THE Prime Minister is dead right – our country has never needed a decent police force more than we need it today.
Yet after the murder of Sarah Everard by a senior officer in the Met, the reputation of the British police is in the sewer.
When I was growing up, you routinely heard that our police were “the best in the world”.
I wonder if we will ever hear that sentiment again?
Dixon of Dock Green has been replaced by Wayne Couzens — the serving Met police officer who three years ago stopped Sarah Everard by showing her his warrant card and lying that she was in violation of some lockdown regulation.
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Then Couzens arrested Sarah, handcuffed her, raped her, murdered her, burned her body and threw her remains in a pond.
It was, and always will be, a crime that shocked this country to its very core.
Our elected MPs terrified of the mob. Giant pro-Palestinian marches now a feature of every weekend.
Eco loonies lying in the middle of the road. Shoplifting and burglary rampant.
But in our country’s hour of need, confidence in the police is at an all-time low.
The police are widely perceived as pathetically soft on crime, quick to bend the metaphorical knee to disruptive protests, and acting as if the crimes that blight ordinary lives have nothing much to do with them.
Last year, only 5.7 per cent of criminal offences resulted in a charge or summons in England and Wales.
And this week’s report on the murder of Sarah Everard has totally shattered any remaining faith in the police.
“Sarah died because he was a police officer,” said Sarah’s family in a calm, considered and totally heartbreaking statement.
“She would never have got into a stranger’s car.”
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Red flag
The inquiry into Sarah’s murder could not be more damning of the police.
It reveals that a serial sex offender who should have been in jail years ago was instead given a policeman’s uniform, a glittering career in the Met, and even a firearm.
Couzens is the scum who was allowed to rise to be among the cream of the Metropolitan Police – a fêted father figure known as Papa Wayne by adoring young coppers.
The shocking, sickening reality is that Couzens had 30 years of sex crimes behind him.
A sex assault on a child. Two rapes. And multiple occasions where he exposed himself. Every single red flag was ignored.
Every time the lazy, lethargic coppers looked the other way. Couzens, the inquiry concluded, had a “long-held callous” attitude towards women, and a collection of violent porn.
Totally rotten
One day we will find the wit to ask ourselves what a diet of violent pornography does to the male mind.
Especially when that warped male mind is given the state-sanctioned power of the police. But today we mourn Sarah Everard.
Her name will never be forgotten, because Sarah’s horrific, lonely death marks a turning moment for this country.
It would be comforting to think that Wayne Couzens is a terrible aberration, an obscene one-off. And we know in our hearts that it is not true.
There is a snickering, bullying, low-level misogyny that permeates our police.
Think of David Carrick, jailed for life after committing 85 serious offences, including multiple rapes, while a Met officer.
Think of Met officers Jamie Lewis and Deniz Jaffer, jailed for taking and sharing photographs of murdered sisters Nicole Smallman and Bibaa Henry.
There are countless brave, decent officers who will put themselves in harm’s way to protect strangers.
But something totally rotten at the heart of our police emboldened Wayne Couzens to believe he could get away with the murder of Sarah.
We will honour and respect the memory of Sarah if our police can escape the woman-hating gutter they rot in today.
“It is three years now since Sarah died,” said her parents.
“We no longer wait for her call. We no longer expect to see her.
“We know she won’t be there at family gatherings.
“But the desperate longing to have her with us remains and the loss of Sarah pervades every part of our lives.”
The pain of her parents Sue and Jeremy, and siblings Katie and James, is beyond our imagination.
Their lives have been stolen too. As Couzens serves his life sentence in his cosy cell, doesn’t it feel as if he is getting off far, far too lightly?
Tully a local winner
“LABOUR has lost the confidence of millions of its voters,” proclaimed George Galloway after winning the Rochdale by-election with a pro-Palestinian campaign that Keir Starmer, our Prime Minister in waiting, just can’t match.
And Galloway is right. There are plenty of voters – Muslims, the young, progressives of every kind – who feel that Labour do not care enough about the 30,000 Palestinians who have died in Gaza since the Hamas atrocities of October 7.
If Galloway does what he threatens and fields 50 candidates for his pro-Palestine Workers Party at the General Election, Keir Starmer may find he has been measuring the curtains for 10 Downing Street a bit prematurely.
Perhaps even bigger news was that the candidate who came second in Rochdale – hammering Tories, Labour, Reform and even the Monster Raving Loony Party – was a local businessman called David Tully, who stood on the platform of caring about . . . Rochdale.
Tully spoke about local issues rather than a terrible war on the other side of the world. I wonder if it will catch on?
Family should be worried at how Bianca is baring up
I HAVE disliked Kanye West since he bullied Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Awards, rushing the stage to object to Taylor, then 19, receiving the award for best video.
President Obama called West “a jackass”, which was fair comment.
And it looks like West’s jackass tendencies are contagious.
Bianca Censori, Mrs Kanye West, an Australian model and architect, has taken to stepping out with her hubby wearing next to nothing.
In Paris, Bianca hit the streets with her global assets on full view, front and back, her lingerie left back in the hotel.
Bianca’s flashing garnered headlines but means that Bianca could be fined £12,800 or even jailed under French decency laws.
Bianca’s exhibitionism didn’t look sexy, racy, steamy, raunchy or any of that. It looked deranged.
Bianca Censori is not a stupid woman. She has both a bachelor’s and master’s degree in architecture from the University of Melbourne.
But something is clearly going awry with her since she married the vile Kanye West in 2022.
And if I was Bianca’s friend or family member, then I would be deeply concerned about her.
Words of lost times
PATTIE BOYD, the ultimate Sixties and Seventies rock and roll sweetheart, is selling her love letters from George Harrison and Eric Clapton at Christie’s auction house.
Pattie famously inspired two great songs – Something by George Harrison and Layla by Eric Clapton – and one lousy song, Wonderful Tonight, with Eric sounding like he had had one too many and was ready for bed.
Good luck to her. Even a muse needs a pension plan. What is truly poignant about Pattie’s old love letters is they are the last of their kind.
What will star-crossed lovers have to reveal in 50 years? A line of heart emojis is just not the same.
I DON’T buy the line Anya Taylor-Joy was “promoting star-vation” when she shared an image of her slender frame squeezed into a corset with her 10million followers on Instagram.
It has more to do with Anya promoting Dune: Part Two.
And as someone who nodded off during Dune: Part One, I reckon Dune: Part Two can do with all the promotion it can get.
Peppa not pig issue
PEPPA Pig is chastised in the US for her “rude, bossy behaviour”.
I always found Peppa a gentle soul. In the classic episode Daddy Gets Fit, Peppa diplomatically observes that Daddy Pig’s waistline is “quite big” (it is the size of a prize watermelon).
That is hardly the language of a bossy brat. But the Yanks can’t see it.
“Don’t let your kids watch Peppa Pig!” fumes one parent on Common Sense Media, an American monitor of children’s TV, films and games.
Peppa Pig is fast becoming Peppa Pariah in the US.
But don’t they have bigger problems to worry about?
Save your own bacon, America!
THE night before my wife and I got married, we went out for dinner at a Japanese restaurant and George Michael joined us.
This was 1992. George was at the peak of his post-Faith solo fame. The restaurant was packed.
And when George strolled in, baseball cap pulled over that famous face, every eye in the place looked at him, then looked away.
Because he was clearly just some young guy trying to look like George Michael.
I was reminded of that night when I saw the coin the Royal Mint has issued to “honour” George Michael. Sorry, it doesn’t look like George.
The face is too lean, the lips too thin, the hair too much like pre-divorce Princess Diana.
It looks like some young guy trying to look like George Michael.
