So [url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-17242956here[/url you go. I mean, people are complaining now about waiting 24 hours for the police to investigate crimes. They might as well not bother ringing if the private sector take over. Indeed, they'll probably be charged 118 118 rates for having the impertinence to pick up the phone.

I'm still waiting for the chief constable of West Yorkshire to be found dead in a ditch as he promised he would rather be if he ever cut front line services.

[urlhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-bradford-west-yorkshire-12006826[/url


Maybe he just meant that he'd sell them off to Reliance ?

Anyone know of any links from Theresa May to any of the companies involved?

The private sector will be rubbing their hands with glee. Once they get a foot in the door and set a precedent the push will begin for greater and greater encroachment into policing. The public then becomes the frog sat in a pot of water oblivious to the temperature being raised until it boils alive.

This report says as much about the non-neutrality of the BBC than anything else. Whilst it mentions the concerns of various parties there is almost no attempt made to substantiate them or consider the issue against the context of other public sector services farmed out to the private sector for reasons of economy (buses, directory enquiries etc.) which have subsequently proved far more expensive and a poor substitute for the original.

Judge Dredd/Robocop here we come.

Judge Dredd is not part of a private company. He is the law!

Iron Man is an example of successful private policing

No he's not. He's a successful businessman turned vigalante. Or was, I'm only just up to speed with The Ultimates.





LOL, but fair point.

I wonder if cost savings could be made by outsourcing the justice system.

Obviously the actual provision of policing needs to be done in the UK but once arrests have been made could the detention and incarceration be done overseas? It would cost us a lot to build new prisons here but if there was say capacity in China could there not be a market for offenders where we pay the Chinese a rate to take say our juvenile offenders, serve their sentence in Chinese prisons? If we pay the Chinese a rate cheaper than it would cost us to provide for the prisoners here then its a better deal.

The private sector does this type of thing all the time by outsourcing different parts of a production process, we could say carry out the policing in the UK, then once arrests have been done other parts of the system could be done overseas. Eg if there is a long time waiting for a hearing in a UK court why not make use of courts overseas? In the UK the cost of a criminal case is very expensive because of the need to pay for expensive lawyers but there are some countries that don't require lawyers to be present and could fast track from arrest to punishment in much quicker times than we saw under the past Labour government.

Christ. Is there anything the Tories won't privatise?

Oh yeah. Religion must be safeguarded by the state but health, education and policing obviously aren't as important.

These sorts of privatisation, like rail, are not about the private sector being better, more efficient, etc. They are about breaking up national, unionised monopolies, which can disrupt democracy. In this case they will also be a way, over time, of reducing the unreasonable cost of pension provision relative to the overall police budget. From these perspectives, breaking up these sort of organisations makes sense. From the publics point of view, like rail privatisation, they will be a retrograde step.

Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?