By Mark Wallace
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The news that the British Crime Survey has found crime levels at the lowest level since records began more than 30 years ago has been greeted with near-universal acclaim in today's papers.
It's good news in itself – protecting citizens against crime is an essential duty of any government. But this is also a key proof of concept for the Coalition. Crime has fallen while police budgets have been cut, and despite dire warnings from all sides: it turns out that more can indeed be delivered for less.
Paired with the early successes of Chris Grayling's prison reforms in reducing reoffending rates, this should be a major plank of the Conservative message at the next election – we have saved you money and misery by cutting spending and by stopping criminals.
Here are a few wider lessons we can learn from the process:
The Home Office brief has long been a task in bullet-dodging. Theresa May deserves high praise for turning it today into an opportunity to report successes, and set an example to other departments.