Police plan Westminster protest
By Phil Scullion
Over 2,000 frontline police officers are to demonstrate against police budget cuts in London next month.
The rally will be the police’s biggest protest in the capital for three years and will be held by the Police Federation of England and Wales at Methodist Central Hall on July 13th.
Paul McKeever, Police Federation chairman told the Daily Telegraph that morale among frontline police officers was “rock bottom” and that the protest would highlight concerns over cuts and a pay freeze.
He said: “We should be out there trying to catch criminals and locking them up. We seem to be more concerned about the police, not the criminals.”
Mr McKeever added that the “unintended consequences” of the cuts could be a reduction in the number of criminals being caught.
26,000 police officers marched through Westminster in January 2008 during the last large scale police protest in the capital. The issue that day was the decision of Jacqui Smith, then home secretary, not to backdate a 2.5% pay rise.
