View From The House - 19th August 2004

Reprinted From The Lichfield Mercury

A Policeman’s Lot

“A policeman’s lot is not a happy one” as the Gilbert and Sullivan song goes. And what was right in the 19th century when the song was written still stands today. Only nowadays it’s political correctness and form filling which is the present cause of unhappiness.

The police have to put up with a lot. A road traffic accident is unpleasant to read about. But being there, often seeing dead and mutilated bodies, is far, far worse. And patrolling Lichfield’s and Burntwood’s streets being abused and sometimes hit by drunken youths - and girls - on a Friday or Saturday night isn’t much fun either. And then there’s the paperwork. And experiencing public disorder training in RAF Cosford recently with Staffordshire officers, it brought home to me what officers have to face.

No-one wants to see the pendulum swing back so far, the police are given powers like in eastern Europe some years back. (I remember motor biking in Hungary in the 80s, getting lost in some awful industrial town and wandering into a police station to ask the way. The police couldn’t believe I had gone into the police station voluntarily). But the present situation in Britain just won’t do. If a police officer arrests someone in Bore Street in Lichfield on a Saturday night for being abusive, two officers have to accompany the detained person to Tamworth, then fill in the forms and are not available for patrolling for several hours. And, of course, if a policeman defends himself against assault by thumping someone back too hard, the police officer stands the risk of being accused of assault himself. Ridiculous!

We have a tough Home Secretary in David Blunkett. But was has he achieved? Nationally gun crime has doubled and violent crime is up 83% with the million mark being reached last year with more than 100 violent crimes being committed every hour. Mr Blunkett sets detection and other targets which reduces the police presence on our streets to deter crime in the first place. And when a police officer does spend time just walking around Lichfield or Burntwood, anxious officers worry that Government targets are not being met. Enough is enough.

Paperwork must be cut back. Politically correct mumbo jumbo and do-gooders must not prevent the police from using profiling techniques which enable them to target criminals. And if that means that in some areas of the country, like in south London where yardies are known to commit gun and drug crimes, so be it. And we need more police officers. The Conservatives would provide a further 40,000 officers. The Community officers, introduced by Blunkett and starting in Lichfield and elsewhere are decent people, but their training is less than that of police officers and their powers of arrest are very limited. They are no substitute for police officers. They are just cheaper.

Less political correctness, less paperwork, fewer spurious targets, zero tolerance policing, more policemen, and an end to the early release scheme which puts criminals on the streets (and who have committed 3,500 recorded crimes so far) would be just a beginning. Yes, more prisons will have to be built too, but if that keeps criminals off our streets, so be it.