Our reader Theresa, 'embedding' and Home Office headaches

► New Prime Minister Theresa May reads PoliceOracle.com. Either that or one of her aides does. How else to explain her avowal that more rank and file officers should be awarded the Queen’s Police Medal? Her declaration came just a month after the issue was highlighted in these webpages. We reported that a chief officer is 1,500 times more likely than someone of federated rank to clinch a QPM. Theresa, if you’re reading this, may your impeccable taste in police news portals long continue!

► Jack Dromey is no longer shadow policing minister. As the Labour Party rips itself apart, this is one of many shadow cabinet positions now vacant. Perhaps Mr Dromey now has more time to spend in the Dog and Duck in Erdington, which may or may not actually exist but which he is fond of mentioning. Mr Dromey namechecked pub punters Joe and Josephine Soap ad infinitum in speeches to Fed reps, and this did not go unnoticed. Before being reshuffled to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, Tory MP Karen Bradley cheekily remarked to Mr Dromey during a debate in Parliament: “I remember Joe and Josephine Soap from the Serious Crime Bill last year. I seem to recall that they featured prominently in many of our discussions.”

► The College of Policing “must have better buy-in at all levels…to make change happen.” Thus spoke the Fed’s Steve White after MPs on the Home Affairs Committee expressed concern that the College’s Code of Ethics – which is akin to a ten commandments for ethical policing - was not being sufficiently “embedded.” What do these mystical phrases mean? Is it possible to measure the extent to which “embedding” (whatever it might be) has taken place? Who knows. But one thing that certainly can be measured is the number of ethnic minority members of the College’s 11-strong board of directors. The answer is, err, just one. The College, which should be leading by example, is hardly ethnically diverse in this regard.

► If you were hoping for a new and better police funding formula to be concocted any time soon, don’t hold your breath. London’s Deputy Mayor for Policing told Assembly Member politicians this month: “As far as we are aware there has been no further movement on the funding formula.” And Deputy Commissioner Craig Mackey appeared even more pessimistic, even if he professed himself to be "always an optimist." “There are only a dozen or 15 people in the country who actually understand just how complex these formulas are. It is incredibly complex,” he said, predicting that the year 2018/19 financial year would be the earliest a new formula would be ready for. What a headache for the new crew in the Home Office!