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Tango Juliet Foxtrot: How did it all go wrong for British policing?
In thirty years on the front line of British policing, there is very little that Iain Donnelly didn't from being a uniformed constable on the beat in London to running counter-terrorism and surveillance operations, combatting child sexual exploitation and overseeing the investigation of the most serious crimes. During that time, he saw the job change irrevocably, to the point where the public no longer knows what to expect from the police and the police service no longer knows what to expect of itself.
Tango Juliet Foxtrot – police code for 'the job's fucked' – reveals how constant political meddling and a hostile media narrative have had a devastating impact on the morale of police officers and their ability to protect the public. With the organisation cut by 20,000 officers and 23,000 police staff, only 7 per cent of reported crime now results in a charge – compared with around 20 per cent ten years ago.
By turns fascinating and funny, poignant and uplifting, this compelling account paints a vivid picture of what life is really like for those tasked with keeping us safe – and, crucially, explores what needs to change to secure the future of British policing.
Tango Juliet Foxtrot – police code for 'the job's fucked' – reveals how constant political meddling and a hostile media narrative have had a devastating impact on the morale of police officers and their ability to protect the public. With the organisation cut by 20,000 officers and 23,000 police staff, only 7 per cent of reported crime now results in a charge – compared with around 20 per cent ten years ago.
By turns fascinating and funny, poignant and uplifting, this compelling account paints a vivid picture of what life is really like for those tasked with keeping us safe – and, crucially, explores what needs to change to secure the future of British policing.
322 pages, Kindle Edition
Published November 9, 2021
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135 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 27, 2022
Definitely want to make a point of saying that you can’t not respect what this guy has been through and the service he offered, making him uniquely placed to offer suggestions about improving the police force. Also pleasantly surprised to see we agree on many things, like the importance of neighbourhood policing, the need to abolish county forces and drug addiction.
However, I felt that what had the potential to be a brilliant book did fall victim to the culture wars. This book was littered with references to wokeism, entitlement culture and the activist left. Many things I disagree with, but the argument that accountability/transparency in policing was holding them back went too far for me - I also disagree that the public should not be allowed to film police officers, as this keeps everyone accountable.
On the whole, an enjoyable book on a career of stellar service, even if I disagreed with some of the finer points of his argument.
However, I felt that what had the potential to be a brilliant book did fall victim to the culture wars. This book was littered with references to wokeism, entitlement culture and the activist left. Many things I disagree with, but the argument that accountability/transparency in policing was holding them back went too far for me - I also disagree that the public should not be allowed to film police officers, as this keeps everyone accountable.
On the whole, an enjoyable book on a career of stellar service, even if I disagreed with some of the finer points of his argument.
May 23, 2022
A very well written book.
I can fully understand the authors concerns as I served over 30 years with the Met and have watched over the past 12 years the demise of British policing.
Politicians, the minority woke brigade and the Police and Crime Commissioners as well as the mayor of London are each responsible for the state of our police service today.
Until politicians allow police forces to actually do their roll without interference and constant demands from the Home Office for new initiatives to be implemented, all thought up by those that have no policing experience, we will end up with more police officers jumping ship or being retired on Ill health grounds. There only so much a person can do in a shift.
Since their inception, police officers were to be neutral with political alignments and were to uphold the laws of the land without favour.
Uniforms today are practical but make officers look like a bag of shite. Personal pride in looking smart both with the uniform and personal appearance have disappeared with most young officers.
Supervisors are not being supervisors. Discipline has left the service along with those disenchanted with the way policing has gone. Vetting of new officers is a joke. Finding later that some have criminal records that would have disbarred them from joining. There have also been Illegal immigrants and of course the biggest cock up of current times also mentioned in the book, the abhorrent murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens.
Although, in the book it mentioned that Couzens had slipped through the net, accepted by the Met and had worryingly been given a gun as part of the Diplomatic Protection Group, it failed to mention that he joined the Met as a transfer from Kent Police who had vetted him when they accepted him from the Civil and Nuclear Police who had vetted him and allowed him to carry a gun daily. It just shows that Couzens along with many others have easily bypassed a vetting system that is not fit for purpose.
Policing as we knew it with the home beat officer followed by neighbourhood community teams, that worked well for decades will not be seen in the near future if at all. Today we have reactive policing with very little if any proactive work being conducted at the low end of crime. So much money and officers are now committed to anti and counterterrorism depleting the core roles
The question that Iain Donnelly asked, “ is the job fcuked” has to be answered with a yes and a no.
Yes the job is fcuked. It has been fcuked by politicians for their own gains and reasons.
No the job is not fcuked. The dedicated officers left to keep the ship afloat are battling to plug the leaks, working beyond what is healthy, suffering mentally, exhausted but they keep going.
