If stopping a thief is now “excessive”, then the system itself has become excessive. Excessive in weakness, and excessive in its contempt for common sense.
Never has trust in politics and democracy been needed more. What we are getting is the end of localism.
Make no mistake, the wretched legislation that is the Online Safety Act is simply the thin end of the wedge to creating thoughtcrimes.
And we agree that the PCC role should not be immune from reform, but by scrapping the one form of genuinely accountable governance, the public’s voice in its local force is lost along, it would seem, with your local police force.
If ministers keep making laws that only make sense in Westminster, the people on the front line will always keep fighting those two battles as I did.
The total salary cost of Police and Crime Commissioners is approximately £3m. Yet it is suggested that Police Authorities can replace PCCs if there is no mayor. The total cost of allowances on Police Authorities in 2010 was £10m – a comparable figure would be £15m today.
Not a single day goes by now without some negative story about immigration hitting the airwaves or social media. In days gone by, such an outrage would have sparked a national wave of revulsion, but such is the softening of the national spine that we may murmur our dismay but won’t do anything more concrete to prevent them.
We absolutely should talk about how to protect our high streets from criminality. But nationality has nothing to do with it – so let’s stop mentioning it.
He, like many of his Labour colleagues, is ideologically committed to mass migration. When inconvenient facts undermine his assumptions, he tries to stop those facts from being reported.
As Mayor, I will back wealth creators and people who work hard; those who do the right thing, strive to do more, and contribute to our county.
More Specials recruited could mean more warranted officers on the streets. But here’s the problem: we can’t expect off-duty Specials to leap into action every time someone nicks a packet of biscuits. My proposal? Get the big retail chains involved.
“Yes, it has lots of crime, you must be careful, it’s probably not a good idea to go for a run after dark, the tube is grim, but it’s still a great city, and like any other city, it has its problems”. – Now I think an ugly corner has been turned in London and I regret my defence.
As long as there is in-store video footage available to the police, surely there is a way of shortening the reporting process in the lead up to a court appearance of a suspected shoplifter.
It is not about being draconian. It is about restoring order and respect. It is about being unapologetically Conservative and sending a clear message that the Conservative Party is on the side of law-abiding citizens, not repeat offenders.
If crime increases, and crime raises risk for business, then investment will be lower, leading directly to weaker productivity growth, slower employment growth, and lower output. Crime is both an economic and a social problem.