Force’s shame

THE Met Police has plunged to some shameful depths before. The Wayne ­Couzens report surely eclipses them all.

A blatant misogynist pervert now accused of two rapes, a sex attack on a young girl, the knifepoint kidnap of a woman and multiple other sex offences should have been jailed for life long ago.

Instead, despite various red flags, the Met appointed him an armed cop on the Parliamentary and Diplomatic Protection Command squad. It was a catastrophic error, resulting in poor Sarah Everard’s rape and murder.

And its explanation is shocking in its mundanity. Officers responsible for vetting recruits or probing allegations were simply useless, lazy and lethargic.

That applies too to the other forces which hired Couzens before the Met.

As Inquiry chair Elish Angiolini says: “The officers displayed apathy and ­disinterest, and found reasons not to pursue the cases. Three separate forces allowed him the privilege of being a police officer when they could and should have stopped him.”

It would be comforting to imagine that this wake-up call to every force in Britain would ensure such a horror could never be repeated. Not so.

Met chief Mark Rowley rightly ordered a major clean-up. Even so, Lady Elish says that without a radical nationwide overhaul there is nothing to stop another Couzens “operating in plain sight”.

It chills the blood.

Wide open

LOSING control of our borders has been the Tories’ gravest failure.

Especially after repeatedly claiming we would “take back control” of them.

What other verdict is there on yesterday’s shocking figures? Some 1.4million migrant visas handed out in one year. A record 62,000 claimants granted asylum.

Yes, the number refused was also up — but how many are then deported? Just two per cent of the small boat arrivals have been since that crisis began in 2018.

Rishi Sunak claims his new measures will stem the flow. Maybe. But where are all the new homes, schools and hospitals for the millions we have already added to our population?

Does ANY Westminster leader genuinely care how this impacts ordinary people?

Dread tape

CUTTING Government red tape is so obviously essential to businesses, it’s a wonder no one suggested it decades ago.

We joke, of course. The Sun and many others did so, time and again.

But the civil service still never worries what every new regulation will cost firms — and “Governments behave as if it is free”, as Tory MP John Penrose says.

The red tape watchdog he proposes to Jeremy Hunt would be worthwhile if it genuinely changed Whitehall’s mindset.

Good luck with that.