Tens of thousands of Metropolitan Police officers risk their safety - and their lives - each and every day to keep Londoners safe.
They are being punched, kicked, spat at, driven at and stabbed.
They deserve the backing of their Chief Officers.
Not a seemingly constant diatribe from the top of the Metropolitan Police that drags our proud police officers through the mud.
The language and terminology used by the Deputy Commissioner today – comparing colleagues to American gangsters - makes the work of our officers in the capital harder.
It tarnishes them. It is appalling.
Our officers do not deserve it. It lowers already low morale.
It is not fair and it is not just.
The good, brave and hard-working colleagues the Metropolitan Police Federation represents are the first to say that the very small minority of officers who are not fit to serve should not be in the police service.
If officers are proven to be guilty of criminal offences or serious gross misconduct, then we do not want these individuals in the job.
However this message from police leaders that colleagues should be guilty until proven innocent is not acceptable.
Police officers - like all people - have the right to representation and due process.
Everyone should be working together to move The Metropolitan Police forward and make it a proud organisation again that people want to be part of and want to serve in.
