This blog was a bit sceptical about the appointment off Sir Paul Stephenson, as Commissioner of Police for the Metropolis i.e. the boss of the Metropolitan Police.
However, he was correctly and commendably utterly silent in public during the General Election campaign, unlike his NuLabour predecessor Sir Ian Blair during the 2005 campaign.
It is also very encouraging to read this Daily Telegraph report:
Met chief Sir Paul Stephenson: scrap police bonuses
All police bonuses should be scrapped to prove that officers are motivated by their duty to serve the public, according to Sir Paul Stephenson, Britain's most senior policeman.
By Richard Edwards, Crime Correspondent
Published: 10:01PM BST 17 May 2010[...]
Sir Paul, who is paid £250,000 a year for running Britain's largest force, has turned down more than £100,000 worth of performance-related bonuses since 2005.
"If I had accepted a bonus I always felt as though I would compromise my operational independence and discharge of duties, and that is something that forms the basis to my whole approach to policing," he said.
"I am very disappointed that we still have bonus payments in policing. Now is the time to get rid of them as far as I'm concerned. They should never have been there in the first place."
[...]
We do not begrudge Sir Paul Stephenson his salary of only £250,000 a year, given that he is responsible for a budget of three and a half billion pounds a year of public money and "more than 33,000 officers together with about 14,200 police staff, 270 traffic wardens and 4,700 Police Community Support Officers (PCSOs)".
Perhaps there will really be a return to Sir Robert Peel's principles of policing