a super typhoon has made landfall in the philippines with wind speeds of almost 200 kilometres per hour. now on bbc news, political thinking with nick robinson. hello and welcome to political thinking, a conversation with rather than a newsier interrogation, of someone who shapes our political thinking about what shaped theirs. now, you may wonder what is the nation's top copper, the commissioner of the metropolitan police, got to do with politics? the truth is i suspect my guest

this week, sir mark rowley, wishes not very much at all. but he is shaped by the political divisions in this country, or the policing of the great capital city of this nation certainly is, and he comes under extraordinary pressure in this divided age from all sides to do hisjob rather differently from how he'd like to do it. so, mark, welcome to political thinking. thank you, nick. you came out of retirement to rescue the met. i read that you were walking the himalayas in the year before. you were earning a decent amount of money as a consultant. what on earth were you thinking of? spending more time with family and friends as well. regularly friends and family would say to me, do you think you would ever go back into policing? i was like, i'm not sure i would. my wife was like, he's still going to. i think my wife could see it was in my heart. it's what i've done pretty much my whole working life. i love the policing mission. i love police officers and what they are prepared to do. and when the commissioner's job became available i just felt i wanted to step back

into the ring and contribute again. when i prepared for this interview i was suddenly reminded that pretty much every day there is something that potentially knocks you completely off course. some crisis that you face. and in your first week as commissioner a couple of years ago that was very much a case. of years ago that was very much the case. so, yeah, events, events, events. policing is dominated by that. so i'm looking back two and a bit years, i'm starting on monday and on the thursday before the monday, her majesty the queen dies. so immediately all my grand leadership plans for the first week or two are out of the window now. and i'm working that weekend taking a more immediate handover from the previous team and in and out of cobras and working with the government and our operational team in terms ofjust polishing the plans that are long practised to make sure that we do our small part

in supporting an amazing and important state occasion for an amazing lady. to have that many people on the street, a global event, it also must be nerve—racking. a chance for something to go wrong. it is nerve—racking. in my previous roles in the met i had been involved in the planning. i knew the people who had done it and the plans are massively detailed. but reality is always different to plans, you always have to polish them, tweak them and refine them and things don't work out quite as you expected. and there is always, however well you plan, there is always that last, last gap where you are crossing your fingers. in terms of planning and operations, a bizarre person to quote is mike tyson. everyone has a plan until they get punched on the nose. and there is a bit of, you always waiting for you're always waiting for the punch on the nose. and when you were head of counterterrorism i was looking back, in 2017, in one year you had the westminster attack, the manchester arena attack,

obviously for your colleagues up in manchester, the london bridge attack, the finsbury park mosque attack, the parsons green bombing. this was a gruesome year. and another year after we have the salisbury poisonings as well, just before i left. is it, have we got lucky that we haven't got a list that long in recent years? we have the most extraordinary counterterrorism model, an unfortunate piece of luck when i compared what we did to what i see in many parts of the world, the tragic history in britain of over 50 years of terrorism, and of course it has been different types of terrorism with irish—related threats, al-qaeda, isis, right wing now in the mix, and work on state threats, that has meant that our model has constantly been challenged and stretched and usually got things right, occasionally got things wrong, learned from inquiries. and so the model of how police and mi5 work together, the legislation that has been built up to give the powers

and ability to intervene and do surveillance in the right way gives us a very strong model that means that tens and tens of attacks are prevented for each attack that succeeds. the man who was head of mi5 when you were doing thatjob, andrew parker, he told to you, i read, there is more of it, terrorism, it is moving faster, and it is harder to detect. if and when you give up this job, is that still true? is it still moving faster and harder to detect and there is more of terrorism? i think those things are true. it's more dispersed. if you go back 20 years, whether you look at al-qaeda or irish threats, terrorists are in discrete cells. who is a terrorist and who isn't a terrorist, there is clear blue water between them. the effects of the last decade or so, with all the toxic content online that's encouraging sort of islamist terrorist ideologies, extreme right—wing terrorist ideologies, incel violence

and other ideologies, all of those are creating an open source availability to terrorism and people browse that, they rev themselves up and sometimes act as a terrorist inspired by that without ever really joining a group. they act quite individually. they are connected and inspired but they are not direct, and that creates a sort of grey zone outside of organised groups which are really hard to spot. there are tens of thousands of individuals who touch that zone at different times in history. and spotting the one who is going to change tomorrow and in a couple of weeks�* time do a terrorist attack is a wickedly different problem for my teams and ken mcconnell�*s team at mi5. isa is a police officer, you have always stressed that you believe in, what i guess some people called old—fashioned people called old —fashioned policing, people called old—fashioned policing, neighbourhood policing. you call it a slightly grander name, the

