COMMENTS DAILY MAIL: The sad humiliation of a large police force

What a humiliation for the most renowned police organization in the world.

Home to Scotland Yard and the yardstick by which all other forces were once measured, the Metropolitan Police has collapsed into special measures.

Citing a series of scandals and chronic mismanagement, Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of the Constabulary has in effect declared it a failing force.

Met officers now face the indignity of being closely watched by inspectors who closely monitor every move. It’s as if Ofsted steps in to save a malfunctioning school.

The litany of failures makes reading painful. The vicious pursuit of senior officials over the grotesque VIP pedophile hoax. Sarah Everard murdered by a duty officer known by colleagues as ‘the rapist’. Rampant racism and sexism at Charing Cross Police Station. Cops share mean jokes and photos of dead women. Failed murder investigations.

This didn’t happen overnight. It was a culture of skewed priorities, unacceptable behavior and management incompetence that grew like a virus over the years.

Its origins predate the hapless ex-Commissioner Cressida Dick. But under her care, the infection spread uncontrollably.

So the most damning question for Boris Johnson, the mayor of London, Sadiq Khan and successive home ministers, is: why on earth didn’t they remove her sooner?

That she became a commissioner at all after leading the catastrophic operation that culminated in the fatal police shooting of innocent Brazilian electrician Jean Charles de Menezes is shocking.

That she has served five years full of scandal and would at some point have her contract extended is just unbelievable.

This dizzying fall from grace must be a turning point. Lessons must be learned.

The new Chief Inspector of the Police, Andy Cooke, is making the right noises. He wants to put an end to the police service’s drift towards shrewdness and attitude and to bring chiefs of police back to the first principles: the prevention and detection of real crime. No false internet crime, but burglary, fraud and street robbery.

There are thousands of dedicated agents at the Met, working tirelessly to keep us safe. With the right leadership, the world can once again envy the power.

A burning question

The options available to supply the UK steel industry with the coking coal it needs are all very difficult.

Last year, nearly 40 percent of that came from Russia — a road now closed by sanctions. The rest were imported from Australia and North America, leaving a horrendous carbon footprint on its journey.

So what could be more sensitive than opening a coking coal mine in the UK to meet our domestic needs?

The Whitehaven mine in Cumbria would create some 500 jobs in an area in need of an economic boost. It also lies beneath the Irish Sea, minimizing nuisance and environmental damage.

But when Mr Johnson proposes to give the green light, the green lobby becomes enraged. Lord Deben, chairman of the Climate Change Committee, which advises the government on emissions targets, described the mine as “absolutely indefensible.”

Friends of the Earth also weighed in, with their attorney saying, “Every lump of coal burned directly contributes to climate change.” That may be true, but if we want to keep making buildings, cars, machines and much more, we need steel. And for that we need coal.

Other technologies are developing, but will not replace coal in the coming years. So giving the green light to this mine must be the right and logical decision.

It’s definitely better than sending coal halfway around the world in gas-guzzling freighters — or even buying it from Putin.