The headlines in the our local paper, the Westminster Extra, on Policing over the Coronation chimes with the devastating conclusion of the Baroness Casey Review of the Met being ” institutionally racist, misogynist and homophobic”  as it appears to be going from one crisis to another even before the incidents during the day of the Coronation. 

That is the arrest of night time volunteers handing out rape alarms to vulnerable women; locking up republicans for 16 hours for the crime of unloading some placards and detaining a royal “superfan” for 13 hours because she happened to be sat near some protesters.

Since the Coronation, its officers have been filmed shooting two dogs and tasering their owner; admitted keeping crucial evidence relating to the Daniel Morgan murder inquiry locked up for years in a safe near Senior Officers and an Officer been sacked for punching and kicking a 14 year old boy and then lying about it. 

Furthermore, Baroness Doreen Lawrence further added that the Met has failed to change some 30 years after the death of her son and the MacPherson Report as well.   

So it’s quite clear the additional Public Order powers, given days before the Coronation, should not have been given to the Met, in the first place until it sorts itself out under special measures already.