Cameron: Britain is not safe under Labour

David Cameron highlighted crime during today's PMQs:

"The Chancellor told us he was going to freeze the assets of terrorists. He couldn't even stop Abu Hamza buying a house while he was in prison.  The youth justice system is in meltdown. The prison system can't cope.  Dangerous prisoners are released early. No proper border controls. Isn't this the truth.  It doesn't matter who's in charge - Blair/Brown, Brown/Blair - this country isn't safe under Labour."

Tony Blair's response:

"Under the last Tory government crime doubled. Under this Government crime has fallen.  We've introduced tougher measures that, it's true, have put more people into prison. But every one of those tough measures you opposed. So there's no point you coming to the despatch box now and saying why aren't we taking tougher action on crime.  Every time we've tried to take tougher action, you've opposed it. The truth is you talk tough but vote soft."

Comments

[George Hinton]

The usual empty rhetoric from B-Liar, attack the messenger and hope that no one can see that you have no clothes on.
The lie is seen in B-liar's comments if you refer to the book by "David Copperfield".
It is a bit rich to keep harking back to the previous government when you have been in power for 9+ years, when you have been caught blatantly fiddling the statistics, and when members of your own government resign, refer to Departments as unfit for purpose when they have carrying out government policy for years, and when ex-ministers are caught out lying in their memoirs.
David needs to point out that the failure of policy is a failure of ideology, criminals should not be mollycoddled, but banged up in a harsh regime, society does not create them, they take a positive step to be criminals. Poor people do not automatically take to crime to improve their lot. It is no good to hug the hoodies, people need to be taught correct civic standards and duties - Ethic and Moral values, that we are sadly lacking.
Law and order, or rather the lack of it, are the most important factor in our society, behind taxes and NuLab have made a complete dogs breakfast of the whole thing.
B-Liars empty rhetoric must be shown up for what it is, cant, disinformation, political spin and pure lies.

[John Bull]

This sums up exactly why Britain needs a Tory government NOW. Blair and his ilk would do away with the police and the entire criminal justice system if they thought for one minute the British people would let them get away with it.

No doubt it's now "political incorrect" to arrest criminals and put them in jail. Send them on pottery course instead and give them thousands of pounds of taxpayers' money to go with it. That'll teach them.

It's little wonder pensioners are confined to their homes round the clock. Well, very soon they won't be.

[Steve]

PMQ's at the EU Westminster State Senate 2023:

Prime Minister Leo Bliar responding to the opposition leader.

"Crime issss actually 'down' in Sssscotland Walessss and the 'regions' under New New Labour, but yessss we mussst do more, but every problem issss down to what we inherited in the 1990'ssss etc etc etc blah blah blair"

[TomTom]

Blair is pathetic - even his lines are old and dreary

[malcolm]

That incredibly unbiased BBC Cmmentator scored it a draw.As I didn't watch it did DC knock Blair out?

[Daniel Vince-Archer]

"That incredibly unbiased BBC Cmmentator scored it a draw.As I didn't watch it did DC knock Blair out?"

Yes, I found his sketch a little odd today. As usual, he has made himself look like a right Assinder with his PMQs review. He spent the whole article effectively saying Blair tore Cameron apart then slipped in one line at the end calling it a draw. Bizarre.

[Anon]

Listening to Blair on Labour's record on crime is a waste of time and don't get me started on how they fiddle the crime statistics. Just ask yourself "Is my family, home, car, and neighbourhood safer now under Labour than 10 years ago under a conservative government?"
My own personal experience says no, but then I remember seeing a police foot patrol in my street almost daily before 97'.

[EdR]

As one liners go, "Britain isn't safe under Labour" is pretty devastating -- mainly because it's true, but also because it encapsulates that truth in the most simple and clear fashion. If over the coming months and years they can make it stick in the public imagination in the same way 'time for a change' or 'Britain isn't working' stuck, it will be a major long-term victory for the Conservatives.

[Chris Palmer]

Recorded crime in some areas may have fallen, but unrecorded crime is on the rise. Crime is increasing, it's just not being recorded.

[Anon]

"Under the last Tory government crime doubled. Under this Government crime has fallen." Does people's personal experience under both government's match Mr Blair's rhetoric?

[eugene]

Blair always takes out his statistics book about the Tory years instead of answering the question- he does this because he has no answers. It was a pretty good strategy at first but has grown very tired...and most of his statistics are absolute bull and most people realise that. He is a sad man who has no aces left.

[Annabel Herriott]

Steve, were you doing a print impersonation of Gollum just then? Well, he was a good Hobbit who went to the dogs, wasnt he, so I guess the analogy is OK. Analogy? Comparison?

