It’s not, in my view, particularly apt to compare serious sexual assault, battery, misogyny, racism and corruption with damp and wood rot. Of course the debate in relation to how and with what it is replaced needs to take place. The implication that defunding the Met would lead to a significant breakdown of law and order is a valid, if speculative, point. However, numerous investigations have highlighted how the Met does not act as a neutral, disinterested body that upholds the law without fear or favour. It is a law unto itself with a long established dysfunctional culture whose officers react with defensiveness and closing ranks when accusations of malpractice are levelled. In that context it is far from glib to demand its defunding.
An opposing view to the one that sees defunding the Met as a glib soundbite could cite that, had the Met been defunded, or the chronic dysfunction seriously addressed rather than being allowed to flourish for decades, then perhaps the Ian Tomlinson and Sarah Everard might still be alive.
