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The Architecture of National Policing During the COVID-19 Era During the COVID-19 pandemic, most people experienced policing locally. Few saw the national architecture operating behind it. I have now examined contemporaneous official records which reveal a sustained programme of strategic engagement between senior policing leaders and central government throughout the pandemic. The picture which emerges is one of regular meetings involving ministers, the Home Office, Cabinet Office, COBR, national policing leadership, all Chief Constables and ever the Prime Minister. It includes meetings at 10 Downing Street, 2 Marsham Street, dedicated operational calls, strategic coordination meetings and discussions concerning COVID enforcement, operational guidance, protests and the magistrates' courts. Constitutional accountability requires public understanding. My new paper concludes with a simple constitutional question: When history records the policing of the COVID-19 era, should it be understood principally as the work of forty-three independent police forces, or as a nationally coordinated strategic enterprise operating through continuous engagement between policing leadership and central government? The paper is available to download here: ethicalapproach.co.uk/Archit…⁠