Gwent Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) Ian Johnston has claimed “brutal and dangerous” police cuts could hinder the force’s response to extremism.
Mr Johnston’s comments come in the wake of the Paris terror attacks.
He questioned the “rationale” of making further cuts to Gwent Police’s budget during “a time of heightened security threats”.
He said the force is preparing for cuts of 25% or 40% to be announced in next week’s Comprehensive Spending Review, claiming this will hinder tackling extremism on the ground.
Mr Johnston said: “The horrific terrorist attacks in France over the weekend bring into sharp focus our Government’s proposal to impose further cuts on policing in England and Wales.
“With the cuts we have faced already and with more to come, it seriously does beg the question as to how we would fare in the same circumstances.
“As I have said previously, any further cuts to frontline policing would be brutal and dangerous and you just can’t put a price on public safety.
“I’m not scaremongering here and I don’t want people to be frightened. I’m simply painting an accurate picture of the scale of the cuts which is a point I have made numerous times over the last year.
“This is a perfectly valid point in light of the spending review which will be announced next week. The public should however be vigilant and I would appeal for anyone to report anything suspicious to the police.”
Labour Leader Jeremy Corbyn today, November 18, used Prime Minister’s Questions to ask whether police number should be cut during a time of heightened terror threats.
Prime Minister David Cameron said the Government were protecting the counter-terrorism budget.
Policing Minister Mike Penning has previously dismissed concerns over police cuts in Gwent and said by cutting red tape and scrapping targets, police reform is working.
More dangerous is Corbyn dislike of ‘shoot-to-kill’ policies. If a terrorist is opening fire into a restaurant I hope the police return lethal fire instead of shouting “Put your weapon down” and then tasering them.
Actually, come to think of it, I agree. There is a lack of properly trained and equipped police in Britain. If something happened in Caerphilly how long would it take for armed police to arrive? Not the standard armed police who turn up in a BMW, but the heavily armed police who have training that involves clearing buildings with grenades, that involves urban firefights etc…?
I think the key police role is to be able to detect the terrorists in our midst before the point where they open fire in a restaurant. This is what more money should be spent on.
Police armed response is designed, and equipped, to deal with small scale actions involving armed robbers and similar. MIdde East trained killers, armed with high velocity military rifles and RPGs are always going to be beyond the capabilities of British police. Dealing with them will remain the job of the army.
Of course, but no all will be detected. There will always be one who slips through the net. The key then is to neutralise the threat before any harm is done.
Fortunately London has CTSFO who is trained to deal specifically with the group you mention, but it’s 130 officer do not form a nationwide force. It would take even longer for the people at Hereford to arrive.
The answer to that is a fully equipped British army infantry battalion based at Maindy barracks, Cardiff. It all boils down to unwise cuts in the defence budget when the world we live in is far more dangerous than it was during the cold war of 1950 to 1990.
I support this but it is very reactionary to any potential attack. I think allowing off-duty armed police, off-duty soldiers, and off-duty special forces officers to carry a concealed weapon would be a good deterrent, and would act as first response to any attack.
I think a look at the French policing model teaches us something. The Police Nationale, which is what the British consider a police force, are all armed. This is backed by the Gendarmerie which the British often wrongly think of as French Policemen but are actually army. This force is heavily armed and even has an armoured unit.
Despite these forces the French were attacked in their own capital city and there was severe loss of life. This, I think, shows us that the best way to deal with criminals who seek to terrorise us is to monitor the potential attackers and detect those who are a real threat. The army can then deal with them.
I lived all the way through the most recent terror campaign waged by the IRA and other gangs where there were many attacks against civilians, police and army. We managed to live normal lives and the police remained unarmed. The British constabularies police with the consent of the public. This consent would vanish if they became a paramilitary force in our towns and our lives would be the poorer. Those that commit atrocities, and their supporters, would then have won a major victory.
Crime is spiralling downwards, I know this because official statistics told me so. Of course we found out that those statistics had been fudged but then the powers that be carried on quoting them anyway. The larger question is why central government has decided to sow the seeds of decimation for law and order on our streets? Are they just callously trading our welfare to save a few bob or would they prefer us to request more limits to our own freedoms? Probably both, they have wasted our taxes and fail constantly to get all that they want over us, past the upper house.
This concern expressed by The Crime Commissioner for Gwent has not been echoed or voiced by the Chief Constable, if he does hold the same concerns surely he would have joined the Commissioner in expressing these `public fears`.
Also, I thought that operational rsponsibilities and the ability or not to carry them out in protecting the people of Gwent is the complete and total responsibility of our Chief Constable?. It is difficult to get too wound up about the Commissioners Comments whilst the man we expect to voice such concerns, if there are any real depth to them, is the NO 1 professional Senior Operation Police Commander for our County, THE CHIEF CONSTABLE.
If the Chief Constable does have the same concerns as the Crime Commissioner no doubt he is working, hard, behind the scenes with Home Office number crunchers to be able to carry out his duty to the people he serves.
The public were never told when Commissioners put themselves forward for election, that such operational matters were ever going to be the responsibility of Crime Commissioners, otherwise it would suggest that ONLY experienced ex-senior Polce Officers could ever perform such a role effectively, and fully understand the complexities of a lifetime of professional application needed for such a role, if it was the case we could do away with highly paid Chief Constables and do away with what seems to be emurging in Gwent of a `dual` responsibility for operation policing.
Report anything suspicious to the police, and Gwent police will do absolutely nothing about it….I had my mobile phone stolen from me by an asylum seeker living in Cardiff, the first thing he did was phone Libya, I was given the numbers and details by vodafone – I took this information to Gwent Police who told me that they can’t track international numbers, so Gwent Police are useless and welcome bogus asylum seekers to their streets were they do what they like. The asylum seeker who stole from me – he was given 100 hours community service, is still living in Cardiff and is still selling stolen goods on Ebay, possibly to fund terrorism for all Gwent Police could care, as they also told me what he does on Ebay is nothing to do with them and Ebay wouldn’t shut down his account without a report from Gwent Police.
That is bizarre.