Peter Facey (London, Unlock Democracy): Following the resignation (or was it sacking?) of the Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair after Boris Johnson said he did not have confidence in him, there has been a lot of talk about political control of policing.
Boris has been criticised for overstepping his authority and the Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has made it clear that she will ultimately decide who is the next Commissioner and not Boris. Just to complicate matters even further, Ken Livingstone has now come out in support of Johnson, after a fashion.
What this does is make it clear that we actually have political control of policing, it's just central control. So the question really is who should the head of London’s police force be accountable to, the Home Secretary or the Mayor and Assembly?
At the moment the present system is a mess. The Met is London’s police force but also has national responsibilities. Ultimately these need to be split with the creation of national police unit responsible to the Home Secretary and Parliament and a London force accountable to the Mayor and Assembly and ultimately Londoners. But in the meantime, why not make confirmation of the Home Secretary's nominee for the new Metropolitan Police Commissioner subject to a public confirmation hearing by Metropolitan Police Authority?
Unlock Democracy ran a series of articles about policing and democracy in their latest issue of Citizen, which can be found here (http://www.unlockdemocracy.org.uk/?p=1406).