From Douglas Carswell MP
Sir: What’s wrong with an elected mayor appointing police chiefs? Crime has fallen in New York over the past decade precisely because former mayor Rudy Giuliani directly accountable to voters — was able to appoint city police chiefs determined to implement zero-tolerance policing. Compare the determination of democratically accountable US police forces to fight crime to the British constabularies’ obsession with politically correct policing.
If Mayor Livingstone were put in charge of London’s police in place of the monumentally useless Metropolitan Police Authority, and he were to prove inept, he would swiftly be sacked by his employers, the people of London.
Direct local accountability over policing is one of the better ideas to have been generated during the current Conservative leadership contest. I suspect that the winner could well be the candidate with the vision to extend the same principle to other public services as well.
Douglas Carswell MP
House of Commons, London SW1
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