Section:GDN 1N PaGe:10 Edition Date:190730 Edition:01 Zone: Sent at 29/7/2019 20:41 cYanmaGentaYellowb
- The Guardian Tuesday 30 July 2019
(^10) National
xSubjectxxxx
National
Politics
- Boris Johnson
has made an array
of audacious
policy pledges
in his leadership
campaign and since
arriving in No 10.
In a week-long
series, the Guardian
looks beyond the
soundbites.
Johnson’s promises
The fi gures certainly create
some room for doubt. Violent
crime recorded by police has been
increasing since 2014 but was falling
between 2009 and 2014 – at the same
time as police offi cer numbers were
being cut. And in 2008, when police
numbers were at a high, knife deaths
of teenagers and children were
higher than they had been over the
previous 10 years.
But even if it is accepted that
falling numbers of police offi cers
are relevant to rising crime, to focus
solely on offi cer numbers would
still be to ignore a wide range of
underlying issues. All of those
factors can also be linked to cuts in
public spending. The government’s
own serious violent crime strategy
states that, like other types of crimeCrime Promise of
20,000 new police
‘has nothing to do
with what forces
want or need’
Jamie GriersonB
ack in June 2014 ,
during an interview
with the LBC Radio
host Nick Ferrari ,
Boris Johnson agreed
to be blasted by a
water cannon.
“Man or mouse? All right, you’ve
challenged me to this. I suppose I’m
going to have to do it now,” the then
mayor of London told Ferrari with
trademark bombast.
True to form, it was a promise
Johnson never fulfi lled. The
rhetorical fl ourish came amid a
heated debate over the use of water
cannon as the Metropolitan police
argued high-velocity blasts of water
would be a useful tool should a
repeat of the 2011 English riots occur.
Opposition politicians and human
rights groups argued the weapons
were inhumane, as did Dietrich
Wagner, a German pensioner who
was blinded by a water cannon
during an environmental protest in
Stuttgart in 2010.
Johnson pressed on and bought
three of the behemoths at a cost
of £322,834.71 – a cavalcade of
ashen-grey, fi re-engine-like
vehicles, weighing 29 tonnes andcapable of holding 9,000 litres
apiece. Four years later they were
sold unused , never deployed, for
£11,025 to a scrap yard in Newark,
Nottinghamshire.
The water cannon debacle stand s
out when Johnson’s record on
policing is brought to mind.
Now, as prime minister, policing
is high on the domestic agenda, with
a promise to recruit about 20,
more police offi cers among the fi rst
pledges he made on the steps of
10 Downing St reet. His new home
secretary, Priti Patel, responsible for
delivering his law and order vision,
talked about tackling the “scourge”
of crime after her appointment.
Johnson’s record on policing, he
hopes, is to be rewritten.
The police recruitment drive
is the central commitment , with
plans to start hiring in September.
There will also be a less eye -catching
national policing board, designed
to hold the police to account for
meeting the target and to scrutinise
forces’ responses to pressing issues.
A review of stop and search powers
was also announced.
“As I said on the steps of Downing
Street this week, my job as prime
minister is to make our streets safer,”
Johnson said in a press release
formalising the commitment.
The new recruits are an attempt
combat a rise in knife crime in
England and Wales that has been
in the headlines for more than a
year. There were 43,516 off ences
involving knives in the 12 months to
31 March, the highest number since
comparable records began. The
number is up 80% from the lowest
point – the year ending March 2014,
when there were 23,945 off ences.
More than 100 fatal stabbings
have been recorded in Britain this
year, with victims such as 17-year-
old Jodie Chesney and 14-year-old
Jaden Moodie focusing the public’s
attention on what at times feels like
an epidemic. The Conservative s’
claim to be the party of law and
order is under threat: violent crime
is up, police numbers are down and
the proportion of crimes solved has
halved in four years, with fewer
than one in 12 off ences – 7.8 % –
resulting in a charge or summons ,
down from 9.1 % last year and 15 %
four years ago.
Unsurprisingly, the police have
welcomed Johnson’s commitment.
The Conservative chair of the
Association of Police and CrimeCommissioners , Katy Bourne ,
said: “These extra offi cers will
help our police forces to cut crime
and provide better outcomes for
victims. We know that this is what
the public want.”
The National Police Chiefs’
Council chair, Martin Hewitt , said:
“This substantial growth in police
offi cers will ease the pressure on our
people and help us to reduce crime
and improve outcomes for victims.
It is also an incredible opportunity
to accelerate our plans to increase
diversity in policing.”
But in truth, the recruitment drive
should be seen as a restoration of
police numbers, which have fallen
by about 20,000 to 123,000 since
the Conservatives came into power
in 2010. Furthermore, factoring in
the number of offi cers who leave the
service every year, about 6% of the
workforce, the target number may
barely make a dent.
Then there is the question of
whether rising violent crime is a
problem that can be solved through
increased policing alone.
Johnson’s predecessor, Theresa
May, who as home secretary and
prime minister maintained a much
more confrontational approach
to dealing with the police service,
questioned the link between offi cer
numbers and rising violent crime.Source: ONS. Note: all data as of 31 March and
excluding Greater Manchester policeSource: Home Office. Note: All data as of 31 March43,516 knife crime offences were
recorded in the 12 months ending
March 2019
ThousandsPolice officer numbers have
decreased since their peak in 2009,
from 143,769 to 122,404 in 2018
Thousands01020304011 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19020406080100120140091011121314 15161718‘All right, you’ve
challenged me to this.
I suppose I’m going
to have to do it now’Boris Johnson, on being
water-cannoned, LBC Radio 2014
(He didn’t do it)РЕЛИЗ ПОДГОТОВИЛА ГРУППА "What's News" VK.COM/WSNWS