Posted on 08/06/2011 5:11:23 AM PDT by markomalley
David Cameron wanted a former American “supercop” to become Metropolitan Police Commissioner but was overruled by Theresa May, the Home Secretary, The Daily Telegraph can disclose.
Mr Bratton last night said he would have "considered it an honour" to have been given the opportunity to apply for the post.
The move followed the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson, the head of Scotland Yard, last month amid the phone hacking scandal.
Sir Paul’s departure, followed soon after by the resignation of John Yates as Assistant Commissioner, left the force in turmoil and led to calls for its leadership to be refreshed.
It is understood that Downing Street informally sounded out Bill Bratton, the former New York and Los Angeles police chief, to see if he would be interested in taking the country’s most senior policing job.
Mr Bratton, who was praised for cutting crime and gang warfare during his time in both cities, signalled he would be interested when he was approached.
But Mrs May was uncomfortable with the idea, which would have ripped up the centuries-old tradition of British citizens serving in the police. Any immediate move was effectively blocked when an advert isement for the post was issued by the Home Office that specified that “applicants must be British citizens”.
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
There was a vote in Lincoln’s Cabinet meeting that went 8 to 1 against.
But the motion passed anyway because the 1 was Lincoln himself.
Compliant islamist needed
I generally feel sorry for the law-abiding people of London. It would have been interesting to have seen who was most enraged by Bratton.
I know what I think of him and his anti-second amendment stance. A sampler:
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-05-19/news/29576114_1_top-cop-bill-bratton-ban
“High-capacity ammunition magazines were designed as weapons of war,” Bratton says.
“They were designed to kill as many people as possible in the shortest period of time. ... They simply do not belong in untrained civilian hands.” “Anything less then a ban on these bulk bullet clips, like the ban proposed in bills before Congress, is reckless ... and wrong,” Bratton says
Police oppose bill to shield gunmakers, dealers from lawsuits
“The police campaign began last week when Chief William J. Bratton of the Los Angeles Police Department held a news conference denouncing the bill. Bratton and 80 other police officials then signed a letter to the Senate expressing their opposition. At the same time, a full-page advertisement featuring a photograph of Bratton and paid for by the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence appeared in the Washington Post. The advertisement is expected to appear soon in other major newspapers and on television, and Bratton said he would go to Washington to lobby senators.”
But ...
Liberals were outraged when a variant of New York City’s ‘Broken Windows’ based COMSTAT was instituted in the Minneapolis housing projects.
Before New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani forced his resignation in 1996, “Big” Bill Bratton was known to critics as a braggart and a hardnose with persistent visions of grandeur. His marriage of zero-tolerance philosophy with computer technology—called COMSTAT in New York—was considered revolutionary. It landed him not only a six-figure book deal and job offers from South Africa to New England, but the adulation of thousands of cops across the country.
http://www.citypages.com/1998-04-01/news/code-for-safe-streets/
I wonder how the Lord Mayor would have reacted. Incidentally, I thought that legislation in 2008 already mandated that the Met Police Commissioner be a British citizen.
That is because the President is supreme in the executive branch in the US, the cabinet is an advisory body only.
Conversely, in a Westminster style Parliamentary government, the Prime Minister is first among equals. While the PM is the leader, the other cabinet members are also leaders of the party, and have a lot more leeway in setting policy.
Prime Ministers can get rid of cabinet members by reshuffling the cabinet, but the cabinet can force a leadership election and replace a prime minister. That is what happened to Lady Thatcher, and the threat of a leadership fight is what forced out Tony Blair. In both cases the PM had enough internal opposition in the party, to force them to leave office.
The move followed the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson, the head of Scotland Yard, last month amid the phone hacking scandal. Sir Paul’s departure, followed soon after by the resignation of John Yates as Assistant Commissioner, left the force in turmoil and led to calls for its leadership to be refreshed.Only jihadists need apply.
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