Letter to editors on police cuts
Dear editor,
No amount of handwringing by the Hampstead Conservative councillors who wrote last week over an appalling violent robbery can conceal the facts of what has happened on their watch.
Whilst crime was falling when we had a Labour Government up to 2010 and for their inherited period after we left office , once the Conservatives’ draconian cuts to the police started to bite, crime went up.
They cut £600 million from the Metropolitan Police budget, and despite their protestations the Met. faces at least a further £400 million in cuts over the next 4 years.
The cuts just so far have spelled the end of the 6 strong Safer Neighbourhood Teams, down to just 2, police station closures including Hampstead , and huge reductions in officers across London, with over 5,600 uniformed warranted officers and PCSOs axed. Future cuts include merging boroughs (probably Camden with Islington and at least one other borough) so we won’t have our own locally accountable force; and a denuding of supervisory ranks, with the likely abolition of Chief Inspectors, and more privatisation for example.
Only last week, HM Inspectorate of Constabulary reported on the Met. needing improvement, shortcomings especially including the lack of trained detectives. Our police are short of no fewer than 800 detectives on the boroughs.
Anyone can check the official crime figures on the police website for themselves. Crime in Camden, year on year to December, has gone up 8%. Of the 24 crime categories the Met. records, in Camden crime is up in all but 6, with violent crime up 24.7% and robbery ( mugging) up18%.
The chair of Hampstead Conservatives previously came up with the wheeze of a ’buy one get one free’ police officer match funding deal for Hampstead only, which in their published letter they again suggest in a rejigged form. Do not be taken in. This is yet another publicity stunt. They didn’t even put in a bid to the police for such an agreement, though went out of the way to get as much publicity as they could for the idea. In any event the Police Borough Commander poured cold water on the scheme, as it would mean thinning even further the already thin blue line in other areas of the borough to provide extra just for Hampstead.
The Conservatives now call for more police when they are solely responsible for the cut of 224 police officers and 88 PCSOs in Camden alone since 2010 – a drop of over 31% in uniforms for our borough, never mind the 100 officer shifts a week we lose on average when our police are taken off elsewhere for out of borough policing due to demands in other parts of London.
The Conservative Councillors’ letter is not just a cynical electioneering U turn, which they have no prospect of implementing. Just look at their record. It is arrant hypocrisy.
Andrew Dismore
Labour London Assembly Member for Barnet and Camden
