Our PM cares more about cash than keeping us all safe
“SHE was only a baby really.”
That’s how Tanesha Melbourne’s former headteacher described her yesterday. Only a baby, but now just a memory for the mother who cradled her as she died from a gunshot wound near her home on Monday night. A couple of miles away two more “babies” were left for dead in a separate outbreak of gang violence. A 16-year-old boy was shot and a 17-year-old stabbed, leaving them with lifechanging injuries. In figures released last year for England and Wales it was revealed deaths from knife crime among those aged 16-24 was at a nine-year high. Ten of those killed were aged just 16 or 17. Only babies, really. Not old enough to buy a pint in the pub, pawn their Xbox or get a tattoo on their own. But old enough to bleed away, alone, in the street. And no one seems to be doing anything to stop it. Perhaps there might be more action from the Government if the killings were happening on the mean streets of Maidenhead. Or it was kids from Harrow School getting shanked. Because there can be no doubt that there is a deeply political backdrop to what is going on right now.
The Government has chosen to slash police numbers to their lowest in 22 years. There are 21,000 fewer officers than a decade ago.
It’s also chosen to give those who remain in the force an effective pay cut by freezing public sector pay. It’s chosen to shut down police stations and squeeze resources. And Theresa May as Home Secretary chose to trash talk our police service whenever she could, with a devastating impact on morale. So of course the capacity to fight violent crime has dropped.
And just at the time the Government chose to slash youth services and intervention policies which help prevent crime happening in the first place.
It is a truism that you can tell a lot about a person by the way they spend their money. It’s even truer that you can tell a lot about a Government by the way it spends its money. Or in this case, doesn’t spend its money.
Yesterday a friend of Tanesha said she died “for no reason at all”.
Tragically, that is entirely untrue. Tanesha died because our PM cares more about cash than keeping us all safe. And until that changes, be prepared for many more babies dying.
Capacity to fight violent crime has dropped