Crisis after crisis: what is going wrong at the Met police?
3 years ago
Beaming broadly as she faced the Prince of Wales in a gilded chamber at St James’s Palace, Cressida Dick was about to achieve another career high. A police officer of 38 years, she appeared exhilarated last Wednesday when receiving a damehood in recognition of her public service.
But storm clouds routinely follow the chief of Scotland Yard, and for Dick, more than most.
Several hours later, at 4.09pm, her force was pressured into releasing a statement defending its policing at Wembley after waves of ticketless supporters attempted to watch the Euro 2020 final on Sunday night.
At 9.15pm came another Met update, this time naming a 16-year-old boy fatally stabbed in south London, the latest teenage homicide in a spike that is climbing towards a 13-year high
For seasoned observers of the Met, such daily highs and lows are part and parcel of life as Britain’s most senior police officer. But increasingly, they are noticing something quite new: the extraordinary tenacity of the position’s current incumbent.
As calls for her resignation intensify following a rolling series of scandals including a bungled VIP paedophile ring inquiry, failings surrounding the murder of Sarah Everard and findings that the force is “institutionally corrupt,” the commissioner’s reaction has been to ask for another four-year term.
Few, if any of her predecessors, would survive half of what Dick has endured. Increasingly, one question has become irresistible: how did its embattled chief become so bulletproof?
The answer can be partly found within the vast officers’ mess of the Met’s newish headquarters by the River Thames.
“She’s a good cop, simple as that,” says Ken Marsh of the woman who successfully led Operation Trident, one of the force’s grittiest jobs.
Marsh, chairman of the Metropolitan Police Federation, which represents more than 30,000 officers, believes her leadership style quickly seduced much of the rank and file.
“She’s not a shouter like some of her predecessors. She’s calm and that helps a lot. And she’s got our backs,” says Marsh, a veteran of 32 years service.
Her approach, he said, became evident weeks after becoming commissioner, during the chaos that followed the death of Keith Palmer, an unarmed PC who was stabbed when a terrorist attacked the Palace of Westminster in March 2017.
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“We were running around like headless chickens but the first thing she did to me was come over and ask: ‘Ken are you looking after yourself?’ She’s one of the only senior officers who asks me how I am. That approach resonates among all of us,” said Marsh.
Others testify that her survivability might be rooted in her instinct to resist meddling in the affairs of the building 100 metres across the road from her office – the House of Commons.
“She appreciates politics can get very toxic very quickly. She is also not blind to the fact that some of her predecessors were badly burnt by failing to recognise that,” said a Whitehall source.
Another reason for Dick’s ability to fight fire is her relationship with the home secretary Priti Patel, herself under pressure following bullying allegations and divisive interventions on asylum and the right to protest.
At face value, Dick and Patel appear ideological bedfellows; both were horrified by the 2019 eco-protests that shut down the capital and are staunch advocates of stop and search.
Both, too, have spoken out over their opposition to taking the knee, the symbol of solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement.
Shabnam Chaudhri, who rose to become one of the Met’s most senior female Asian officers and who knows Dick well, believes these illiberal instincts may eventually prove her undoing.
“It’s fine to say [not taking the knee] but have you asked your officers? There was a lot of internal backlash from black officers and I know that because I speak to many of them. You have to show leadership but you also need to demonstrate that you’re human, that you’re the same,” said Chaudhri.
For former chief prosecutor Nazir Afzal, such dissent is made easier to surmount by the fact that the home secretary finds herself under so much scrutiny. He believes Patel has made a simple political calculation that means Dick’s position is secure. “The commissioner is effectively a human shield for Patel,” said Afzal. “Boris Johnson did the same with [former health secretary] Matt Hancock: it’s somebody else who can absorb the flak. For Patel it’s 100% what she’s doing with the commissioner. All of our ire can be directed at the commissioner rather than the person responsible for where the [policing] priorities are set.”
A similar assessment may have been made by the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan.
Although who gets the final say on whether to fire the commissioner can appear ambiguous, Khan’s predecessor, Boris Johnson, effectively ended Ian Blair’s stint as the head of the Met in 2008.
But Khan, to the exasperation of many on the left, is unwilling to do the same. On Friday, Khan’s office reiterated its unwavering support for Dick, saying it looked “forward to working a second term” with the 60-year-old.
Patel’s affinity with Dick matters more. It might even explain why the commissioner has so steadfastly backed some of the home secretary’s more controversial proposals such as restrictions on protest.
Marsh defines it as a “working relationship”, with Dick’s intelligence helping sustain a professional dynamic. However, the two are far from soulmates. “I wouldn’t say they get on well. They’re not cosy.” It’s also prudent to remember, he added, that Dick is not Patel’s chosen one and was selected by former home secretary Theresa May.
But Afzal is confident that as long as Dick, along with the capital’s mayor, receives the flak for issues such as rising knife crime then Patel will readily indulge the status quo.
“Yet the truth is that Sadiq can only spend what the home secretary and Home Office give. The home secretary is the most powerful individual here – politically she decides what happens,” he added.
Afzal, however, contests Marsh’s assertion that the commissioner has universal grassroots support.
“There are a catalogue of failings under her leadership that demonstrably have not only impacted on the public’s confidence but the officers themselves. Some of them have spoken to me and the morale is really low. Even before the Sarah Everard issue, throughout the pandemic they’ve felt that they haven’t had the leadership they needed.”