We perhaps don’t see it often enough. But, earlier this morning, a mainstream news broadcaster actually called out a government minister for being economical with the truth. Suella Braverman met her match on Bank Holiday Monday, after clashing with Sky News’ Jayne Secker.
The Home Secretary has been doing the media rounds, parroting out some of the usual stuff. She told Radio 4 that the government are still considering pulling out of the European Court of Human Rights, and went on the BBC to blame LABOUR for her party’s immigration failures.
In a typically combative mood, Suella Braverman fought to defend the embattled Tories, who are currently on course for a bruising defeat at the next General Election. However, her attempts to wrestle control of the narrative fell desperately short on Secker’s show.
The government has pledged that police officers must now investigate EVERY case of theft that is reported to them. Braverman argued that the recruitment of 23,000 extra coopers means that they do have the capacity to cope with this extra demand.
The anchor, however, wasn’t so keen to accept this version of events. Using the Home Office’s own figures, Secker told Braverman that the net gain of officers since 2010 only amounts to 3,000, and not 23,000 as she so boldly claimed.
So, who to believe? Although the number of new officers is correct, it does not account for the 20,000 officials who left or lost their jobs in law enforcement over the last decade or so.
“There are no extra resources. The police aren’t sitting on their hands. What must make way instead? You lost 20,000 police officers since 2010, and gained 23,000. So that’s 3,000 in total. We’ve got the Home Office figures here, it is absolutely only 3,000 officers.” | Jayne Secker
As per the figures from Braverman’s own department, there were 146,000 police officers active in 2010. In 2023, that number has only increased slightly, to 149,000. Quite simply, it was a truth bomb that the Home Secretary couldn’t disarm.
