Jim, I am disgusted too by the behaviour of The Metropolitan Police and it's not something which can simply be explained away by the presence of "bad apples" either. It is an "institutional" problem and this particular force appears to be worse than many others, in this respect. It is also unique in that it is directly accountable to The Home Secretary and, thus, there must inevitably be some question about its impartiality and partisanship. Having said that, it also seems to be a law unto itself as May herself is genuinely shocked by the behaviour of its officers or so it would appear. Of course, it's not true that all other Police Forces behave impeccably either as The Hillsborough enquiry has shown or that, up here in Scotland, we are somehow necessarily better as so far we haven't had such scandals surface. However, I would suggest the larger and more impersonal such organisations become(The same as financial institutions and large companies), the greater is the scope for misdemeanours and wrong doings, ill advised or even unlawful projects and procedures to go by unnoticed and to get covered up. Unfortunately, the trend is towards even more centralisation and this is partly due to financial considerations. The Police like every other public service are subject to cutbacks and are being obliged to amalgamate and share their resources. In Scotland, we now have a national Police Force which is NOT for the good, I'm afraid. In my view, The Police should be accountable to the local community which they serve and the larger and more distant the organisation becomes, this becomes increasingly less practical if not impossible.
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