This highlights the Met’s inconsistency. When large-scale disproportionality falls in its favour, it celebrates these appointments as evidence that decisions are being made fairly and on merit. But when outcomes do not align with its preferences, it develops policies designed to achieve a different result.
This is not to say these women did not deserve their promotions, nor that the vetting system could not be improved. The point is that we need to return to the principle of getting the best officers into the right roles, and we do that by assessing people as individuals, not by their race or religion.
This is not just happening in the Met.
Earlier this year, MI5 announced it was limiting registrations of interest for a recruitment campaign to ethnic minority candidates because they were underrepresented in its workforce.
Across the public sector, merit is increasingly being pushed aside in favour of diversity targets and demographic box-ticking.
The Mayor needs to stop this nonsense, tell the Met to abandon these targets, and get police officers back out on the streets fighting crime.