Police cuts WILL go ahead, says Osborne as 'throwing money at deep-seated social issues is not the answer'



President Obama praises the way UK police tackled the rioters

'Supercop' Bill Bratton and PM expected to meet next month

U.S. police chief says thugs need to fear the police and sentences they may be handed



Osborne warns of 'deep-seated social problems'



Chancellor George Osborne today said the Government would press ahead with money-saving cuts to police numbers and said throwing money at 'deep-seated social issues' was not the answer.

He said that reform of the nation's police forces was needed, which would make officers more visible on the streets.

However, he rejected the notion that improving the country's safety was a matter of simply boosting police numbers.



Chancellor George Osborne said today that the Government would go ahead with cuts, as former U.S police chief claimed making multiple arrests was not the answer to solving society's problems

In a phone call to David Cameron this week President Obama congratulated the way Britain's police and politicians have handled the riots..

A White House, a spokesman said: 'President Obama commended the Prime Minister on the steadiness he, his Government and the British police had demonstrated in handling the recent riots and shared the Prime Minister's hope that the situation would now continue to remain calm.'

Mr Osborne's words will infuriate many, including London Mayor Boris Johnson,who claimed there were simply not enough police on the streets to cope with this week's rioting and looting.

Praise: President Obama has commended the way police handled the riots

His words came as a former U.S. police chief drafted in by David Cameron to help restore order to the UK's streets said that making multiple arrests after a social disorder event was not a helpful strategy.

Former New York police head Bill Bratton claimed young thugs and gang members should be made to ‘fear’ the police and stiff punishments for crimes.

Famed for his ‘zero tolerance’ tactics, Mr Bratton said that UK forces should be more assertive with offenders, advocating a doctrine of ‘escalating force’.

'You can't arrest your way out of the problem,' he said. 'Arrest is certainly appropriate for the most violent, the incorrigible, but so much of it can be addressed in other ways and it is not just a police issue, it is in fact a societal issue.'

His words came as police forces around the country trumpeted the arrest of more than 2,000 suspects, thanks in part to a number of hugely successful 'shop a looter' campaigns run by individual forces.

Last week David Cameron was reported to have approached Mr Bratton to discuss taking charge of the Metropolitan Police, and he has already enlisted him to help tackle the threat of gangs as a government advisor.



However fresh doubts emerged today over Mr Bratton's chances of landing the top job at the Met, which could be hindered by the Prime Minister’s own police reforms and clampdown on immigration.

According to the Guardian, as a U.S. citizen Mr Bratton may be blocked by the police and social responsibility bill currently going through parliament.



It states that the Met commissioner must hold the office of 'constable', which Mr Bratton, who has never served in the British police, does not.



He could be sworn in but would then face another obstacle.



Those who hold the office of constable and who are not British citizens must have been granted immigration status allowing them to remain in the UK indefinitely.



However, the government has vowed to restrict the numbers of people being granted permission to stay in Britain indefinitely to limit immigration.

New York: Bratton made his name by tackling gang crime in the city

In further misery for Mr Cameron, a poll for the Independent newspaper showed 54 per cent of Brits thought the Prime Minister - on holiday when trouble started -had not taken command of the riot situation early enough in the week.



A former leader of one of London's most feared street gangs added that the riots were indicative of frustrations among young people, rather than an orchestrated outburst of violence.



The 63-year-old American said young offenders should be made to realise very early in their lives that crime will result in punishment.



He said: ‘You want the criminal element to fear them, fear their ability to interrupt their own ability to carry out criminal behaviour, and arrest and prosecute and incarcerate them.



‘In my experience, the younger criminal element don’t fear the police and have been emboldened to challenge the police and effectively take them on,' he told the Telegraph.



‘What needs to be understood is that police are empowered to do certain things - to stop, to talk, to frisk on certain occasions, to arrest if necessary, to use force.’

The deadline for applications for the Commissioner’s post, which became vacant following the resignation of Sir Paul Stephenson during the phone hacking scandal, was supposed to be Friday.



However, it has been put back following this week’s riots.



HOW BRATTON TAMED THE U.S. CRIME GANGS Bill Bratton is not a complete outsider to British policing. He's been a consultant advising different forces.

In 1991, he famously delivered a list of about 400 gang and drug kingpins he wanted to arrest to the mayor of Boston when he became commissioner. His initial success in New York relied on big increases in resources - recruiting 5,000 new better trained officer. R eports of serious crime dropped 27 per cent. In Los Angeles he worked on smaller budgets, specifically tackling gangs, using Big Society ideas of local areas taking responsibility for fighting crime in their neighbourhoods.

Mr Bratton left Los Angeles police in 2009 - after significantly lowering the crime rate and is now chairman of Kroll, a Manhattan-based private security firm.



The advert placed by the Home Office states that candidates ‘must be British citizens’.

Mr Cameron spoke to Mr Bratton - who has also headed the Los Angeles police - by telephone yesterday.



The two men discussed the possibility of Mr Bratton advising the Government on how to deal with gangs.

Mr Bratton said: 'This is a Prime Minister who has a clear idea of what he wants to do.

'He sees this crisis as a way to bring change. The police force there can be a catalyst for that. I'm very optimistic.'

The pair are expected to meet face-to-face next month to continue their talks.



But many UK police officers are said to be furious at the Prime Minister's decision to contact him.

Ian Hanson, chairman of Greater Manchester Police Federation, claimed many officers resented the decision to consult a foreigner about a domestic problem.



He said: 'There is anger, there is disappointment and a degree of incredulity as well.

'We're local people who live in the communities, who work in the communities and police them. He needs to speak to us, not someone who lives 5,000 miles away.'

Mr Hanson believes there were not enough police officers at the start of this week's riots because the Government has cut police numbers.



He added: 'One thing that Bill Bratton did when he took over in New York in 1994, was he increased the establishment of New York City police by 5,000 officers.

'How an earth are we going to replicate that with cuts approaching 30,000 police officers?'



Getting to grips: A police officer tackles a looter in Manchester on Tuesday night

Chancellor George Osborne today backed Mr Bratton and said there were 'deep-seated social problems' to address but stuck to the party line on police budget cuts.

'We are committed to the plan we have set out for police reform. And it is about reform, about improving the presence of the police in our communities, making the police more visible,' he said.



He told Radio 4 Today programme. 'There are very deep-seated social problems which we need to tackle.



'There are communities that have just been left behind by the rest of the country, there are communities cut off from the economic lifeblood of the rest of the country.



'I don't think the debate should be reduced to whether there should be x-thousand numbers of police officers or x-thousand-plus-one numbers of police officers in our society.



'We want an effective police service. They have done an amazing job this week. We want to use the advice of people like Bill Bratton to really tackle some of the deep-seated social issues like gang culture.

