to police pay. Or that there are savings to be made in the defence budget, which was woefully mismanaged under Labour. But the Coalition should tread warily before alienating police officers and frontline soldiers. They are going to need these people in the coming years.

Two of the basic duties of any government are keeping the streets safe and defence of the realm. How is that going to be achieved adequately by sacking trained military personnel and slashing police numbers and pay?

OK, so we’re all in this together, etc, and the private sector has absorbed its share of the pain. The military and the constabulary accept that they should not be exempt from the austerity drive. But you can’t maintain Army morale when you’re sending P45s to soldiers in Afghanistan.

The police, in particular, have done well from successive governments over the past couple of decades and have little to complain about. This time, though, the Home Secretary Theresa May has a real chance to overhaul the salary structure sensibly, while scrapping the bonus culture, senior officers’ dubious perks and the overtime racket. My understanding is that most cops are more concerned about security of employment and keeping their pensions intact than defending the ‘grab-a-grand’ scam.

Slashing bureaucracy can put more bobbies on the street and still ensure that police officers are both fairly paid and can spend more time with their families, instead of being forced into working overtime.

It also needs a rethink of police priorities. For instance, it was reported this week that Essex Police are setting up roadblocks to assist council officers in catching employees smoking in company cars. So-called ‘sniffer wardens’ and uniformed cops will check inside vehicles for evidence of cigarette smoke.

Company cars and lorry cabs count as ‘workplaces’ and anyone discovered smoking in them faces a £50 fixed penalty or a full court appearance and a £200 fine.

Firms which allow it can be fined £2,500.But is this really how we want our police to spend their shifts — stopping commercial travellers going about their lawful business, just so some jobsworth can sniff their ashtray?

More to the point, at a time when cops and soldiers are facing pay cuts and job losses, why are we employing people to strip-search cars for fag ash?

While councils are closing OAP day centres, libraries and nursery schools, the stormtroopers of the nanny state are escaping unscathed.

There’s talk of losing 5,000 police officers and 11,000 members of the Armed Forces. But I’ll bet you could easily find ten times as many smoking cessation officers, five-a-day advisers, diversity enforcers, ‘real nappy’ campaigners and ‘climate change’ co-ordinators ripe for the culling. Under Gordon Brown, the public sector added another million staff, most of them in non-jobs.

We should be sacking the parasites in local government, not cops and soldiers. Unlike every other worker in Britain, the police and Armed Forces can’t strike, by law. So they are entitled to special treatment and consideration.

In a couple of weeks, we are once again going to ask some of these coppers to put themselves in the way of rioters intent on smashing up central London to protest about the ‘cuts’. The Old Bill must ask themselves why they’re bothering when they’re for the chop, too.

No wonder the Police Federation is talking about staging its own protest rally. Who’s going to police that, then — redundant paratroopers?

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