The minister in charge of policing had her purse stolen at a conference about…policing. Crime, Policing and Fire minister Diana Johnson met with senior police officers earlier today when her wallet was nicked, having just spoken at the conference bemoaning the “epidemic of anti-social behaviour, theft and shoplifting”. You couldn’t make it up…

The incident sent the Home Office into hight alert as they are now “probing security risks” while Warwickshire Police have confirmed they are investigating the theft. Let’s hope it wasn’t one of those early released prisoners…

Labour is continuing its clamp down on free speech. Yvette Cooper has reversed the Tories’ decision last year to stop police recording so many “non-crime hate incidents” as it was a waste of police time. Under the Tories police were restricted to recording incidents which posed a real risk of escalating into “significant” harm…

Labour proudly declares today that “Home Office has committed to reverse the decision of the previous government to downgrade the monitoring of anti-Semitic and Islamophobic hate, at a time when rates of those incidents have increased.” Police will now be told to record the “non-crime” incidents, which is apparently needed to “monitor tensions.” It’s OK, though: Labour says it is “balancing” the plans with the right to free speech. How long will it be before Labour re-commits to locking up those who go about “misgendering” people…

Labour’s election manifesto features an endorsement from former Detective Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas, an approval Labour hoped would bolster their promise to crack down on crime. Though Thomas hasn’t been one to encourage the full force of the law on some serious offenders…

Back in 2016, Thomas called for a review of the sex offenders register and a debate about diverting some paedophiles into treatment rather than imprisoning them. Speaking of his concerns about there not being enough room to jail all paedophiles, he said: “Should we be going down the criminal justice route or, based on a proper assessment, should we be going down the health route?”  Thomas also argued that young hackers should face “virtual prisons” rather than jail-time, proposing the use of wi-fi jammers and educational programmes rather than the “19th century punishments to deal with 21st century crimes.” Not exactly a model of ‘tough on crime’…

Keir Starmer’s big party election broadcast featuring Gary Neville has just dropped on ITV. It is due to be repeated on BBC One. As Neville and Starmer climb through the Lake District, Starmer says:

“Politics is about service. I’ve worked in the police force in Northern Ireland. I’ve run the Crown Prosecution Service. And I’ve changed the Labour Party to put it back into the service of working people. That’s what I’ll do with our country”.

The only issue is that Starmer didn’t “work in the police force in Northern Ireland”. He was a part time advisor to the NI policing board, which is and was not part of the police force there. In fact, the whole point is that the board is independent of the police force. Starmer is making it look like he was a frontline officer, when actually he was a human rights advisor to a separate organisation which has nothing to do with front line policing…

It’s an interesting and revealing slip up from Sir Keir. PEBs are tightly regulated. Will be interesting to see how this lands…

No surprises among the Tory law and order policy community this morning as former national top counter-terror cop Neil Basu endorsed Keir Starmer in a simpering video at the party’s pledge card launch event. Basu said: “There’s no evidence that the Rwanda scheme will stop the gangs… so I’m heartened to see Keir Starmer’s plans for a new Border Security Command… this won’t be easy work.” With cops like these…

Suspicions had been harboured by generations of Tory Home Office operators that Basu had left-leaning sympathies. In 2022 Basu dropped out of contention to become head of the National Crime Agency after a reported No10 intervention – opposition to him becoming Met Commissioner was also made clear. He presided over the notorious Operations Weeting, Elveden and Tuleta, which criminalised journalists, and publicly attacked a no deal Brexit. He also launched a failed investigation to prosecute journalists who published former UK Ambassador to Washington Kim Darroch’s cables about Donald Trump. He quit policing late last year – just in time to launch an overt career in politics rather than an undercover one. How long before he pops up as a Labour candidate, or in the Lords…

The SNP’s Hate Crime and Public Order Act, which becomes operational next month, is generating the expected consequences – persecution of innocent, humourous, or satirical speech. Humza Yousaf himself has already been reported to the police for “offensive” comments he made about trans rapist Isla Bryson…

Training documents obtained by The Herald reveal which “hate crimes” will be pursued:

“The different ways in which a person may communicate material to another person are by: displaying, publishing or distributing the material, for example on a sign, on the internet through websites, blogs, podcasts, social media etc, either directly, or by forwarding or repeating material that originates from a third party, through printed media such as magazine publications or leaflets… giving, sending, showing or playing the material to another person… through online streaming, by email, playing a video, through public performance of a play.”

So thespians will find their performances are only a matinee prior to a night in the clink. Police Scotland has also pledged to investigate every hate crime complaint recorded. That’s as the SNP backs a plan for them to ignore 25,000 crimes a year in the interests of “proportionate” policing. Guido ventures that’s not quite what Peel had in mind…