In his continuing column for the Olive Press, ex-Gibraltar Chronicle news editor Franciso Oliva muses on the future of policing on the Rock.
THERE were numerous references during the 19 day hearing to the term ‘modernisation,’ in association with a generalised deprecation of old fashioned values, and always in the context of what the direction of travel for policing in Gibraltar should be.
In his evidence, former interim governor during the interregnum between Ed Davis and David Steele, Nick Pyle was the standard bearer for the cause, repeatedly asserting the need for a shift in the culture, management and leadership style seen during the McGrail era, as the panacea for the RGP’s ills.
He was less than complimentary generally about the former commissioner but later conceded that the latter’s removal process had been less than perfect.
Pyle, a successful career diplomat and hitherto ‘faceless Whitehall mandarin,’ not a too well regarded albeit ubiquitous figure etched in memory and local political folklore, not only went native like legend says notable predecessors like Bill Quantrill did, but walked a step further landing a senior remunerated position in the local administration at the end of his stint in The Convent.
For a golfing aficionado like him that probably qualifies as a hole in one stroke.
It was nevertheless a rather puzzling dictum when compared to what was said by Richard Ullger, one of the two professional policing experts who were paraded through the witness box.
The now-former commissioner declared that there was a difference in leadership style between him and McGrail, but that did not mean one was better or worse than the other. Role reversal between diplomat and cop indeed.
READ MORE: The McGrail report – Making sense of what we saw in ‘Gibraltar confidential’, writes F Oliva
MODERNITY NOT THAT MODERN
Modernisation is one of those ambiguous terms that are often bandied about as if invested with a semblance of trustworthiness, noble ambition and bedazzling progressive credibility, but which without the appropriate context and background – even more so with it, as I shall endeavour to demonstrate – can result in something quite meaningless, hollow and counterproductive.
Significantly the truth is that in historical terms modernity is a pretty old idea that coincides with the end of the Middle Ages in Europe, and most notably for our civilization, marks the end of the Crusades and the commencement of the Renaissance and modern era in the 15th and 16th centuries.
What would have struck any independent observer are the unimpeachable sources of intelligence handled by the leading constitutional representative of the British Crown, who is the main office holder in the land along with the Chief Minister.
One is certainly reassured of impeccable judgment to form a reasoned opinion about alleged instances of malpractice at the RGP, when quality information flows by his own admission, from fountainheads as reliable as golf-course chatter, rumours, anecdotes, social media (Speak Freely, no doubt), media, bars and restaurants.
MISSION IMPOSSIBLE UK
When a police officer’s operational capacity is crippled by bureaucracy, emasculated by political correctness, and degraded by ideological impositions and virtue signalling, the police force becomes an unwilling accessory to the continuing degradation of the concept of authority that we are witnessing across Europe.
It would be a mistaken assumption to think that this is not already happening here in Gibraltar, as a result of a litany of self-inflicted suboptimal – rather than abject, to borrow from Pyle’s expression – policing strategies, following blindly as we do the UK’s progressive policing route over the edge of the abyss.
That type of modern policing leaves much to be desired, while the anxiety felt by commissioners in Gibraltar to be popular with politicians or with the public, is a recipe for disaster of Masterchef proportions, and everything that an efficient law enforcement model should be running not a hundred miles away from, but preferably a million.
Let a police commissioner be unpopular if he is upholding the rule of law and keeping Gibraltar safe, and pay no heed to the ideological occurrences of the latest Minister for Justice.
Perhaps McGrail has been the only commissioner regardless of any errors he may have committed, that has had the sense and clarity of thought not to be unduly distracted by the popularity contest.
Sir Peter Openshaw will no doubt elucidate on the failings and successes of all concerned and give everyone their due; on complexities of boundaries and red lines too.
DEGRADATION OF AUTHORITY
The physical, social and geographical factors which influence our policing model have nothing to do with the situation in UK, and are a specific set of conditions which require a tailor made plan suited to our circumstances.
To be expected to implement guidelines and precepts which have been applied in Britain as if they could be neatly transposed to our community, to our particular reality, is short-sighted and misguided.
And it is not as if it has led to magnificent results there in the fight against crime, quite the contrary, it has produced disastrous outcomes, with entire police forces like the Greater Manchester Police having to go into special measures for serious shortcomings, poor detection rates, and failure to record an estimated 80,000 crimes.
Today we see police forces in the UK and elsewhere which are obliged in many instances to embrace modernisation, and how the net effect of that approach leaves much to be desired in terms of what the general public want and expect from their police.
We have seen criminal gangs operating in the streets of London with impunity, shocking crime rates, occasions when political extremists have threatened MPs and carried out protests, at times violent, while the authorities rendered powerless are forced to suspend public transport systems in the capital because they cannot guarantee the safety of citizens, inconveniencing and disrupting the public going about their legitimate daily affairs.
Britain is the mirror we hold up to ourselves, to see what we could look like in five years into the future, and our own authorities are duty bound to prevent us going down the same slippery slope.
All the empirical evidence available suggests that ‘modernity’ merely adds to the degradation of an already seriously debilitated concept of authority in democratic societies, which has been undermined to the point of humiliation.
COOKE AND WATSON, RAY OF HOPE
With an upsurge in serious offences, anyone who visits London regularly will vouch for this, there is a public outcry for a more robust model of policing and safer streets.
Also a growing body of opinion critical of the dismal charging rates for many crime types as denounced by the more outspoken police leaders, not assuaged by a misplaced emphasis on so called ‘speech crime’ (the infamous non-criminal hate incident, the likes of which one hopes, will never see the light of day in Gibraltar), over hardcore life-threatening crime, pushing fears that the scales of justice appear to have catastrophically tilted toward the wrong side.
It was therefore refreshing for old-school UK commissioners of the calibre of Andy Cooke, the former Chief Constable of Merseyside Police and current Chief Inspector of Constabulary, to state in 2022 that police should be “kicking down more doors to catch criminals and spend less time doing PR jobs.”
Cooke called for police to recover “an edge” to gain the upper hand against crime, reevaluating the critical law enforcement priorities, as too much time was spent dealing with mental health issues and chasing kids skipping school.
There in a nutshell is the failed modernised policing model we are heading for, unless the instinctive common sense and vast worldly experience fighting criminality on the ground of cops like Cooke prevails.
In the same vein, Steven Watson the anti-woke Chief Constable appointed to lead the failing Greater Manchester Police, has succeeded in turning it round not with woolly modernisation platitudes but with a brand of muscular policing based on discipline, that even the Labour mayor Andy Burnham has recognised as effective.
The recipe? Investigate every burglary, put bobbies on the beat, and clamp down on serious crime with “real ferocity”.
He also made headline news by rejecting the display of rainbow badges on uniforms and not ‘taking the knee’ like other police bosses.
Watson provided the blueprint that should be followed across the UK and in Gibraltar too, if we are able to cast off the modernity doctrine that is so ineffective to policing and harmful to society.
Either of these two men of action and of considerable thought as well, or others of identical mindset would have had my unreserved support to take control of the RGP after Ullger’s retirement, to de-ideologise the force, return to the straight path, and put the house in order in the face of many quite evident challenges that lie ahead.
As it is, we are still waiting for the new police commissioner, Owain Richards, to show his colours.
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