Safe on the streets

Conservative Home has this as their must read article of the day.

Kelvin MacKenzie's piece in this morning's Sun has a picture of what appears to be a gang fight that was taking place at 2.30 in the afternoon

A pitched battle between black and Asian youths.
Their weapons of choice; a screwdriver, a bike lock, a steering wheel lock. It went on for 20 minutes. In broad daylight in a reasonable area of London.
Incredible. The police had no idea that the brawl was going on and no arrests were made.

For Kelvin this sums up the crime figures

The Government claim that crime is 30 per cent down since they came to power.
Tell that to the birds.
I can only believe that much of it is due to the improved security on cars which means that thieves are no longer stealing but that vandals are still scratching.
I would like to see the police and community officers breaking up all groups of young men and women on the streets.

and most of all he wants

to see our politicians from any party explaining how we are going to win back the streets from the thugs and the vandals.
Whoever can promise and deliver a town without fear will win my vote.

Labour looks to talk to the streets through Smith's announcements

Jacqui Smith's prouncements over the last 24 hours may well be signaling the move of the Labour party back to the issues on the streets.

Yesterday's reversal on the classification of cannabis,whilst not popular with the medical fraternity is popular with middle England who see drugs as the causes of social and criminal problems.The fact that this particular drug is the least of our worries is neither here nor there as far as policy goes.

Today the Home secretary moves towards one of the biggest worries on the street,the gangs of youths who hang around intimidating the general public.

Speaking at Westminster,bbc online reports her remarks

Youths who persistently misbehave and intimidate others in their communities should be "harassed themselves",

and some of the measures may include

repeated home visits and checks to identify benefit fraud or council and road tax non-payment.

The moves follow the success of a similar initiative in Basildon Essex where

Dramatic" results from the new approach included burglaries, criminal damage and car crime stopping altogether on one estate during the operation and staying at a low level afterwards.
"Those responsible for anti-social behaviour had no room for manoeuvre and nowhere to hide," Ms Smith said of the operation.

You can read the complete details here courtesy of Politics home

Tories to jail teenage drinkers

Via Liberal England


The Conservative Home site has released a statement this morning claiming that

that under-age children who try to buy alcohol illegally are going unpunished.
Over a million youths are refused alcohol in pubs every month, and there were a further 300,000 refusals from one off-licence chain alone last year.
But fewer than a hundred individuals a year are punished for trying to buy alcohol illegally, meaning there is less than a 1 in 100,000 chance of under-age youths receiving any sanction whatsoever