21/07/05 - Violent Crime Hits A Million - Yet Labour Press On With 24 Hour Drinking!

VIOLENCE AT RECORD HIGH

Violence against people recorded by police topped one million for the first time this year, official figures show.

There were 1,035,046 incidents in England and Wales in 2004-05, up eight percent on the year before.

The number of gun crimes recorded by police rose 6% in the year to just under 11,000, and 73 people were killed by guns in the 12 months, five more than in the previous year.

Labour Home Office minister Hazel Blears said much of the violent crime figures related to drink-related incidents.

"There is more crime being recorded and more crime being reported to the police, and I think a lot of that is around the kind of thing that goes on on a Friday or Saturday night in our town centres," she said.

With violent crime continuing to spiral out of control, it beggars belief that the government's only response is to unleash 24-hour drinking on our town and city centres," he added in a reference to proposed drink law changes.

Conservatives Would Scrap Plans For 24 Hour Drinking

Conservative Shadow home secretary David Davis, "I see no reason to go ahead with 24 drinking until we've actually piloted, tested out some of the methods the government is proposing."

Cllr Justin Tomlinson, North Swindon Conservative Parliamentary Spokesman, "Violent crime has not only passed 1 million, but has almost doubled under Labour - this is a disgrace.  Even Labour's Home Office Minister blames this on drink related crime, yet the Labour Government is ignoring all warnings and pressing ahead with 24 hour drinking."

Labour should scrap those unnecessary plans, and focus on dealing with:

• Police officers spend almost half of their time at their desks instead of being out on the streets fighting crime.
  
• Every time they stop someone officers have to fill in a form a foot long with 40 questions to answer, blanks to fill in and boxes to tick, mostly political correct nonsense.