By: Paul Campbell

David Mowat the Conservative Parliamentary Candidate for Warrington South, has recently written about crime in Warrington and I think he is quite close to my views on this. David writes:

Walk down any street in Warrington and somebody will have a story to tell you about crime or anti-social behaviour. What is surprising is that for many people it is the car theft, the vandalism and the graffiti which worries them most. Whilst these crimes might be described as “petty” in reality they can blight people’s lives. The Conservative Party has been arguing for years that our policeman are spending too much time filling in Government forms and not enough time out on the street. If we win the election we will fix this, but we need to go further.

A Conservative Government would

• Make it clear that anyone caught carrying a knife in a public place can expect to be prosecuted and sent to prison.
• Give citizens greater protection if they have to defend themselves against intruders in their homes, where the balance is weighted in favour of the criminal, or if they stop a crime being committed in the street.
• Create fifteen new rape crisis centres across the country, and give all existing rape crisis centres stable, long-term funding.
• Grant the Council new powers to fight booze-fuelled antisocial behaviour in Warrington and stop supermarkets selling alcohol at below cost-price which not only destroys law-abiding local pubs, but fuels low-level crime.
• Replace the invisible and unaccountable Regional Police Authorities and make the police properly accountable to a directly elected person who can set priorities for local policing.
• Publish crime statistics online every month, not just authority-by-authority, but detailed street-by-street figures, in an open and standardised format, so people know the real level of crime in their neighbourhood.

As many will be aware I served in the police for many years and know that there is still much to do to improve our policing and criminal justice system. Conservatives really DO have fresh new ideas such as those above that will make a real difference to the crime that directly or indirectly affects all our lives.