Raoul Moat in the Beams of Northumbria Police?

If wading through the dire news about the economy wasn't bad enough, we still have to put up with "things" going wrong. Northumbria Police is the latest organisation to be shuffling jobsworth excuses around with the "lessons will be learnt" nonsense. I have been trying to understand why it never occurred to them to take the prison letter seriously. They seem to have thought Moat was going round to see his ex-partner for Battenburg cake and banality chatter. The prison implied he was worked up. Well, I'm no policeman but at least it would have crossed my grey cells to think he might cause her some grief. The Acting Chief Constable, who seems to have had an unfortunate run-in with an electric hairdryer, is acting as if none of this has much to do with them. OK, Moat has grievances, he has "issues", but he could so easily have been rounded up if the authorities had done a course in joined up thinking.

Moat raided a chip shop, was seen on CCTV, has been out and about, killed a man, wounded his ex-partner grievously, shot a policeman in the face and is sending mobile phone messages and long letters of complaint about life and its travails. The police had a closing-in net they were using but it seems to have been threadbare. Now we have 4,600 officers going walkabout in the hills.

The people of Rothbury appear to be of mixed opinions. When asked assinine questions by the likes of Kay Burley they seem quite pleased to say what a beautiful area it is. How stunning the countryside is. Great place for holidays, hiking and the like. It's a sort of bizarre tourism promotion. Thankfully the townsfolk are holding off the questions like "How does it feel to have so many armed police in your town?" with answers that would never make headlines in The Sun. So the whole sorry saga continues.

I don't want to see yet another inquiry after this fiasco is ended. We all know that no amount of "retraining" is going to help. Basically people need to be sacked on a continuous basis until the penny drops. The Cumbrian shootings seem to have had no effect on Northumbria Police. No lessons learnt there, even after getting that letter from the prison.

We need compulsory lessons in joined-up thinking. First row of desks for the Acting Chief Constable and her senior officers. And no cake in the breaks!