Isn't it time to free the police?

Yesterday thousands of policemen and women marched on Westminster against their boss, the Home Secretary David Blunkett. Once upon a time, Londoners would have risen in sympathy with the Bobby on the Beat. Not now. The London policeman is considered overpaid, overtime and never over here. If you want a Bobby on your Beat in London these days, you hire your own.

In years of writing about the police, I have gathered a bulging file of letters, mostly from hard-working constables who joined the force to serve their community. They are fed up. Their beef is not money, whatever the Police Federation would have us believe. The police are among London's bestpaid public servants. They are exasperated by two things: a corrupt management culture and Home Office bureaucracy.

Police bureaucracy is beyond hope as long as the Met is run by the Home Office. David Blunkett's new police bill is awesome. He was the worst generator of bureaucracy that the education department ever knew, and he is determined to bring the same reputation to the Home Office. He is addicted to reports, statistics, indicators, checks, central initiatives, anything that crushes local initiative and gives him more control. If Mr Blunkett were leading troops to battle, there would be no room for bullets in their kit, only orders, forms and reports in triplicate.

Mr Blunkett now wants every force to contribute to his National Police Plan. Anything a policeman does must be entered on a form and transferred to a computer. Armies of officials will convert this into a centralised database so that Mr Blunkett can know what is happening everyway. He then wants a National Intelligence Model and a National Centre for Police Excellence. He wants a new National Police Inspectorate and additional powers to take over any force that does not do what he says.

But on police pay and conditions, Mr Blunkett is right, witness yesterday's Police Federation march. He wants to end the overtime rackets, the off-sick rackets, the training and conference rackets, the early retirement rackets and the special duties bonus rackets. He wants to know why a suburban force that could once put 20 constables onto the high street of an evening puts none there today, with the same budget. He wants force commanders to be allowed to manage, rather than spend half their time fiddling overtime rosters.

A recently retired policeman wrote to me explaining why there were now so few police on the beat. To be "on division", he said, is regarded as "the lowest position-and the worst in policing"-If one is stuck on the streets "one must survive by making life as easy as possible, by disappearing into the backs of caf?s, pubs, shops, anywhere where one can get tea, food, alcohol, etc (preferably free)". A young policeman should "avoid getting lumbered with some arduous, time-consuming piece of paperwork such as reporting traffic accidents". Trouble was not the problem but the paperwork to which it led.

My policeman added: "It was made quite clear to me in my first few days that one's first ambition should be to get into a department." This once meant CID or traffic. Now it is a vast bureaucratic empire embracing firearms, dogs, domestic violence, child protection, burglary squad, fraud squad, drugs squad, communications and IT, accident investigation, health and safety, personnel, force development, equal opportunities, school liaison, hate crime, "managing change" - you name it, someone in the Home Office thinks the police should do it.

And once that precious promotion off the street is won, "if he rocked the boat, questioned authority or his face does not fit", he would be "punished by being returned to division". My policeman was amazed to meet a New York colleague who was proud to be a patrolman. In London there are officers who would rather peel potatoes in the canteen than go on the street. They were "ashamed to be just a plod".

Criminal corruption and freemasonry are known to be less rife in the Met than of old, except over drugs. The new corruption is the manipulation of conditions of service. After 261/2 years, a police officer can "fake some ailment and get themselves retired on ill-health grounds and a full 30-year pension". Even "stress" will fill the bill. The overwhelming majority of women police officers do not complete their 30 years' service. This service is as badly managed as was Fleet Street before the Wapping revolution. Mr Blunkett is determined to end this state of affairs.

He wants to know how the New York police get 30 per cent more police from the same budget and in the same size of city. He wants to know why 90 per cent of New York patrolmen actually patrol, deterring crime and reassuring the public, while 40 per cent of London policemen are sitting in a comfortable office, and most of the rest are in cars. He wants to know why a quarter of London police time is spent off sick, on holiday or "training" and a third of the pay budget is going on pensions.

Mr Blunkett does not want just occasional high-profile drugs busts that achieve nothing but cram London's jails. He does not need the six mini-vans and 25 officers I saw two nights ago in Tottenham Court Road on a one-off "muggings blitz". Mr Blunkett claims to want single policemen patrolling local high streets, liaising with traffic wardens and neighbourhood watch members. It is outrageous that Londoners can only get this elementary security by hiring private firms.

I will tell you why London's police are worried. They suspect they may be going the way of London's dockers and printers. While they sit in their offices, cars and VIP lounges, their job is being shifted to others, to Mr Blunkett's Community Support Officers and neighbourhood wardens and to the private sector. They want the streets patrolled, period.

This is not me talking. What is impressive is that the people who feel this most strongly are the police themselves.