Letter: Police will still be bound in red tape

Correspondent • Published 8 Jul 2010 10:00 0 Comments

You reported Theresa May's decision to scrap Labour's "policing pledge", and in particular the guarantee that police officers would spend at least 80% of their time on the beat ('Theresa throws out policing pledge', Chronicle, July 1).

Her reasons for doing that were that "with budget cuts the promise is unsustainable and will be scrapped with immediate effect".

Which means that for all the Tory talk of cutting red tape, with immediate effect Theresa May expects police officers in Reading and elsewhere to be spending less than 80% of their time on the beat - a Conservative Home Secretary planning that police officers will be spending more of their time in the station dealing with paperwork or whatever!

Does the left hand know what the right hand is doing?

Before the election Mr Wilson and Mr Sharma were trying, albeit by abusing the statistics, to pretend that violent crime was increasing and law and order breaking down. Perhaps they would like to explain how their Government's plans to have police officers spending less time on the beat helps?

J Lake, Alexandra Rd

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