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Alistair Thompson: Not only is the rise in anti-social behaviour a result of Labour's irresponsible policies, but they have also prevented the police from getting to grips with the problem

Alistair Thompson is a councillor in Portsmouth and part of the City Seats Initiative in West Bromwich. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Whilst listening to the Today programme yesterday morning I nearly choked on my toast, after hearing Nick Robinson announce that Gordon Brown was going to talk about getting tough on the thugs and hooligans who roam our streets. This new initiative we learnt has been driven by the tragic case of Fiona Pilkington and her daughter driven to suicide because of anti-social behaviour.

Why did I nearly choke? Simple, because over the last 12 years Labour have weakened our police, created a mismatch of different groups with a shared responsibility for tackling the scourge of bad behaviour. And the truth is that all of Labours tinkering, new laws, money wasted on police bureaucracy, human rights and time spent talking about these problems has achieved nothing, in fact the problems are getting worse.

Take a case that I have been involved in my work as a local councillor. In the past a phone call to the police would have been the trigger for action. Now I had to tell the residents that the Council would coordinate the inter-agency response, involving the Police, Housing Association and Council, but before this could happen my resident had to keep a diary of the problems.

This complicated process took months and in the end the resident started to accept these problems. I still have her diary as a reminder of just how broken the system has become. I firmly believe that this Labour tick box exercise is not designed to stop these pint-sized rambos from terrorising their locality but so the Home Office can point at all the activity that is taking place. Sir Humphrey eat your heart out!

Alistair Thompson is a councillor in Portsmouth and part of the City Seats Initiative in West Bromwich. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

Alistair Thompson: The next Conservative Government should issue shares in the nationalised banks to every UK taxpayer

Alistair Thompson is a councillor in Portsmouth and part of the City Seats Initiative in West Bromwich. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

No one should underestimate the scale of the economic crisis still facing the UK, because it is truly horrific.

Government borrowing looks increasingly set to top £100 billion this year as tax revenues collapse faster than any at any time since the great depression. National debt is ballooning and even the ONS believes that it will hit the eye watering figure of £1.5 trillion and that does not even take into account personal debt that adds another £1.5 trillion to this figure.

One MP told me recently that the economy is "f***ed" and that whoever wins the next election will be the most unpopular post-war Government after just 12 months as it is forced to make cuts and take the tough decisions that have been avoided by the current Government.

Gordon Brown’s irresponsible spending and economic stewardship has wrecked the economy and highlights how psychologically flawed he is, exposing his lack of ability to change tack when the situation demands it.

Alistair Thompson: Stop blaming capitalism for our woes

Alistair Thompson is a councillor in Portsmouth and part of the City Seats Initiative in West Bromwich. He also runs Media Intelligence Partners with business partner Nick Wood, the former press secretary to Conservative leaders William Hague and Iain Duncan Smith.

There has of late been near universal condemnation of 'capitalism' and the so-called capitalist system we operate in our country.

It has been blamed for the collapse of the banking system, a rise in crime, recession and now the morally repugnant spectacle of the banking chiefs - including those in charge of the fully and part-nationalised banks - benefiting from the sort of huge bonuses they received in the good years; the years when they, encouraged by this thoroughly bankrupt Government, encouraged you and I to engage in an orgy of spending fuelled by a growth in personal debt.

Now before you think that I am some sort of bearded, sandal wearing leftie, I am not and I agree with the myriad comments about why those bonuses are utterly tasteless and reprehensible.

No one, certainly not the bankers, has made the argument why they should receive even a brass farthing in bonuses, as my father would say (apparently it has something to do with pre-decimalisation), but many of us, commentators, journalists and politicians just seem to have bought into the idea that this is the fault of the economic system we operate. It is not, nor should it been seen as the fault of a capitalist system.