They took an oath to police without fear or favour and to protect the public. They continue to run to danger whilst everyone else is running away, even though they know that they may be injured. They don’t get any extra money to do this. It’s just their sense of duty.
I can fully understand the authors concerns as I served over 30 years with the Met and have watched over the past 12 years the demise of British policing.
Politicians, the minority woke brigade and the Police and Crime Commissioners as well as the mayor of London are each responsible for the state of our police service today.
Until politicians allow police forces to actually do their roll without interference and constant demands from the Home Office for new initiatives to be implemented, all thought up by those that have no policing experience, we will end up with more police officers jumping ship or being retired on Ill health grounds. There only so much a person can do in a shift.
Since their inception, police officers were to be neutral with political alignments and were to uphold the laws of the land without favour.
Uniforms today are practical but make officers look like a bag of shite. Personal pride in looking smart both with the uniform and personal appearance have disappeared with most young officers.
Supervisors are not being supervisors. Discipline has left the service along with those disenchanted with the way policing has gone. Vetting of new officers is a joke. Finding later that some have criminal records that would have disbarred them from joining. There have also been Illegal immigrants and of course the biggest cock up of current times also mentioned in the book, the abhorrent murder of Sarah Everard by Wayne Couzens.
Although, in the book it mentioned that Couzens had slipped through the net, accepted by the Met and had worryingly been given a gun as part of the Diplomatic Protection Group, it failed to mention that he joined the Met as a transfer from Kent Police who had vetted him when they accepted him from the Civil and Nuclear Police who had vetted him and allowed him to carry a gun daily. It just shows that Couzens along with many others have easily bypassed a vetting system that is not fit for purpose.
Policing as we knew it with the home beat officer followed by neighbourhood community teams, that worked well for decades will not be seen in the near future if at all. Today we have reactive policing with very little if any proactive work being conducted at the low end of crime. So much money and officers are now committed to anti and counterterrorism depleting the core roles
The question that Iain Donnelly asked, “ is the job fcuked” has to be answered with a yes and a no.
Yes the job is fcuked. It has been fcuked by politicians for their own gains and reasons.
No the job is not fcuked. The dedicated officers left to keep the ship afloat are battling to plug the leaks, working beyond what is healthy, suffering mentally, exhausted but they keep going.
They took an oath to police without fear or favour and to protect the public. They continue to run to danger whilst everyone else is running away, even though they know that they may be injured. They don’t get any extra money to do this. It’s just their sense of duty.
April 26, 2023
I have finished “Tango Juliet Foxtrot: How did it all go wrong for British policing?” by Iain Donnelly.
The author Iain Donnelly is a former Police Officer who served between 1989 and 2019. He is currently a voluntary chaplain at a Hospice and a technology consultant for different UK Police Forces. This book is both a memoir and a record of his impressions about what, in his view and those of others, has gone wrong for British policing.
It is very touching to hear about someone earnestly recalling a job they truly felt passionate about. I wish one day to be so lucky to work in something that feels so meaningful. Iain Donnelly left university but wanted to do something that was more varied, interesting, adventurous and based more outdoors than a typical 9 to 5 job. After briefly considering a career in the military he chose to join the police.
The author takes us through his journey through the police straight from Police Training School up to his last assignments. In the former you can tell that the author really felt a sense of pride in joining something that felt meaningful to him with an oath he still feels the power of.
The author has had a varied career going from being a beat cop to working in Counter Terrorism, surveillance, Child Abuse Investigation and Intelligence Officer roles. It is perhaps quite fortunate for the reader that Iain Donnelly is someone who openly admits to not liking to stay in one place and rise to new challenges and skillsets. All of these roles came with logistical challenges, success but often emotional tolls. Perhaps the most sobering in the latter case was him recounting vividly the aftermath of deaths by suicide, an aspect of policing which many of us take for granted.
As the book goes on the author starts to become more explicit in calling out what they see as the gradual degradation of police effectiveness. I will say that I didn’t find myself agreeing completely with all of them, but I respect the author for being straight talking. Even where I didn’t agree with him at the time of reading it still gave me much pause for thought, which is positively the sign of a good book.
What is wrong with British Policing? The cuts from 2010 onwards for a start. I feel that as a Liberal Democrat that I, and my party, need to take responsibility for this. We have to face up to the fact that this has cost lives and will likely continue to do so as the replacement (not “EXTRA” as our government likes to call them) recruits bring in much needed manpower but without the benefit of experience of veterans who have either been sacked due to cuts, retired or left due to issues caused by government policy. But the cuts are not the whole story. The New Labour era seemed to herald an era in British policing of jargon filled management speak that makes more sense to Management Consultants and politicians than it does to regular beat cops or even much of the public. Adopting this lingua franca in many cases seems to make the difference between some police being promoted and others not, making management become more closed in it’s own echo chamber away from the realities of the police on the ground level. To add to this the police have had to deal with many issues that would before have been dealt with by local social and mental health services. The New Labour era also mandated that the police hit a dizzying array of targets, threatening to distract police from their main purpose.
