They have been heavily trailed, much analysed and sometimes misspelt, but today the Crime and justice blog can announce, after weeks of anticipation, the launch of the first of many of the new Met commissioner's "big wing" days.
For the uninitiated the phrase is thought to hark back to the second world war when Douglas Bader introduced the tactic of using large groups of aircraft from several fighter squadrons to meet the Luftwaffe with extreme force.
Today's big wing day is a little more prosaic. It involves all manner of cars, identified by automated number plate recognition, and seized from all manner of individuals who have failed to insure them.
The idea has been introduced by the new Metropolitan police commissioner, Bernard Hogan-Howe, who plans to clamp down on single crimes on showpiece days once a month when major resources will be targeted at the selected crime.
A Met commander was on hand at the checkpoint in south east London when the clampdown was launched earlier today. A few miles away Hogan-Howe himself and the mayor, Boris Johnson, posed for pictures against a backdrop of crushed uninsured vehicles in central London - to leave no one in any doubt that a total war on crime means the total obliteration of uninsured vehicles.
The theory goes that those who don't bother to insure their car or van are often of a criminal bent, and hence clamping down on their misdemeanors increases the pressure on said criminal.
The success of the tactic in Merseyside has been much heralded by Hogan-Howe. It is too early to say whether it will do anything to reduce the increased rates of knife crime, burglary, robbery and serious youth violence being suffered in the capital.
The past, however, might hold some lessons: critics of Bader's tactic during the Battle of Britain said it took too long for the big wing to form up, it was too often in the wrong place and once in the air it was unable to respond quickly to the rapidly changing scale and direction of the raids on London.
