Letter: Government agents in police authorities

Sir: You report (3 February) that Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, has modified his proposals to direct the police forces of this country through his own appointed chairpersons of police authorities. We should not be lulled into complacency by this.

He still has plans to place his own agents in every police authority in the country. To do this, he proposes to invoke the services of Her Majesty's Lords Lieutenant and private consultants as a selection mechanism in a uniquely politically unaccountable triumvirate. In this way, it may be said that he involves the monarch (vicariously) in local politics. By exercising the royal prerogative (do I hear the ghost of Charles I laughing?) he retains the right peremptorily to dismiss those of his agents who displease him.

Why can't he leave well alone?

Yours faithfully,

JOHN ALDERSON

Ottery St Mary, Devon

6 February

The writer is a former Chief Constable of Devon and Cornwall.