A former head of Scotland Yard said today that further cuts would be an “absurdity” in light of the force’s response to a string of major incidents.
Lord Blair of Boughton, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner, said that further cuts of hundreds of millions of pounds would leave the force three quarters the size it was when he left office in 2008.
The Met has already made £600 million of savings over the past four years and is due to make £400 million more by 2020-21, prompting concerns that 8,000 officer posts could be cut.
However it is seriously stretched after terrorist incidents in quick succession at London Bridge and Finsbury Park, and the Grenfell Tower fire.
Lord Blair told BBC Radio 4: “I think