Overall, I enjoyed this book for it’s readability, detail, good humour and frank honesty. As I said before I do not agree with all of the author’s points. One of the main ones he makes is that in his view mistrust in the police is largely driven by certain politically motivated groups and a hostile media. I believe while there may be some truth in it, he did not face up to the reality that the British Police have great power. And with great power comes great responsibility. A responsibility which has not always been respected by certain ex colleagues of his. Personally, I start from the positioning of trusting the average policeman. However, that trust is hindered by not only my only complaint to the Police Complaints Commission not being taken seriously by the police, but also the emergence of convicted serious criminals who where the uniform of the British Police. The British Police should have respect. But respect is earned.
I would happily support most of the author’s proposals for reform. The Police need to be properly funded. Political interference should be done away with along with the pointless Police & Crime Commissioner positions. The uniforms could use a bit more rationalising for the jobs that they do and the respect they are meant to invoke. I do not agree with him on the problem of “wokeness”. Frankly more Police Officers should be woke, but I would happily help him bin the class of political (with a small p) managers who care more about feathering their career nests than improving policing. The 43 different UK Police service structure is also a bit mad and probably should be made consolidated into regional commands that have interchangeability in terms of procedures, technology and equipment. I would give him ALL of this, but for the price of making it a hostile environment for the kind of genuine crooks in police uniforms that we have seen in headlines all too often in recent years.
I would like to thank the author for the laughs, his wisdom, his honesty and of course for his service to our country.
The author Iain Donnelly is a former Police Officer who served between 1989 and 2019. He is currently a voluntary chaplain at a Hospice and a technology consultant for different UK Police Forces. This book is both a memoir and a record of his impressions about what, in his view and those of others, has gone wrong for British policing.
It is very touching to hear about someone earnestly recalling a job they truly felt passionate about. I wish one day to be so lucky to work in something that feels so meaningful. Iain Donnelly left university but wanted to do something that was more varied, interesting, adventurous and based more outdoors than a typical 9 to 5 job. After briefly considering a career in the military he chose to join the police.
The author takes us through his journey through the police straight from Police Training School up to his last assignments. In the former you can tell that the author really felt a sense of pride in joining something that felt meaningful to him with an oath he still feels the power of.
The author has had a varied career going from being a beat cop to working in Counter Terrorism, surveillance, Child Abuse Investigation and Intelligence Officer roles. It is perhaps quite fortunate for the reader that Iain Donnelly is someone who openly admits to not liking to stay in one place and rise to new challenges and skillsets. All of these roles came with logistical challenges, success but often emotional tolls. Perhaps the most sobering in the latter case was him recounting vividly the aftermath of deaths by suicide, an aspect of policing which many of us take for granted.
As the book goes on the author starts to become more explicit in calling out what they see as the gradual degradation of police effectiveness. I will say that I didn’t find myself agreeing completely with all of them, but I respect the author for being straight talking. Even where I didn’t agree with him at the time of reading it still gave me much pause for thought, which is positively the sign of a good book.
What is wrong with British Policing? The cuts from 2010 onwards for a start. I feel that as a Liberal Democrat that I, and my party, need to take responsibility for this. We have to face up to the fact that this has cost lives and will likely continue to do so as the replacement (not “EXTRA” as our government likes to call them) recruits bring in much needed manpower but without the benefit of experience of veterans who have either been sacked due to cuts, retired or left due to issues caused by government policy. But the cuts are not the whole story. The New Labour era seemed to herald an era in British policing of jargon filled management speak that makes more sense to Management Consultants and politicians than it does to regular beat cops or even much of the public. Adopting this lingua franca in many cases seems to make the difference between some police being promoted and others not, making management become more closed in it’s own echo chamber away from the realities of the police on the ground level. To add to this the police have had to deal with many issues that would before have been dealt with by local social and mental health services. The New Labour era also mandated that the police hit a dizzying array of targets, threatening to distract police from their main purpose.
Overall, I enjoyed this book for it’s readability, detail, good humour and frank honesty. As I said before I do not agree with all of the author’s points. One of the main ones he makes is that in his view mistrust in the police is largely driven by certain politically motivated groups and a hostile media. I believe while there may be some truth in it, he did not face up to the reality that the British Police have great power. And with great power comes great responsibility. A responsibility which has not always been respected by certain ex colleagues of his. Personally, I start from the positioning of trusting the average policeman. However, that trust is hindered by not only my only complaint to the Police Complaints Commission not being taken seriously by the police, but also the emergence of convicted serious criminals who where the uniform of the British Police. The British Police should have respect. But respect is earned.
