I heard the news today, oh boy. Recorded crime up by 9%, violent crime up, homicide the highest in 10 years. In other news, the government has presided over a 25% cut to the policing budget since 2010, we have the lowest number of police officers since 1974 and their morale is through the floor. You do know this is not a coincidence, don’t you?
There is a clear link between increased crime and the slashing of police numbers and budgets. The link – the very weakest link – is Theresa May who has been either home secretary or prime minister since 2010. May is weak on crime, weak on the causes of crime.
Full disclosure here: I like coppers. I worked closely with them for many years in my previous life in the DWP. I saw for myself how hard they work in the face of insurmountable odds. I saw the hours they worked, the violence they walk towards when the rest of us walk away. Rather than hating them, as some do, I grew to like and admire them. A lot.
When Theresa May announced frequently that the only cuts she was making were to back office, I noted straight away that she was talking in riddles. On the face of it, this seemed a good idea until you realised that if no one was doing vital back office functions, then frontline police officers would need to carry them out, this making the thin blue line even thinner. It wasn’t pointless bureaucracy. It was taking witness statements, writing up cases, vital indoor evidence collecting. Every single thing was relevant to what happened on the mean streets. Which meant there were less officers on those very same main streets.
This is what politicians do and say. They tell us they are cutting back waste but they are cutting away at the healthy carcass and eventually hacking away at the bones that hold the body together. This is what Theresa May has done to our police force.
In answer to my earlier question, of course it is not a coincidence that crime is spiralling upwards directly because of Theresa May’s cuts. The coppers I still speak to tell me that much of their police work these days revolves around the collection of crime statistics. Whilst much crime is still investigated with utmost professionalism by our dedicated police force, an awful lot isn’t. Sometimes, people wait days to get a response from the police after a crime has been committed. This is because of low police numbers and their enforced priorities.
If we have not been the victims of crime, we may not feel their pain and frustration. But friends that have, waiting days on end just to get a crime reference number and no chance of the perpetrators ending up before the beak, that sucks.
I happen to think the police represent the difference between a civilised society and anarchy. If cutting numbers was the answer, think how much better the NHS would be with 25% less doctors and nurses or the Fire and Rescue Service with 25% less firefighters. Cutting police numbers matters because it has made our society more less safe. How many senior citizens are going to be defrauded or mugged? How many young girls raped? How many gay people beaten up by pathetic homophobes? How many children abused? Yes, this is what cuts to police numbers means.
Theresa May has proved in her disastrous mismanagement of Brexit that she is hopelessly out of her depth as PM, but some of us were saying the same thing about her ineptitude as home secretary. Out of her depth, useless and downright dangerous.
The government should reverse in its entirely the cuts it has made in police funding since 2010. We demand our citizens should be kept safe and secure. If austerity really is over, Mrs May, then prove it. Now. And then resign.
