PolicingTV

Hello and welcome to The Thin Blue Mind. 

Each week they will be looking at current policing issues and topics within the UK. Our regular panel consists of Steve Bradshaw who is a TV and theatre actor, Richard Horton author and Dave Thomas, broadcaster.

What they all have in common is over 80 years of combined police service. 

Now retired, they will be providing opinion and insights from a unique position of having been there and done it.  Steve spent the majority of his service on firearms,  before being promoted to inspector where he was a force incident manager.  Richard was a career detective,  before going back into uniform as a response Sergeant. Dave spent the majority of his service on the roads policing unit before going in to CID and child protection. 

You may not agree with everything they say,  but they will make you think. 

The Thin Blue Line with Bradshaw, Horton and Thomas. Policing insights and opinion.

Are police forces in England and Wales institutionally racist?  Fierce disagreements about that question among chief constables have held up publication of the Police Plan of Action on Inclusion and Race. The Plan, jointly devised by the National Police Chiefs’ Council and the College of Policing, is being overseen by an independent panel. The Panel Chair, Abi Johnson, has said previously that  "acknowledgement of institutional racism is important”. 

Policing TV brought together three police and crime commissioners to discuss whether they believe the term applies to the forces in each of their areas - David Lloyd, Conservative PCC for Hertfordshire, David Sidwick, Conservative PCC for Dorset and Emily Spurrell, Labour PCC for Merseyside.  

In the latest edition of Talking Crime, Chief Presenter Danny Shaw also asked the trio of PCCs about police recruitment, criminal justice system reform - and why certain types of offending appear to be on the rise: 

John Scott QC: ‘The Chief Constable wanted as close to a real-time oversight group as possible’

In this edition of ‘Talking Crime’, Policing TV’s Chief Presenter, Danny Shaw, discusses with John Scott QC, Chair of the Independent Advisory Group (IAG) on coronavirus powers used by Police Scotland, the vital role the IAG has played in Scotland over the past two years, in relation to Covid-19 regulations – and protests at the UN climate change conference, COP 26, in Glasgow.

At the start of the pandemic, and shortly after lockdown restrictions were introduced in Scotland, criminal defence solicitor-advocate John Scott QC took a phone call from the police.

Scott, who qualified over 30 years ago and was ‘Silk of the Year’ in the Law Awards of Scotland in 2018, is an expert on policing and human rights laws. He chaired the Scottish Human Rights Centre for eight years, led an Independent Advisory Group (IAG) overseeing the use of police stop-and-search powers and, more recently, headed a review into biometrics in policing.

That phone call, in March 2020, was from the Chief Constable of Police Scotland, Iain Livingstone. The Chief wanted to ensure there was proper scrutiny over the unprecedented powers police were getting to enforce emergency laws to control the spread of the coronavirus. Would Scott chair a special IAG to do that job? Of course he would.

Policing TV is a new online platform for video and audio content that aims to provide insightful interviews, debates, and analysis, on policing and criminal justice issues. 


Policing Insight, CoPaCC and World Class Policing Awards founder Bernard Rix started the project with his UK leg of his Policing Friendship Tour . 

It is the sister site to https://policinginsight.com/ - with consistent values  aligned to global, progressive, policing guiding content development and the editorial approach.  

We have a "soft launch" site which can be seen here https://policing.tv , with official launch scheduled for week of 14th February.. We will start with the series 

“Manifesto for Change: Preventing Male Violence in Policing” with contributions from: 
Zoe Billingham, Paddy Tipping, Jane Monckton-Smith, Louise Mullany, Martin Hewitt, Louise Rolfe, Nazir Afzal, Nicole Jacobs, Mandu Reid & Baroness Helena Kennedy amongst many others 

We will also feature a weekly Policing Insight series of interviews from Danny Shaw, Policing TV’s editor. 
Other areas to be covered include Policing in A Pandemic, International Policing, Education and Training.  

We aim to highlight best practice, reflect on the latest developments in policing, and tackle thorny issues with intelligent comment and insight. 
Access will be via registration (and in some instances subscription), with abridged versions being made available when appropriate. 
Policing.tv will be a key vehicle for policing leaders to get their messages into the public domain in, their own words, and reaching a global policing audience.