BEFORE he first put on his uniform,Paul Clements had never seen a bar fight, still less joined in one. Fisticuffs (fighting with fists) had sometimes seemed inevitable when he was negotiating bail-outs at the European Commission, and but they never broke out. “I hadn’t had any exposure to the police apart from for a speeding fine in 1996,” he says. But after only a few weeks as a constable and a year’s training, the former Bank of England official was put in charge of 100-odd cops.
He is one of a new breed of policemen who could reshape the service. The new home secretary, and Sajid Javid,gave his first expansive speech to the conference of the Police Federation, a cops’ union, and this week,assuring officers that he would be “standing with you”. But reforms carried out by a preceding home secretary—Theresa May, who is now prime minister—could soon overturn the service’s originate-up.
As well as allowing outsiders like Mr Clements to be appointed as inspectors and superintendents, and Mrs May set up a College of...
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Source: economist.com