I have already cast my vote. 

I will be away from home on Election Day, so I sent it in by post. 

And I really struggled with where to where to put my ‘X’. The truth is that I didn’t want to support any of them; that I feel completely betrayed by all of them. Voting matters though and so I gave my support to the candidate who appeared to me to represent the least worst option.

But it wasn’t much of a choice. (And, by the way, how on earth did we end up in a place where ‘least worst option’ was the best that anyone could offer.)

The Conservative-led governments of the last ten years have:

• Decimated policing (cutting 44,000 officers and staff between 2010-18)
• Decimated the criminal justice system
• Decimated the prison system
• Decimated the probation service
• Decimated pretty much every other part of the public sector
• Overseen a catastrophic increase in child poverty
• Overseen a catastrophic increase in homelessness
• Overseen a catastrophic increase in Foodbank use

And so it goes on.

Austerity was a conscious,...

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The headlines are very election dominated at the moment and indeed there is a great deal of work ongoing in the force around the election. There are a number of marginal seats in the force and election visits are thick and fast. There is a comprehensive operation in place. The murder of Jo Cox MP during the referendum and the volatile political environment reminds us all how important it is that the democratic process is safeguarded and protected.

An election on the run in to Christmas is unusual and comes at a time when the force is getting busy. I have spoken to a few of you on the Christmas market in Birmingham and also had some nice letters of thanks for the warm reception you have provided for visitors. I am aware the Silent Night draws in staff from all over the force to help out. Your flexibility is really appreciated.

Chief Constable David Thompson

While we have recently seen the security threat level drop I would underline that security remains at the forefront of these operations. After the terrible murders in London Bridge...

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A tweet from the journalist Kay Burley caught my eye this morning. It was about nurses. 

More specifically, it was about concerns raised by the Royal College of Nursing that a majority of their members believe they cannot provide the standard of care that they want for their patients. An RCN spokesperson had this to say:

“Nurses aren’t able to sit with their patients, help them with their food…help them bath if they can’t bath themselves.”

If you were to ask most nurses why they joined, I suspect they would tell you simply that it was because they wanted to help people: to care for the sick, to mend the broken, to hold the hands of those whose lives are ebbing, to comfort the relatives of those who have gone. And there aren’t enough of them to be able to do those things any more. At least, not enough to do those things well in every case where simple human kindness is the only thing that really matters.

The Health Foundation charity estimate that there are almost 44,000 nursing vacancies in the NHS. And the RCN suggest that more...

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On New Year’s Eve 2018, a man seriously assaulted a number of people at Manchester Victoria railway station – including one of the police officers who arrested him shortly after the attack began. I remember blogging about the incident, frustrated at the immediate calls for his extra-judicial murder and frustrate that many suggested that he’d “play the mental health card” or that him being ‘sectioned’ under the Mental Health Act was some kind of ‘easy way out’. We often see these things in cases of serious crime involving someone affected by their mental health. All normal so far.

Mahdi Mohamud was sentenced to life imprisonment today, with a recommendation from the judge that he serve a minimum of 11yrs. In addition, the judge imposed a so-called ‘hybrid order’ under s45A of the Mental Health Act 1983, which means that Mohamud will be detained in a psychiatric hospital in the first instance and this short post just seeks to explain what s45A does in practice, in the context of this particular case....

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