Surrey’s controversial Police and Crime Commissioner (PCC) locked horns with Banstead’s Tory MP when the two became embroiled in a spat on live radio.

PCC Kevin Hurley and MP Crispin Blunt both appeared on BBC Surrey’s radio Breakfast show on Friday to speak about whether Surrey Police should be replaced with a new regional force.

Mr Blunt said policing should not be conducted “in isolation” and said he disagreed with Surrey Chief Constable Lynne Owens’ comments that bigger, regional forces should be created.

The MP said the police force needs to feed into social services, courts, probation and other elements of the criminal justice system, and that this would be harder to do if policing no longer sat at a local level.

From 2013: Policing my way - Exclusive interview with Surrey's new Police and Crime Commissioner Kevin Hurley

In response, Mr Hurley said Mr Blunt “doesn’t have a clue” and that he wished “Crispin would get up to speed with the real nitty-gritty of the issues and not sit there patronising us all”.

Mr Hurley said Surrey Police was already collaborating with other services in the way suggested by Mr Blunt.

The PCC said Surrey Police were unlikely to merge with the Sussex force, even though the two are working closely together, and the focus should be on reducing the number of police forces and headquarters, in order to boost the number of bobbies on the beat and detectives.

He added: “I would be quite happy to be the first PCC in the country to be made redundant as would the Chief Constable.

"Our jobs are unnecessary add-ons.”

Mr Blunt said he had not been suggesting that the collaboration between different services was not already happening.

The slot ended with the radio show’s presenter noting that neither man would be on the other’s Christmas card list.

But, following their radio spat, both men launched into even more personal tirades.

Mr Blunt said: “I found Kevin Hurley’s tone to be unbecoming, unwise and unfit for a police commissioner.

“These views are based on the experience of two-and-a half years as the Minister for Criminal Justice and 18 years as an MP.

“They do at least deserve examination and respect.

“I respect his experience as a retired superintendent from the Metropolitan Police. However, his approach as commissioner reinforces the claim that he does not have the interests of the county at heart and seems more interested in serving the police rather than the community the police serve.

“The Conservative party was quite right to refuse Mr Hurley the Conservative nomination for PCC back in 2012.

“However he was successfully elected as an Independent.

"I am afraid he is not properly independent of the police he oversees and of their corporate interest.

“I hope at the next election for commissioner we will be able to elect somebody who can support the police whilst providing proper oversight and accountability, as well as showing an example of respect to all citizens, communities and community leaders.”

Mr Hurley said Mr Blunt did have the “public interest at heart” and that is why he wanted to amalgamate police forces even if it meant he was made redundant as a result.

“It is a no-brainer that we could have prevented the loss of 17,000 officers off our streets, with more to come, if we were able to do away with the grossly inefficient business model of delivering policing through 43 separate headquarters,” he said.

“People want more local officers on the street, not many distant headquarters with police bosses and PCCs like me.

“McDonalds don’t sell more hamburgers by closing shops, neither do we make the public safer by closing police stations.

“Unfortunately, I had no choice because the government has forced us to maintain 43 separate forces.”

He said Mr Blunt was a “party politician reverting to personal insults”.

In 2013, Mr Hurley came under fire after a wide-ranging interview with the Epsom Guardian in which he made a number of controversial comments about ethnic diversity in the police, the Hillsborough disaster, and how he appointed his deputy commissioner.

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