Posturing on the Police

Today, presumably off the top of his head, Boris Johnson announced that new draconian punishments would miraculously be added to the powers of police officers, judges and magistrates dealing with knife crime.

Diane Abbott, Labour's Shadow Home Secretary, declared: "This is just posturing on crime and Boris Johnson knows it."
 

Johnson supported Tory cuts to the police and has no plans to restore the frontline officers that successive Tory governments have axed. In his time as London Mayor,Johnson promised to recruit 'thousands of extra police' but, of course, never delivered on his promise.

The Tories aren't really putting 20,000 extra officers on the streets to tackle the knife crime that has become an epidemic during their time in government. Nor do they intend to do anything about the youth services they cut, or funding for drug prevention schemes. It goes without saying they will do nothing whatever about the spike in school exclusions. All these things - all these cuts and fiddling with figures - have contributed to rising crime.

Tinkering with police powers will not disguise a decade of Tory failure.