First doctors, now police: Tories seem determined to halt all public services by Christmas
Policing minister Mike Penning: He thinks it’s a good idea to cut police funding until they can’t investigate crimes. Why?
Hot on the heels of the junior doctors’ pay dispute in the NHS, the Conservative Government has decided to cut police service funding to a point at which it will be impossible to investigate crime.
Policing minister Mike Penning thinks this is perfectly acceptable. One wonders if his Conservative-voting constituents will agree when they discover there is nothing to stop burglars and thieves from stealing everything they own.
Or is this a ploy to get rid of publicly-funded policing altogether and force those who can afford it to hire private security services instead?
Seven top police figures have threatened to sue the Government over the “potentially serious implications” of police cuts.
Six regional police and crime commissioners, along with London’s deputy mayor for policing Stephen Greenhalgh, urged ministers to delay plans to slash police budgets.
Mr Greenhalgh has signed the letter alongside the police and crime commissioners of the Cumbria, Lancashire, Devon and Cornwall, Merseyside, North Yorkshire and Thames Valley forces.
George Osborne is expected to announce the cuts in his spending review later this month.
In a letter to policing minister Mike Penning , the group said changes to the police funding formula would result in cuts that are “unfair, unjustified and deeply flawed”.
It said: “Lancashire Police’s budget will reduce by nearly 14% or £25 million per year, resulting in the loss of almost all of its proactive crime fighting and crime prevention capacity by 2020.”
The letter added that “the future viability of Cumbria Police will be in question if the 15.8% or £9.4 million per year reduction in their central funding allocation is imposed.”
Mr Penning said the current model for allocating police funding is “complex, opaque and out of date”.
He said: “Police reform is working and crime has fallen by more than a quarter since 2010, according to the independent Crime Survey for England and Wales.
“But if we want policing in this country to be the best it can be, then we must reform further, and that includes putting police on a long-term, sustainable footing.”
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They are going too far the valve on the pressure cooker is going to blow very very soon, this can’t continue.
Gwynedd council announced this morning they are to close two bridges within the county as they cannot continue to maintain them, also they have said they will not be able to fill the salt bins over the winter. Great let’s see how many accidents occur and claims against the Council.
But we must respect Osborne’s long term economic plan mustn’t we…
re naitionalise the police as police forces are PLCs and as such must make money for theyre shareholders and profit should not be above protecting and serving the public
They’re not, you know.
Mike, I think brother Winstanley knew that you would know that he knew.
Is this comment misplaced?
Back to feudal times. The rich will have private security and no justice for the poor as no legal aid. Possibly the reason crime figures are going down is because people don’t bother reporting minor crimes anymore?
Or maybe there’s a lot of hidden crime which remains undiscovered because of lack of investigation?
This news, on the day G4S states it’s ready to take on policing roles in UK.Odd
I despair with the continuing cuts to our basic services! This is Wiltshire Councils latest cuts, courtesy of our Melksham Independent News.
Needless to say Wiltshire Council is Tory controlled.
All over the country essential services are being cut or abolished and I cannot understand why the public seems to be quietly accepting all these cuts.
” If you want the town cleaned, you’ll have to call the council.
REGULAR street cleaning and litter collection is going to be a thing of the past as Wiltshire Council cuts begin to bite.
Wiltshire Council is switching to what it calls a ‘needs-based’ system for dealing with litter collection, road sweeping, fly posting and graffiti, fly tipping, highway defects, drainage problems, and the clearing of dead animals, dog mess and needles and syringes. It will rely on local groups and the general public to report issues before they are dealt with.”
The rich will have strong gates, bodyguards and security guards, but for the poor, there will either be vast amounts of crime-or vigilante justice, which might target the wrong people or go way over the top.
They’re making firefighters redundant here in Oxfordshire, most children’s centres are going to be closed next spring, they are ‘redefining’ community hospital beds so the private sector can profit from dealing with the frail elderly and subsidies for 90 rural bus routes are being axed leaving the elderly stranded. Meanwhile 100,000+ homes are planned and there are no forward plans for public services for them. Roads are totally neglected, NHS staff desperate and leaving in droves and schools in disarray with teachers under such stress they are cracking up. Thank you Tories.