Cressida Dick’s appointment is an advance for equality - even more so for policing | Martin Kettle

The new commissioner’s appointment mirrors society’s belief that our view of law enforcement must change

When I first started writing about politics it was already likely that Britain would soon have a woman prime minister. Margaret Thatcher had become leader of the Conservatives in 1975, and on the Labour side Barbara Castle and Shirley Williams had been talked about as potential national leaders too.

Yet it was inconceivable back then that the nation’s top police officer might ever be a woman. Cressida Dick is the first to be the boss of Scotland Yard, and her historic appointment is the most dramatic evidence so far of a transformational change in the sociology and direction of British policing.

One senior police source told me that Dick was the most impressive officer they had ever met

Related: Cressida Dick appointed first female Met police commissioner

Continue reading...