Seemingly a good week for Boris, as he delivers on one of his manifesto promises. He promised 440 new police officers on public transport, and he’s providing them.
Except that he doesn’t seem entirely clear on what these 440 officers are there for. In his pdf manifesto (note that it’s called ‘crime_manifesto_complete_final_final.pdf’ – makes you wonder what was missing from ‘crime_manifesto_complete’ and ‘crime_manifesto_complete_final’) he claims that the officers will “patrol the buses”. But in his press release we are told that the new teams “will be dedicated entirely to policing bus hubs and the immediate vicinity”.
Are these teams going to be on the buses or not? This is an important question for two reasons. First off, Boris claims that the purpose of these teams is so that the public are “reassured by a visible police presence from the moment they leave their doors, to when they are waiting for their bus, reassured by a visible police presence from the moment they leave their doors, to when they are waiting for their bus, through to when they travel home at night.” If the teams are just on the buses, or if they are just at the bus hubs, this new initiative can’t hope to provide the door-to-door reassurance it claims. But even worse, even if the police patrol both the bus hubs and the buses, that still doesn’t cover it. I don’t believe I’m the only Londoner who often finds themselves waiting to catch night bus at 2am not at a comparatively busy bus hub but instead in some badly-lit backstreet at a small, beat-up bus stop in the middle of nowhere. If Boris wants to reassure me, what’s needed are police patrolling those streets, not on the buses – since it’s while I’m waiting for the buses that I feel most exposed – nor cooped up miles away from me, only to be found at “bus hubs and their immediate vicinity”.
But I can let that slide. I don’t personally find night buses that intimidating, and I don’t believe increasing police presence on either the buses or at the hubs will be a bad thing, even if there are better places for them. The second reason why Boris’ ambiguity is worth paying attention to is more important: This dithering, and the inconsistency between what he said he’d do and what he’s actually doing, suggests that even in his own head Boris isn’t clear on what exactly he’s trying to achieve. On page 14 of his manifesto document he claims he can free up £16m by capping TFL’s advertising, marketing and communications budget, and has done some maths to figure out that this will pay for 440 officers (49 constables, 49 sergeants and 343 PCSOs), with £150k to run a live CCTV trial on the buses. So he obviously did enough research early on to get some numbers.
But then the research stopped. He thought to himself “Yes, buses, transport hubs, security, reassurance, keeping those Young Thugs at bay, extra police, brilliant!” So he bunged it in his manifesto, and within two weeks of taking office he’s pushing it through. But he never really thought about what exactly these Safer Transport teams would be doing, which is why the details have changed between promise and delivery.
This is a cause for concern. Are all his manifesto pledges going to turn out like this? Catchy ideas (except the ones that aren’t, which I’m hoping are being highlighted by this blog), with the details not really worried about, but which are assumed will all fall into place once they’re followed through?
Be careful, Boris. These little details may catch up with you.
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