Who should police forces answer to?

Not the Home Office, argues Simon Jenkins.

Reid wants to merge Britain's police into a regionalised (which means centralised) force so it is "fit for purpose" against terror. The result is wholly predictable, to increase the hysterical in police accountability and diminish the communal. Police chiefs will answer to London and to ministers, not to streets and communities. There will be more Stockwells and Forest Gates, not fewer. There will be more alienation and lack of cooperation from the Muslim community, and more public danger as a result.

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