November 10: Where have all the police gone?

THE fundamental flaw at the heart of the introduction of police and crime commissioners was the fact that the overwhelming majority of those who assumed office had ties to a political party.

The concern, expressed by this newspaper from the outset, was that this would lead to the politicisation of an institution that risks suffering a great reduction in its credibility if it is seen to surrender its neutrality.

It is a factor that means many will read the dire warning over the impact of Government spending cuts on the region’s largest police force in The Yorkshire Post today and dismiss it as mere political pointscoring.

The figure who makes the claims, West Yorkshire Police and Crime Commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson, is a Labour politician and as such has no hesitation in attacking the current Conservative administration.

Be that as it may, it would be a grave mistake to dismiss the concerns outlined in a briefing document he sent to the region’s MPs as little more than a left-wing diatribe.

Two points should be made. Firstly, Mr Burns-Williamson’s warnings have legitimacy in as much as they are supported by simple mathematics. By 2020, the West Yorkshire force will have lost nearly two in every five officers compared to policing levels a decade earlier.

At a time when the police’s work is ever more onerous and the demands placed upon local forces from extremism, terrorist threats, cyber crime and the now all too apparent scale of child sex abuse ever greater, the commissioner is not alone in wondering how exactly the likes of West Yorkshire Police will cope.

The second point is that many Conservative police and crime commissioners are voicing similar concerns, with North Yorkshire’s Julia Mulligan among four Tory PCCs who had threatened to sue the Government before controversial cuts to their funding were put on hold.

This is an issue that centres on public safety and as such transcends party politics. It would be a mistake to think otherwise.

Athletics in dock

Sport suffers its darkest day

ENCOURAGING children to take up sport can be a tall order given modern technology that encourages them to stay rooted to the sofa rather than pitting their wits and athletic ability against others on a pitch, court or track.

That task is made all the more difficult by the various scandals engulfing everything from cycling to football and now athletics.

The findings of the World Anti-Doping Agency’s investigation into Russian athletics has revealed a state-sponsored doping regime which effectively sabotaged the London 2012 Olympics.

Far worse, however, is the fact that the report implicates the IAAF, the sport’s world governing body. If athletes themselves cannot trust their officials to identify and weed out those who cheat to gain an advantage, then how can the general public?

Such revelations tarnish a sport that provides inspirational role models in the mould of Yorkshire’s Jess Ennis-Hill and the Brownlee brothers – champions who rely on ability and hard work to prosper rather than artificial assistance.

Yet spectators cannot continue to feel that they are being sold a lie. The challenge now facing the new IAAF president Lord Coe is not just to clean up athletics but to help restore faith in sport as a whole. The Sheffield-raised Olympian should start by banning Russia from competing at Rio next year.

Otherwise the message will be that in sport, cheats can – and do – prosper, and more potential stars of the future will turn away before they have even started.

‘Ey up our Gary

Singer is made honorary Tyke

HE has a string of number one hits to his name, several million record sales and a mantelpiece full of Brit Awards. He was even hand-picked to compose the song marking the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee.

Yet singer-songwriter Gary Barlow surely received the greatest accolade of his illustrious career last night.

A surprise guest at the White Rose Awards – the biggest night in UK tourism celebrating the best destinations, attractions and places to stay in the region – Barlow was made an honorary Yorkshireman.

It was a fitting status to bestow on the Take That frontman, coming just days before the Leeds premiere of his musical The Girls, based on Yorkshire’s very own Calendar Girls.

Last night’s awards proved that Yorkshire is on a cultural and tourism high. And, with apologies to his native Cheshire, Gary’s talent is redolent of roots in the White Rose County, even if his birth certificate says otherwise.