peelian principle, the founder of the met in the 1920s, former home secretary. i of the met in the 19205, former home secretary.— home secretary. i had his clock when he founded _ home secretary. i had his clock when he founded the _ home secretary. i had his clock when he founded the police - home secretary. i had his clock when he founded the police in i when he founded the police in the 1820s in my office. i look at it often. it's the hand of history and our collective shoulders.— hi5tory and our collective shoulders.— history and our collective 5houlder5. ~ . , 5houlder5. what is he telling ou in 5houlder5. what is he telling you in your _ 5houlder5. what is he telling you in your head? _ 5houlder5. what is he telling you in your head? for - 5houlder5. what is he telling i you in your head? for li5tener5 who will not — you in your head? for li5tener5 who will not have _ you in your head? for li5tener5 who will not have looked - you in your head? for li5tener5 who will not have looked at - who will not have looked at this, the idea he captured as britain came out of an industrial revolution and was thinking about organising policing was, policing should not be a paramilitary force, top—down controlling the masses. it should be of communities will stop as we put together constabularies by putting together individually test constables that existed previously, that should be an agency of the community more than an agency of the state. and he talked about things like the ability for policing to succeed is so dependent on

public trust. he talked about the police and public, and the public are the police, it is not a separate class of people. he talked about the outcome of policing, the most important outcome being the absence of crime, not the rigorous and of enforcement. some quite profound ideas. how we interpret that today will be very different in a globalised city and the technology available and the tools we use. reinventing it for today is critical but the principle that policing is democracy written in trust is important. we don't want the policing style that you might adopt as police chief in a capital city, in an autocratic dictatorship. we want something different. imilli want something different. will come to trust _ want something different. will come to trust and confidence in a moment because you have faced some challenges there. first i want to ask about a warning issued the other day that the budget for your police force, the biggest in the country, is heading off a cliff in phrase.

you are facing some eye watering choices. can you give us a sense of what you mean by that? i us a sense of what you mean by that? ., , , ., , _ that? i am deeply troubled by the situation _ that? i am deeply troubled by the situation we _ that? i am deeply troubled by the situation we appear- that? i am deeply troubled by the situation we appear to - that? i am deeply troubled by the situation we appear to be | the situation we appear to be heading towards. 0bviously heading towards. obviously there are still conversations on going with home office and city hall so the detailed numbers have to be worked out but the assumptions we have... to be clear, you get most money from the government but some from the government but some from the government but some from the mayor of london. about three quarters — from the mayor of london. about three quarters and _ from the mayor of london. about three quarters and a _ from the mayor of london. about three quarters and a quarter - three quarters and a quarter roughly. without putting detailed numbers on the table, this is notjust about the decisions this year but the accumulative effect of decisions over the last decade orso decisions over the last decade or so which have put us in a more and more precarious position. some of the things that successive commissioners and mayors have used to balance the books like selling police stations and using reserves, they have run out. they have propped up the budget. the props have gone and in a difficult public sector situation, put that together and you get a dramatic change in budget on a scale that is

never going to be brought about by inefficiencies and will require some pretty eye watering cuts to services that we provide to london. we are working through what those will be alongside conversations with those funders in terms of the choices and final detail will be. ., , choices and final detail will be. . ., . , choices and final detail will be. . ., . be. to be clear, cuts to services. _ be. to be clear, cuts to services, this _ be. to be clear, cuts to services, this is - be. to be clear, cuts to services, this is not - be. to be clear, cuts to | services, this is not what be. to be clear, cuts to - services, this is not what we have seen, which is to sell off the local police station and turnit the local police station and turn it into flats. this is not buildings against bobbies as it was described as. part buildings against bobbies as it was described as.— was described as. part of the challenge — was described as. part of the challenge is _ was described as. part of the challenge is we _ was described as. part of the challenge is we have - was described as. part of the - challenge is we have damaged... some of the challenges the met faces comes from desperately trying to keep a significant number of police officers but cutting everything else. so actually our buildings, we have sold a lot of them but a lot that are left, half of them are in a parlous state and in a few years they will be unusable if we don't spend on them. i am left with a budget now where we have half the money per square metre for maintaining our

