London Evening Standard
London
Boris Johnson has made a direct appeal to David Cameron to prevent police cuts leaving Londoners in greater danger from a Paris-style massacre, the Evening Standard revealed.
The mayor met the Prime Minister one-to-one in the past 24 hours to warn urgently that Treasury demands to slash thousands of officers risks going too far. The Met fears it would have too few officers to combat multiple attacks on different targets at the same time — the tactic used to devastating effect in the Paris atrocities last Friday.
An ex-City of London counter-terrorism chief yesterday said officers would be mown down like World War I soldiers if they faced Kalashnikov-armed terrorists without better equipment.
And a leaked letter yesterday revealed a top police officer warned the home secretary that cuts of 20% in next week’s spending review will “severely impact” the UK’s ability to respond to a Paris-style attack. The developments come a week after 129 people were killed when terrorists with Kalashnikovs and suicide vests attacked a rock concert, the national football stadium and restaurants in co-ordinated atrocities.
Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe is under pressure to slash his 32,000 strong force by 5,000 officers.
Sources familiar with police thinking say a cut of 2,000 officers may be bearable but anything below 30,000 would enter a “danger zone” of unacceptable extra risk.
Also Sir Bernard says London needs twice as many armed officers ready for a terrorist crisis. Currently the Met has 2,000 firearms officers, with 1,500 available at any time. The force wants at least 3,000 available.
A source familiar with the high-level discussions said: “The prime minister, the chancellor and the home secretary all understand the imperative around police funding. We must maintain high numbers to keep the public safe.”
Johnson, who sits on the Cobra emergency planning committee that met after Paris, has lobbied both George Osborne and Theresa May to protect London’s blue line.
But Whitehall sources say the chancellor wants cuts of £800mn over four years, which May is resisting.
Surrey police and crime commissioner Kevin Hurley, the ex-head of counter-terrorism for the City of London Police, called the planned cuts “negligent”.
He said: “What we are aiming to do is the same thing we did in World War I, which is send single-shot riflemen against machineguns.”