Home Secretary tells police: 'Stop crying wolf'

The Home Secretary received her customary frosty welcome at her annual address to the Police Federation today, but if looks could kill, its chairman Steve White would not be long for this world.

The PFEW chair's jokes at her expense met with applause from the audience, and a murderous look from Ms May, who went on to promise further deep cuts to the police.

The Home Secretary is to launch a major independent review into police crime and performance targets.

She wants to "bring transparency to where, how and why targets are being used, and analyse the impact of targets on police officers’ ability to fight crime".

She said: "Information is critical to management and scrutiny. But there is a world of difference between the proper use of data to manage performance and the improper use of arbitrary targets.

"A police force [was] allegedly so intent on meeting Home Office targets about car theft and burglary that it ignored hundreds of young girls being abused in Rotherham and Sheffield."

The Home Secretary has warned of further cuts to police funding in the UK, telling the Police Federation that "delivering more with less can be challenging and difficult".

However, she rubbished reports "that we'll be 'forced to adopt a paramilitary style' of policing in Britain".

She told rank-and-file officers: "I have to tell you that this kind of scaremongering does nobody any good - it doesn't serve you, it doesn't serve the officers you represent, and it doesn't serve the public."

The Home Secretary has told the annual Police Federation conference that they need to stop scaremongering over their complaints about spending cuts.

In a speech, Theresa May said: "For your sake and the thousands of police officers that work so hard each day, this crying wolf has to stop."

She also said that more savings would have to be made in police budgets, saying reform "needs to go much deeper".

Pointing to the Independent Crime Survey, she added that crime had fallen by as much as 25% in England and Wales, despite the cuts already made.

Her comments met with frosty reception on Twitter, with many officers criticising her words.