property than whitehall has for government buildings. per annum. that means we can refurbish each police building once every 130 years. that's completely crazy. we police a global city. i'm from birmingham and have lived in london more than 20 years and will never live anywhere else, it's the most amazing city. london is probably the greatest city in the world, london and new york are together. policing a global city has next ordinary set of challenges. it is a financial capital, it has the most diverse of a globally connected population, it is a technology capital, it has all the culture there. and on top of that you bring protest, politicians and other challenges. compare what we spend on policing in london to new york and sydney. they spend about 50% more per capita. i have lots of benchmarks where we need to be going in that direction, the upwards direction, the upwards direction but actually it looks like we are going to be fairly rapidly in the opposite direction. in terms of we can

be a better organisation, more efficient, betterat be a better organisation, more efficient, better at using the resources we have got and we are making lots of progress in that. but we can't really meet the ambition of ourselves londoners as a community and politicians without an incredible resource to meet the challenge. incredible resource to meet the challenue. incredible resource to meet the challenge-— challenge. turning to one of the first challenges - challenge. turning to one of the first challenges you - challenge. turning to one of| the first challenges you faced in your term as commissioner, policing protest on the streets of this great capital. not least because of the gaza protests that filled the streets day after day, and in particular one on the same day as remembrance sunday. you called in to see the prime minister at that time, rishi sunak, after the home secretary, then suella braverman, had condemned two tier policing. was there a moment where you thought i might walk out of this meeting either not in the job or not wanting to carry on doing it? there is a legal process to sack a commissioner and if they

want to invoke that then we will work through that process. on big, high—risk operations it 0n big, high—risk operations it is routine to be briefing the mayor and the home secretary and sometimes the prime minister. i have done it many times in counterterrorism operations, we do it on counter protest operations. we did it over the summer. it protest operations. we did it over the summer.— over the summer. it was an unusual— over the summer. it was an unusual meeting, _ over the summer. it was an unusual meeting, though. i over the summer. it was an - unusual meeting, though. some conversations _ unusual meeting, though. some conversations are _ unusual meeting, though. some conversations are robust. - unusual meeting, though. some conversations are robust. i- conversations are robust. i respect, i will always respect the office of the home secretary, the prime minister and the mayor because our democracy has created them and i listen to what they say because they speak on behalf of the public. i reflect on what we are doing. but the final decision, operational decision, remains with me and my team of committed experts. in remains with me and my team of committed experts.— committed experts. in your retirement _ committed experts. in your retirement you _ committed experts. in your retirement you wrote - committed experts. in your retirement you wrote a - committed experts. in yourl retirement you wrote a book committed experts. in your- retirement you wrote a book and i want to quote it. you wrote a thriller about a police chief.

i despair, he says, with this current generation of politicians, the political class on every side seems more interested in talking fuel on the fire. that was mark rowley speaking, wasn't it? channelling your inner frustrations?— channelling your inner frustrations? that was assistant _ frustrations? that was | assistant commissioner frustrations? that was - assistant commissioner tennant in a thriller. it was a great, fun thing to do in retirement, coming up with fiction in a more dystopian and worrying world than the one we fortunately inhabit. i suspect those sentiments _ fortunately inhabit. i suspect those sentiments are - fortunately inhabit. i suspect those sentiments are ones i fortunately inhabit. i suspect l those sentiments are ones you have occasionally expressed in private maybe. it have occasionally expressed in private maybe.— private maybe. it is a fictional— private maybe. it is a fictional thriller. - private maybe. it is a l fictional thriller. there private maybe. it is a - fictionalthriller. there is private maybe. it is a - fictional thriller. there is no connection _ fictional thriller. there is no connection with _ fictional thriller. there is no connection with people - fictional thriller. there is no | connection with people living or dead. ~ , connection with people living ordead. ~ , ., connection with people living ordead. , ., ., ., or dead. absolutely not at all! the point _ or dead. absolutely not at all! the point for— or dead. absolutely not at all! the point for me _ or dead. absolutely not at all! the point for me in _ or dead. absolutely not at all! the point for me in these - the point for me in these conversations, it must be a policing decision. we should always be open to hearing other people's perspectives. we shouldn't be arrogant, but it is a policing decision. first,

thatis is a policing decision. first, that is what the law creates and that's the expectation, the idea of operational dependence, that challenge of the final decision sitting with us. but also particularly on things like protest which is inevitably political with a capital p. 0ur parliament has decided, the decisions on how you manage that within a legal framework are better made by an independent, apolitical police officer than they are by a deliberately partisan politician. and so that's what parliament has decided and that's what we do. we don't bow to pressure. 1524 00:15:43,455 -