[Tory Solicitor]

The Blair governments have introduced a quite enormous amount of criminal justice legislation since 1997.

But it isn't working and the burdens it places on our public sector workers, especially the police, probably makes increases in crime more likely.

Blair needs to understand that you cannot just legislate crime away.

not sure that this electoral message (cameron's one-liner) is likely to be quite as powerful as EdR suggests though. I think polling show that crime is surprisingly far down the list of the electorate's priorities (of course specific seats may be exceptions)

[Andrew James]

'Blair needs to understand that you cannot just legislate crime away.'

The trouble is, Labour well never understand how to legislate properly. Enough fiddling the figures, enough blaming the opposition for not voting on 'tough' new measures, enough bureaucracy, and, most of all - and end to the inexcusably woeful tactic of blaming the last Conservative government, particularly on crime. It is time to free the police to do their jobs effectively. Abolish targets and abandon this morbid level of political correctness which seems to plague every aspect of life. Down with Blair and his shambolic administration!

[Patsy Sergeant]

When Blair first came to office, he knew he had 'charisma' and he knew the effect it had (even if he didn't someone else would have told him!). His chancellor was a whizz with figures, and loved nothing more than spending hours on end devising new methods to enrich his chancellory with new taxes (and he would always have had people around him to encourage him in that belief). Between them they could take the country to a new era, and Mr. Blair would become the 'Hallelujah man'. People might need convincing about all this, and so statistics would be able to assure them that all was going incredibly well all the time. Everything that moved had to provide a statistic (after all there are plenty of trees in the world). Communist Russia was also very good at using statistics, which would obviously have been known in the Labour party, (quite often in Russia the statistics/norms created havoc as they were manipulated to produce fictitious results).

Now it seems that a system overloaded with people producing endless statitistics, and wasting endless man-hours, has resulted in hospitals, wards or departments having to close, police having to fill in said forms rather then helping solve crime on the streets, ditto the prisons, and as for education and adult education - that has become one big paper-wasting machine.

ALL so the Mr. Blair and stand up at PMQ's and paint another golden MIRAGE for us!

[Jon Gale]

There was a story on Radio 4 on the drive home about a police force (North Wales I think) where the Chief Constable had told his divisions not to worry about drugs crime any more as they had met their targets for the year! - All too believable I'm afraid. That is where Blair's bureaucacy and 'toughness' has got us.

[Roslyn Freeman]

The BBC must be privatised, and rid the trotskyists and novo socialists, sorry new (blue pinky) conservatives of their mouthpiece.

[Esbonio]

I agree.

Instead of privatising BR we would arguably have done the country a bigger favour by breaking the BBC into a thousand pieces and selling it off instead of fragmenting the railways: at least they serve a useful purpose. We should also elect our judges and chief constables; and we should also improve the deomcratic deficit in this country by abolishing the unelected House of Lords which has not improved with a flood of life peers and we should encourage local democracy which this government has hamstrung (just like everything else).

[disillusioned activist]

Bliar's "Blame the Tories" attitude is nothing new. Harold Wilson did exactly the same back in the 60s with constant references to "13 years of Tory misrule" when things went

[Matt Wright]

I like the "Britain isn't safe under Labour" tag. Its good,

Matt

[Sally Stewart]

I too like the "Britain isn't safe under Labour" slogan - especially as the effect of Labour's policies has been to encourage Scottish separatists who aim to destroy Britain as a united nation.

[S.E.L]

"We should also elect our judges and chief constables; and we should also improve the deomcratic deficit in this country by abolishing the unelected House of Lords..."

Judges should be impartial and arrive at decisions according to the evidence, not because they already told the public that they would decide things in a certain way. This would introduce some of the worse aspects of the American system. Chief constables should spend their time fighting crime, not canvasing for votes.

Democracy has its weak points, it can allow unsavoury characters to gain power (I don't mean Blair). A (mainly?) unelected upper chamber acts as a counter weight to populist politicians. An appointed or hereditary upper chamber has its week points as well, but they are in the opposite direction to those of a democratically elected chamber, and the two complement each other nicely. Just because something could be elected does not mean that it should be elected. Suggesting that we have a "democratic deficit" is like suggesting Russia has an "authoritarian deficit".

[TomTom]

Harold Wilson did exactly the same back in the 60s with constant references to "13 years of Tory misrule" when things went

Posted by: disillusioned activist |

That is a clear sign of a leader trying to keep his own party on-board rather than trying to appeal to the electorate

[Serf]

Chief constables should spend their time fighting crime, not canvasing for votes.

How about:

Chief constables should spend their time fighting crime, not brown nosing politicians.