Police and Crime Commissioner – Page 2

CRUMBRIA: 02/05/2025: EXCLUSIVE

LIFE on the front line of Cumbria Police is far from tickety boo – if a new survey is any snapshot.

445 serving officers in the county have let rip to union reps at the Police Federation.

The survey of officers reports:

91% do not feel respected by the Government.
78% wouldn’t recommend joining the police to others.
26% plan to quit either as “soon as they can” or in two years.
61% are experiencing low morale.
74% don’t feel valued within the service.
75% say the workload is too high.

It’s a blistering verdict of life under ‘Keirnocchio’, although resentments will pre-date his Government taking office.

The union doesn’t explicitly reveal why Crumbria’s officers feel the way that they do, so it’s wrong to jump to conclusions.

But is low morale in our national police farce the inevitable result when you have a wild leftward shift in policing ‘cultcha’?

Maybe a police officer out there might want to pen a secret column for The Chronic to put us right?

We’re sure it’s not all Macarena practising or tasering Grandad in the nuts for what he wrote on Facebook.

Meanwhile, at the top of Cumbria Police, it’s all change again.

After just two years in the big chair here, Chief Constable Rob Carden looks like he is boomeranging back to ‘Murkeyside Police’ where he started his career and has strong links.

He’s a whisker away from stepping into the big bootlets of outgoing Chief Cons Serena Kennedy. She retires on full pension in August having covered Merseyside Police in international glory in the wake of the, ahem, ‘Welsh Choir Boy incident’ in Southport.

Perhaps their desperation for a cool head is the price that rural Crumbria has to pay for steadying the Looneypool ship?

Slapping Mr Carden on the back as he bows out will be David Allen, the Labour police, fire and crime commissioner for Crumbria.

Mr Allen, elected last year with a big majority on a pitiful turnout of 21%, does at least bring to the role some working experience as a policeman.

Labour’s Mr Allen plodded the mean streets of Carlisle, Barrovia and Wokeington, albeit many moons ago, when policing culture was somewhat different.

Lesser known is that circa six months ago – in a controversy that went curiously ignored by our local snoozepapers – his office created a brand new £50,000-a-year post of Policy & Communications Manager.

Quite a tidy sum to winkle out of the Taxpayer at an empire already well-stocked with chiefs of this, and executives in charge of the paperclips.

41 applicants threw their hats into the ring for this brilliant new role of Policy & Comms that the PF&CC couldn’t live without.

By sheer twist of fate, the plum job ended up going to Mr Allen’s eminently qualified young Labour chief who helped mastermind his successful election win here in Cumbria last May!

Maybe the young political wizard fancies putting in for the Chief Constable job?