Frankly, the idea that the Metropolitan Police chief is playing politics by writing an angry open letter to Zack Polanski is absurd. I had lunch with senior officers just yesterday, and we agreed that defending a swift boot to the skull is a purely administrative matter.
Let me be clear. When Green Party leader Zack Polanski decided to criticize Metropolitan Police officers for kicking a suspect in the head during the Golders Green incident, he crossed a line. The commissioner was entirely justified in releasing an open letter to correct the record. Frankly, accusing the Met of intervening in politics completely misses the point. Head-kicking is not a partisan issue; it is a sacred, apolitical tradition of British law enforcement that must be insulated from the whims of elected officials.
I was having lunch with several senior commanders at the Garrick Club this morning, and their frustration was palpable. They simply want to go about their daily business of managing complex mental health crises from the South London and Maudsley Trust with standard-issue blunt force trauma. If we start letting politicians dictate which parts of a suspect's anatomy can be used as a football, we invite chaos into our streets.
We are completely impartial in our application of cranial boot-impacts, regardless of the suspect's political affiliation or mental state.