Sajid Javid is saying all the right things on policing – but he should be careful about making promises he can't keep

In his short time as home secretary, Sajid Javid has gone out of his way to prove that he is his own man. That has meant departing not only from the policies and language of his immediate predecessor, the ill-starred Amber Rudd, but also the previous incumbent, Theresa May. He has rapidly ditched the rhetoric of a “hostile environment” for migration and is now set upon rebuilding the broken relationship between the Conservatives and the police. Mr Javid is clearly an ambitious man out to make important and influential friends.

Past Tory administrations, enthusiastically backed by MPs and activists, saw it as their job to protect the constabulary from public spending cuts, to shore up wages and overtime as well as to generally praise and defend the thin blue line, even in cases of brutality and abuse of the criminal justice system.

From the Guildford Four to Orgreave and Hillsborough, the informal links could be seen at work. The police were an interest group worth sponsoring, as radical economic policies sparked industrial unrest and riots. They were, in short, well looked after.

Ms May’s appearances at the police federation conference when she was home secretary were generally tense affairs. She saw it as her job to tell them some home truths, to increase their efficiency and to trim budgets and she refused to accept that police numbers had that much to do with the crime figures. She was a nasty sort of boss.

Less so the new kid on the block, Mr Javid. The police were curious about his arrival and took him in for questioning before an audience of serving officers at the annual federation conference. Before they got to work on him, though, he made a suitably placatory speech. “My brother’s a copper, honest,” he almost said, referring to Bas Javid, a chief super with the West Midlands force.

Mr Javid pointed out, quite fairly, that this gave him a special insight into racism and the bravery police officers routinely display during their duty. This was similar to his personalised remarks about how the recent Windrush scandal might have befallen his own family. Mr Javid told the police he “gets it” and wants to change things. In essence, he grassed on Ms May. They liked that.

It is not just a question of empathy and tone, significant though that is. Short of explicitly pledging extra cash there and then, Mr Javid, in stark contrast to Ms May, told them what they wished to hear on matters of some substance.

He promised them the kit and technology they needed and to “transform” the welfare and protection of officers. He offered officers pursuing moped muggers and dangerous drivers better protection against bogus claims or prosecution. He wants to see spit and bite shields, more Tasers, improved fingerprint technology, body cameras worn as standard and stronger stop and search powers (cleverly spun as a way to save the lives of black British citizens). He promised a review of funding and that British policing would remain “the envy of the world”.

He was, as was to be expected, roughed up a little afterwards. He was unprepared for an obvious question about whether he had read the report on the link between reduced police numbers and crime that Ms Rudd failed to see; after flannelling briefly, he coughed and admitted that he had not read the document. He managed to get away with saying that we would “take a proper look at resources”.

Mr Javid was then released on police bail. He wasn’t slow handclapped or heckled, for which he may count himself lucky. He has the benefit of the doubt for now. He does, though, face an unusually difficult task in making the police, to borrow a phrase, “work for everyone”. For it is still true that, despite everything, forces are not trusted among some minority communities and some have an abysmal record in recruiting and promoting BAME officers.

Among other things, that have undermined the fight against terrorism, cuts have meant the police have lost a good deal of the contact and intelligence they used to gather when they had the numbers to better pursue “community” type work.

For a public concerned in London and other cities with the growth of knife crime, the police are simply not doing enough and it is foolish to pretend that some of that does not come down to resources.

It is one thing to argue, as Ms May and Ms Rudd did, that there is no simple straight line causative correlation between numbers and crime rates; it is another to blithely state that police numbers have nothing to do with what happens in some communities at certain times. Mr Javid is intelligent and astute enough not to try that one on with the coppers or the voters.

Politically, given the feebleness of the prime minister’s position, Mr Javid is making the most of his personal political leverage. He has publicly distanced himself from and implicitly criticised, the prime minister, who once dreamed of sacking him from her cabinet.

Now he can and should, squeeze some better funding for law and order in the poorest communities who feel that their lives and safety matter less than those of the wealthy and privileged – something the different Windrush and Grenfell affairs also highlighted.

Mr Javid is right to say the country needs a strong police force that has the detectives, the visible deterrent presence, the technology and the equipment to keep the peace; but he should be wary of creating more problems for himself by abusing civil liberties in the name of a war against criminals.

It doesn’t work like that, stop and search powers have always proved troublesome and counterproductive. Maybe chief superintendent Bas Javid could have another quiet word with brother about the realities of the job.