Barely two days before the vote on the biggest police budget showdown in recent Toronto history, the leader of the mayor’s attack force got word of the city’s surrender.

“Here’s what we are being told,” Mayor Rob Ford’s emissary told Councillor Michael Thompson, vice-chair of the police services board and Ford’s mouthpiece. “The chief can only come up with 4.2, 4.6 per cent.”

The telephone call wasn’t being made to elicit discussion. It was to say that the mission to get a 10 per cent budget cut from the police was being abandoned.

“My perspective was, ‘Okay. Game over,’ ” Thompson says.

“Somewhere, a decision had been made. There was no consultation with me. My own personal thought was, ‘Okay, it’s business as usual.’ ”

There are three consequences:

First, police spending will continue unchecked by Ford, despite the city manager’s directives that every department cut 10 per cent out of the 2012 budget. (In fact, police spending is going up, again.)

Second, future attempts to tame the monster, now topping $1 billion, will be even more difficult. The police have repelled this assault. Others will be near futile.

“This was our best chance,” said Thompson. “We’re talking about 25 per cent of the property taxes collected” going to policing.

Finally, Team Ford enlisted Thompson to do battle but left him exposed and vulnerable — ostensibly for political gain.

Thompson was a good choice as Ford’s point man at the police board. He had good relationship with police. Polite but firm, he had the right temperament to stand up to police intransigence.

Thompson asked Police Chief Bill Blair to report on the impact of 500 fewer police officers. He is still waiting for the report. He challenged police spending on its computerized records management system and was greeted with stiff backs and stern faces. Soon, police sources started telling reporters that Thompson had “gone rogue,” claiming, in essence, he was on a one-man mission outside direction from the mayor’s office.

Thompson publicly challenged Blair, telling reporters if the chief couldn’t follow the budget guidelines, maybe someone else might better do the job.

Was he a Rambo?

“Till the very end, the directions were very clear. There was no confusion. Even days before, from the city manager, budget chief, the mayor, there was still the request to cut 10 per cent.”

Over the weekend, a flurry of meeting and “activities” changed minds, Thompson said. He was not part of the discussions.

So, did Ford enlist Thompson for a fight he wasn’t prepared to wage? Did he use the councillor to burnish his image as waste buster when he never intended to cut the police budget? Did he set Thompson out on a limb and then cut it off?

“I don’t know,” Thompson says. “I had been asked to do a job.”

And will he try again next year?

“The task to generate efficiencies in policing is everyone’s responsibility. The best chance was now. Will it be more challenging? Yes. Am I going to quit? No. I can hold my head up high.”

Inside police headquarters where Thompson’s name is mud, he says the word is: “They are going to amputate my political career. But I don’t scare easy. I’m not intimidated.”

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

But one can only be a sucker for punishment for so long. A year hence, Team Ford’s members, licking the wounds inflicted by friendly fire, will shift to self-preservation, ahead of re-election year.

And the mayor’s coalition, eroded by such betrayals, could crumble.

Royson James usually appears Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Email: rjames @thestar.ca