Jeremy Corbyn called yesterday for Theresa May to resign as prime minister for presiding over cuts to police numbers while she was home secretary. That is a silly suggestion. There could be few greater victories for terrorists who long to frustrate democracy and the rule of law than to see power change hands as a panicked reaction to their own barbarism. There is nothing wrong with a political debate in election time about how to keep citizens safe, but a simple tally of police officers is a red herring.
After the obscene events of Saturday night, in which three terrorists killed seven people and injured 48 more at London Bridge in London, it is natural to ask why the government has failed in its primary duty to keep the public safe. It is true that central government spending on the police fell in real terms by 17 per cent from 2009-10 to 2015-16, and is set to fall by another 1.4 per cent by 2019-20. It is true, too, that the number of officers in England and Wales fell by 14 per cent in that period, leaving the tally where it was in the year 2000.
Yet Cressida Dick, commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has responded with commendable restraint to questions about police funding. She acknowledged that, while she would like more resources, this is the inevitable refrain of police leaders. Behind her comments is a nuanced picture. Overall spending is down and falling, meaning that neighbourhood policing is suffering, but at the same time funding for counterterrorism policing and the security services is rising. While the number of armed officers on the street fell from 2010-16, figures from the national police chiefs’ council show that half of the fall has since been reversed, and all of it will be once the present round of firearms training is over.
Ms Dick was also right to urge caution about a call to arms. Many would feel uncomfortable seeing a firearm on every street corner, she argued, and it is more important that armed police are trained and mobile than that they are numerous. She is vindicated in this by the events of Saturday night. Eight minutes after the first 999 call, all the terrorists had been shot dead.
To focus only on police funding is in any case simplistic, for two reasons. First, policing is about more than money. It is also about police powers, which have been expanded, and strategy, which has evolved. Where once armed police were taught to “locate and neutralise” a threat, allowing the suspect the opportunity to surrender, the barbarism of jihadist terrorists has pushed officers to adopt a more aggressive “locate and confront” approach. On Saturday, it worked.
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Second, police are only the most visible part of a counterterrorism effort that ranges across government. Intelligence services are as deserving of funds and the government was wise to give them a boost of 1,900 staff last year. Terrorism is not just fought at the scene of an attack. It is also fought at the border, where officials are supposed to make sure that persons of interest are tracked and questioned. It is fought by preventing Muslim communities from becoming insular, by building trust between them and the authorities so that when young people are first sucked into the vortex of radicalisation the process can be halted before they become a danger to themselves and others.
Terrorism is fought by preventing social media companies from spreading extremist propaganda, by maintaining access to intelligence sharing networks like Europol, and by promoting so-called counternarratives, both online and offline, to challenge the poisonous ideology which drives acts of violence like those on Saturday night.
The government has had many successes in battling terror, reportedly foiling 18 attacks since 2013. Still, every new attack is a failure. It is right to demand better. It is wrong to think that safety is only a few thousand police officers away.