Politicians Must ‘Publicly Support’ The Police

With a general election likely to happen in 2024, politicians need to do more to fund and support the police, Hampshire Police Federation has said.

In addition, Police and Crime Commissioner elections are taking place in May. Hampshire Police Federation Chair Zoë Wakefield said that politicians of all stripes needed to publicly back officers and do more to fight against negative media coverage.

She said: “I reiterate the importance of policing to politicians – if you want good, well-trained, well-resourced police forces, then you need to ensure that we’ve got the funding and you need to support us.

“The record number of officers voluntarily leaving forces at the moment is partly because of the way we are portrayed by politicians and the media. If they don’t want us to keep losing all that experience, and they want more experienced, better police forces, then one thing they could do is just publicly support us rather than slating us. Put out positive police stories.

“Yes, there are some negatives and we’d expect those to appear in the news. But balance it with the positive ones, because we know there’s positive policing happening every single day, in every single police force, but it’s just not newsworthy.”

Zoë added: “As far as the PCC goes, fortunately we’ve got a very good PCC at the moment, who’s very supportive of police officers. She is also very vocal about policing with all the politicians she has contact with.”