Talk:Metropolitan Police

Controversies

The first part of this section suffers from recentism, being almost completely about 2023/ 2024 matters, and has a undue amount of coverage of pro-Hamas demonstrations. How can it be improved? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:42, 9 March 2024 (UTC)

I've now expanded it and slimmed down the 2023/24 content to be a bit less detailed. gilgongo (talk) 23:03, 9 December 2025 (UTC)

Websites

Is https://www.met.police.uk/ in External links still the official website? If so what is https://www.police.uk/pu/your-area/metropolitan-police-service/? What's the difference between them? Mcljlm (talk) 15:23, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

The first is the Met's official website, the second a generic website for the British police. -- Necrothesp (talk) 15:57, 15 March 2024 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand Necrothesp. Mcljlm (talk) 22:29, 24 March 2024 (UTC)

https://www.met.police.uk/ is the official website for the Metropolitan Police (you can see it printed on all of their vehicles, for example, and in the 'Website' field on all their social-media accounts). The URL https://www.police.uk/pu/your-area/metropolitan-police-service/ is a page about the Met Police on another website (the generic website for policing in the UK, which includes a page about each police force). Mpjashby (talk) 10:08, 8 April 2024 (UTC)

Insignia - order of ranks

Under the Insignia section, the graphic showing regular insignia has ranks going highest to lowest (left to right); the special constabulary ranks go lowest to highest. It feels odd that they're the opposite way round. They seem to come from templates (or at least something inside double curly brackets) and I don't know how to edit them, but maybe something for someone who understands how templates work? JayZed (talk) 16:59, 24 April 2025 (UTC)

I've given that a go - can you check it's OK? gilgongo (talk) 21:22, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Looks good. Thanks. 10mmsocket (talk) 22:02, 20 November 2025 (UTC)

Statistics section is misleading

The numbers for "Crimes reported within the Metropolitan Police District" are essentially meaningless without at least being converted to the standard measure of crimes per 100,000 population. I also think formal crime recording only started in the 1920's, and huge improvements were made to counting practices from 1998 onwards. Frankly, I think these figures are so useless that they should be removed until they can be at least approximately converted to crimes per head.

And shouldn't these stats be part of a more appropriate article anyway?

The comparative sanction detection rates are similarly problematic. In 2011, the stats had national statistics status, but by 2022 they had lost that accreditation following the 2014 HMIC report finding large problems in reporting methods. The subsequent large rise in crime reports for things like violent crime would have depressed detection rates I think (need to source that though) - and in addition to the possible effects of austerity, as currently mentioned.

I'd like to at least add a caveat to this section - and preferably re-cast it completely so that readers aren't misled (and in the case of "Crimes reported" that they know what to make of it!). gilgongo (talk) 09:01, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

I've had an intitial stab at a re-write for the detection rate issue here: User:Gilgongo/Historic_crime_reports_in_London --gilgongo (talk) 10:35, 21 November 2025 (UTC)

Now done. I have also removed the crime numbers section for now and put it here for future reference. WP:BOLD --gilgongo (talk) 07:46, 25 November 2025 (UTC)

Crime figures

Crimes reported within the Metropolitan Police District, selected by quarter centuries.

• 1829–1830: 20,000
• 1848: 15,000
• 1873: 20,000
• 1898: 18,838
• 1923: 15,383
• 1948: 126,597
• 1973: 355,258
• 1998–1999: 934,254
• 2017–2018: 827,225
• 2023–2024: 881,441

Met Police Badge Image

The currently displayed image titled Badge of the Metropolitan Police is not, and has never been, an actual MPS image. It was a conjecture put together not long after the current Monarch's cipher was announced.

The Met did not rush to finalise the design and although its finalised version is very similar to the conjectured one displayed, it is noticeably different. The shading and greys of the garter star are different, the crown is more stylised design, is silver in colour, and sits higher on the garter star. The text font is different, and the colouring of the text is a much darker blue, whilst the background colouring of the cipher is much lighter.

Irritatingly there isn't a good image currently on the internet, but a look at the Met's official New Scotland Yard memorabilia shop has examples of products with the correct cap badge. ~2026-28840-94 (talk) 06:29, 13 May 2026 (UTC)