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Dear Editor
Lib Dem Council Leader Carl Minns fails to address the central
question in my recent letter on policing (Mail, 12 November).
Why is his administration leaving the CCTV control centre at
Festival House understaffed? This leads to delays in the
police obtaining CCTV evidence to prosecute criminals promptly.
Cllr Minns also shows his usual chicanery and spin in his
selective use – or misuse – of facts and figures.
Although full of doom and gloom about the current state of law
and order early in his letter, by the end of it he seems to change
his mind and boasts about crime reduction! In a somewhat delusional
way, he claims that all the good news is due to Lib Dem control of
Hull City Council.
Cllr Minns will find that any positive developments in fighting
crime and anti-social behaviour are largely to do with the new
resources and new powers – opposed by Lib Dems - from the
Government since 1997. This is combined with hard work of many
people in the police service.
It has little to do with the recently introduced, and
small-scale, Community Safety Fund, to which Cllr Minns attributes
every positive development. With the Lib Dem record of being soft
on crime, and more concerned about the rights of criminals than
their victims, I can understand why Cllr Minns needs this
fig-leaf.
Although the Lib Dems may well have performed their familiar
flip flop routine on CCTV, and no doubt made different and
contradictory statements in their usual opportunistic way, the fact
remains that their actions never matched their platitudes.
It was left to Labour councillors to secure funding for Hull’s
CCTV five years ago. Hull’s CCTV would not have happened if
entrusted to Lib Dems.
Five years on, and true to form, the Lib Dem Council has failed
to apply for Home Office funding for a new ‘talking CCTV’ system
that has been such a success elsewhere. Was this because the Lib
Dems were against ‘talking CCTV’? Or were they for it, but too
incompetent to get a funding bid together?
I think we should be told.
Yours sincerely,
Diana Johnson MP
Kingston upon Hull North
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16 November 2007: To Hull Daily Mail - not published
