Get tougher on crime

Crime is up: police-recorded offences have jumped by 10 per cent across England and Wales, the largest annual rise for a decade. This is a catastrophe, and the Tories will be consigned to electoral oblivion if they don’t tackle it. The Conservatives are supposed to be the party of law and order: if they fail in this essential task of government, there were will be Hell to pay at the ballot box. Britain needs a return to zero-tolerance policing.

A reduced crime rate was one of the greatest social reforms of the past few decades. By adopting the tough measures first tried in America and putting more people in jail, John Major and Tony Blair cut crime across the board and transformed lives. Hitherto, the Left had regarded crime as a legitimate social protest by the poor and marginalised. But it is the poor and marginalised who suffered the most when there was anarchy – and they who reaped the biggest rewards when order was restored. Town centres became habitable again. Business returned; jobs were created. The middle class moved back to the cities. The war on crime was critical to the revival of London and other urban centres, and was thus critical to Britain’s economic success.

But the Tories dropped the ball. Policies softened; priorities changed. Police went from patrolling the streets – deterring crimes from happening in the first place – to sitting at desks, often pursuing politically correct causes championed, once again, by the far Left. Now new fashions of crime are on the rise, such as acid attacks and moped gangs. The law must be updated and enforced: the public has to know that the state is on their side.