I would happily support most of the author’s proposals for reform. The Police need to be properly funded. Political interference should be done away with along with the pointless Police & Crime Commissioner positions. The uniforms could use a bit more rationalising for the jobs that they do and the respect they are meant to invoke. I do not agree with him on the problem of “wokeness”. Frankly more Police Officers should be woke, but I would happily help him bin the class of political (with a small p) managers who care more about feathering their career nests than improving policing. The 43 different UK Police service structure is also a bit mad and probably should be made consolidated into regional commands that have interchangeability in terms of procedures, technology and equipment. I would give him ALL of this, but for the price of making it a hostile environment for the kind of genuine crooks in police uniforms that we have seen in headlines all too often in recent years.
I would like to thank the author for the laughs, his wisdom, his honesty and of course for his service to our country.
June 11, 2022
Didn’t bother finishing the book. Boring and uninteresting. Don’t have officers under 5’8”. I joined in1977 and was 5’7” and well capable of looking after myself and colleagues, What an insult. Hope you don’t bother writing any other books. My 37 years of policing would be far more interesting than this tripe. Waste of money if it was on a return offer I would want my money back. Read Horses Arse and compare it to this no comparison.
October 13, 2023
This is a very police point of view book. While he did brought up good points about how the increase administrative requirements and budget cuts hider quality of policing, he’s mostly crying over how too much wokeness makes police officers be afraid to police!
He is pointing fingers outside all the time, while barely introspecting on how policing can be improved from within. The few time he is acknowledging racism (never sexism), he is excusing it on the account of “there are assholes in every profession”, aka a few bad apples.
And even without all that, the book is weirdly structured. He mixes his biography with some criticism of the system, and then says those criticisms again a lot later, and not as a form of summary. And do we really need to know the pins description of every rank of officer? Oh, I used the audiobook version, which seemed home made, which is fine, but he could’ve used better equipment and less monotonous voice.
He is pointing fingers outside all the time, while barely introspecting on how policing can be improved from within. The few time he is acknowledging racism (never sexism), he is excusing it on the account of “there are assholes in every profession”, aka a few bad apples.
And even without all that, the book is weirdly structured. He mixes his biography with some criticism of the system, and then says those criticisms again a lot later, and not as a form of summary. And do we really need to know the pins description of every rank of officer? Oh, I used the audiobook version, which seemed home made, which is fine, but he could’ve used better equipment and less monotonous voice.
March 28, 2025
Great read. I was a little disappointed to see that it was 90% autobiographical, rather than a commentary on British Policing.
That said, it’s interesting, well written and puts the question of the title into context, by drawing on the author’s wealth of personal experience.
Is TJF? Yes, it’s, beyond any reasonable repair.
I’m baffled, and thankful, in equal measure, every day, that people are still queuing up to do this thankless, but worthwhile job.
Thanks for sharing your story and your views boss.
That said, it’s interesting, well written and puts the question of the title into context, by drawing on the author’s wealth of personal experience.
Is TJF? Yes, it’s, beyond any reasonable repair.
I’m baffled, and thankful, in equal measure, every day, that people are still queuing up to do this thankless, but worthwhile job.
Thanks for sharing your story and your views boss.
September 17, 2023
As mentioned in PhilosophyTube's video essay, I believe. Informative and a good companion read to the Broken Yard: The Fall of the Metropolitan Police.
January 16, 2024
It's difficult to rate it as I'm reading it as one of those leftie snowflakes that Iain has no time for. I appreciate a look into the life of policing and an opportunity for an honest discussion about where it all went wrong. However, this book seems to be more about his career than issues within the institution. I found it easy to read but quite repetitive.
February 9, 2024
A very accessible read, more of a memoir than a policy book. Very entertaining.
July 9, 2023
Honest and True
Hardly anything has changed since 1966 when I joined the Met. The dysfunctional areas outlined by Iain Donnelly were as bad then as they appear today. The tragedy is that it’s a superb job when done well but certain political parties are intrinsically hostile to the police. Iain wears his heart on his sleeve and had no support when he was really suffering from stress so I was impressed that he stuck it out for 30 years. I always said “you mustn’t treat the joke as a job”. Should be read by anyone thinking of joining the police anywhere.
Hardly anything has changed since 1966 when I joined the Met. The dysfunctional areas outlined by Iain Donnelly were as bad then as they appear today. The tragedy is that it’s a superb job when done well but certain political parties are intrinsically hostile to the police. Iain wears his heart on his sleeve and had no support when he was really suffering from stress so I was impressed that he stuck it out for 30 years. I always said “you mustn’t treat the joke as a job”. Should be read by anyone thinking of joining the police anywhere.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews