Peter Bleksley blasts 'basket case' police for driving diversity pledge: 'Obsessed!'

Between 2010 and 2020, there were 20,000 less police officers patrolling the UK streets.

Numbers have since begun to increase again under Rishi Sunak, with the latest numbers topping 142,316 in March 2023.

As low-level crimes also surge across Britain with the cost of living crisis, Labour MP Stephen Pound told GB News that the Conservatives need "more police" in the shops and on the streets.

In a discussion with Lee Anderson, Pound said the Metropolitan Police needs to get officers "out of the bottom drawer of the desk and put them on the street".

He fumed: "You've got to actually train them. There is a real difficulty here. I was walking down Oxford St. this morning. Every single shop had a private security guard and every single shop, including the sweet shop.

"So that means that they've basically ceded control of the streets. What we've got to do is to increase the policing and use new technology."

Criticising their priority to police protests in central London, Pound urged: "Maybe spend a little less time on demonstrations, a little more time on criminals charging into a shop and stealing the place might be good for all of us."

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Former Scotland Yard Detective Peter Bleksley shut down Pound's calls for more street officers and said the issue is with the Force's focus on "diversity and inclusion" instead of tackling crime.

Bleksley told Lee Anderson: "Having more police on the streets is not necessarily the answer. They've got to be properly trained and they've got to be shown how to do the job.

"So much experience has been lost. We've now got probationary police officers patrolling or answering calls with other probationary police officers. There's a huge lack of experience."

When asked if the police force has "gone soft" in an age of "woke policing", Bleksley replied: "What has happened in the last couple of decades or so? Senior police officers have all trotted off to Oxbridge to get their degrees and other red brick universities and then they've come back to policing with their heads full of pseudo-intellectual claptrap which has no place in policing."

He continued: "Policing is essentially a simple concept, but they can't grasp that and now they are so obsessed with their diversity, equality and inclusion, to the detriment of many other things.

"Quite frankly, it's a basket case."