Wow, we've got our own police!

The Government has launched their new policies with which to fight the May elections.

Prominent among them is the arrangement for every community in England to have its own police team, contactable by phone. On the face of it, although Newport has a police station we can never be sure when it will be manned and open, and that out of hours it is normal to have to contact Telford, some 10 miles away. We actually have designated and named officers, but...

Newport is a fairly large town, but surrounding villages to which crime is spreading are much more remote.

David Davis, the Shadow Home Secretary, has considerable doubts. "These contracts will mean nothing to areas swamped with drugs and plagued with violence. As for giving out phone numbers, our police already spend less than a fifth of their time on the beat...... The public wants them on the streets, not on the phone."