Mushroom
Member
Another knee jerk reaction from Boris ?
Following the murder of Sarah Everard and the protests that followed, he is now suggesting placing plain clothes officers in nightclubs to identify potential dangerous men and to spend more on street lights and CCTV.
The potentially dangerous men do not readily give themselves away in nightclubs but usually appear on the streets or parks.
We have plenty of CCTV. It can work very well, but it can't be everywhere and does little to identify someone who is wearing certain clothing or headgear.
What we don't have is the deterrent on the streets in the form of Police officers. They can happily wear their uniforms instead of being in disguise and whilst no-one is asking for the return of Dixon of Dock Green with a little whistle to blow, most of the public, the good ones and the bad ones, will know that someone is actually out there instead of turning up after things have happened.
It is a bit rich for Boris to suggest that these plain clothes officers are going to be in any nightclubs, there aren't enough. He can't assure us that there will be more officers on the streets for the same reason and the numbers cut by Theresa May are nowhere near being replenished anytime soon.
On his final assurance, and presumably all these great initiatives will be in London only, he might wish to visit the Wakefield five towns area at night. Our council is rolling out a program of street light renewals, but not to light up the area better, but to reduce 'light pollution' at a cost of about £25 million, which is in the form of a loan to be paid over about 20 years.
Ours were recently replaced and instead of the glowing orange, we now see a white light. Unfortunately, the light does not spread over an area but is virtually pinpointed downwards covering a much restricted area than before. If street crime relied on a deterrent in the form of lighting, we have just had it seriously reduced.
Will Boris ever adequately address any of the issues he has raised? No way. Just another knee jerk PR reaction.
The potentially dangerous men do not readily give themselves away in nightclubs but usually appear on the streets or parks.
We have plenty of CCTV. It can work very well, but it can't be everywhere and does little to identify someone who is wearing certain clothing or headgear.
What we don't have is the deterrent on the streets in the form of Police officers. They can happily wear their uniforms instead of being in disguise and whilst no-one is asking for the return of Dixon of Dock Green with a little whistle to blow, most of the public, the good ones and the bad ones, will know that someone is actually out there instead of turning up after things have happened.
It is a bit rich for Boris to suggest that these plain clothes officers are going to be in any nightclubs, there aren't enough. He can't assure us that there will be more officers on the streets for the same reason and the numbers cut by Theresa May are nowhere near being replenished anytime soon.
On his final assurance, and presumably all these great initiatives will be in London only, he might wish to visit the Wakefield five towns area at night. Our council is rolling out a program of street light renewals, but not to light up the area better, but to reduce 'light pollution' at a cost of about £25 million, which is in the form of a loan to be paid over about 20 years.
Ours were recently replaced and instead of the glowing orange, we now see a white light. Unfortunately, the light does not spread over an area but is virtually pinpointed downwards covering a much restricted area than before. If street crime relied on a deterrent in the form of lighting, we have just had it seriously reduced.
Will Boris ever adequately address any of the issues he has raised? No way. Just another knee jerk PR reaction.
