This one has legs...from today's Standard, quite a good article.
Simon Jenkins
WHEN MUGGERS RULE THE ROOST.
A friend was recently mugged by three men as he left work in the West End. He unwisely reacted to the first attacker by hitting him hard to the ground. The other two drew knives and told him he was 'dead'. A chase ensued. My friend ran fast and luckily escaped. The police later asked if he would give evidence against the one he had hit. He said no. The others knew where he worked. Pressing charges would be suicide.
The son of another friend was last week beaten up outside a Tube station by a group of youths, for no apparent reason other than that he was alone. He recognised one of his attackers as local. The police, summoned by a witness, duly asked him if he would give evidence against the youth. The boy said no. They knew where he lived. It would be madness.
What should the responsible citizen advise? Should my friends co-operate with the police, or should they look after their own skins?
The answer is buried in the strange disagreement this week between the Tory leader, Michael Howard, and his colleague Oliver Letwin over the safety of Brixton. To Mr Howard its streets were a lawless wilderness where he had walked for two hours and found not one policeman. To Mr Letwin they have been miraculously 'reclaimed for local people'. South London was a safer place, he declared, where burglary, robbery and graffiti were all down. On all sides, so he implied, beaming policemen were being kissed by happy passers-by.
A simple principle explains the dichotomy. Crime is not a statistic. It is as bad as anyoneÕs last victimisation. If a friend is mugged or a house burgled, crime is out of control. If we are set on by hooded youths marauding the high street, civilisation is collapsing faster than in Baghdad.
When I hear of such scenes in London I am with Mr Howard. When I see a policeman chatting to tourists in Piccadilly I am with Mr Letwin. It all depends on personal experience.
I am currently on Mr Howard's side. Street crime is a serious and growing menace in central London. There are now gangs, many from eastern Europe, targeting residents in well-heeled parts of town and preying on tourists. They act with virtual impunity for the simple reason that few are ever caught. More to the point, the police cannot offer serious protection to those who might help catch them.
This is not because of police shortage. It is because, on the latest figures, London's 30,000 police spend roughly half their time on office paperwork. Most of the rest is spent in courtrooms, cars and on motorbikes. More police are now on street patrol but they dare not walk alone, thus halving their effective deployment. Any stroll round the West End will reveal their absence from key corners and Tube exits.
If I have no expectation of finding a police officer in the vicinity, neither will the mugger. I am all for Òintelligence-led' policing and the new movement to localise London's police into ward teams. This may well improve clear-up rates. But the best deterrent to a street attack - as New York shows - is a Òcop on every blockÓ. By definition, a mugging implies the failure of such deterrence.
When the police arrive, their screaming car gives any attacker advance warning. They then expect witnesses, who may well know the culprits, to put their lives at risk to solve the crime their absence has precipitated. If the police will not deter criminals by patrolling LondonÕs streets, it is hard to expect ordinary citizens to cope with the consequences, with the threat of revenge on their heads and no local constable to offer protection.
I take most of London's rough and tumble for granted. Over the years things get better and things get worse. We mostly survive. But one thing is for sure. The withdrawal of police from street patrols into bureaucracy, mostly under Mr Howard and his Tory colleagues, destroyed public confidence in the safety of city centres - as did the drop of almost 1,500 officers in the MetÕs numbers in the mid-Nineties. These places were delivered over to drunks, vandals and gangs.
Yesterday, I happened to visit the scene of both muggings. There were no police anywhere in sight. The under-policing of the central West End, a national street-crime hotspot, was shocking. Yet I counted more than 100 police within 200 yards of Parliament Square, standing about and chatting while 100 crimes were probably being committed a mile to the north. This part of Westminster has, since Tony Blair came to power, looked like a banana republic in the aftermath of a coup. It is a display of warped priorities.
No, I will not tell my friends to risk a knife in the ribs to help the police meet a David Blunkett clear-up target. If police in armoured jackets will not take the same risks the rest of us take in walking about alone, they can hardly expect us to hazard all in their support.
Londoners are now hiring vigilantes, community support officers and private security guards to protect themselves and their property. This is not because there are not enough police. It is because the police are somewhere else, safe. As every police chief attests, it is notoriously difficult to get a modern constable out of his or her car. But cars do not deter.
In the past two years, more police have been allocated to street patrols, albeit still in pairs. They have decades of neglect to rectify and confidence to restore. Suburban town centres are still ruled by street gangs at night. Every neighbourhood echoes to the gossip of another street attack. As long as fear of the local villain outstrips love of the local police, witnesses will feel insecure. Until police get back on the streets they once controlled, people will be reluctant to join them in the battle against crime.
((((mr BC)))) ((((hendo)))) ((((Lang rabbie))))) ((((The whole world)))) except )))))Bob((((. 
I thought she objected to not any old tory but the Leader of the Opposition going to Brixton to deliberately set off a huge, grotesque media circus about crime and law and order in the UK's most high-profile black area. 
