Theresa May has a long and frosty history with the police but it's not unreasonable to expect enmity between officers and the longest serving Home Secretary in more than 50 years.

May 2012:

Theresa May is heckled and jeered over 20% cuts at the annual Police Federation Conference.

Humiliation after she is forced to deliver traditional speech under a banner with the word "criminal" written on it.

May 2014:


Ms May delivers a speech to the Police Federation in which she lambasts them over corruption and tells officers they show a "contempt for the public".

Received in stunned silence. Officers say they are "bewildered" and "angry" after the dressing down.

February 2015:

The Home Secretary tells police to stop unnecessary stop and searches and warns if officers don't rein in the searches she will legislate to tie their hands.

May 2015:

Police Federation Chairman Steve White hits back, telling Ms May she was wrong last year and that "we are not good friends, but neither should we be".

He warns her to "listen to us" and not to dismiss concerns as "scare-mongering".

Ms May responds in her speech by dismissing police concerns over cuts as "scare-mongering" and tells officers to stop "crying wolf".

June 2015:

Metropolitan Police Chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe says the reduction of stop and search has led to an increase in knife crime.

September 2015:

Ms May announces "greater role" for volunteers in the policing as 17,000 posts cut since 2010 - a further 22,000 are expected to go by the end of the 2020.

Police Federation say it's like using a "sticking plaster on a patient bleeding to death".

Sir Bernard says it is time police start "fighting our corner" over cuts.

October 2015:

Ms May slaps down Sir Bernard's claim on knife crime saying "it's simply not true".

In an address in Birmingham to the National Black Police Association she also tells police forces to pull their socks up over the number of women and ethnic minority officers.