The PR facade of the bobby on the beat

This evening's Channel4 political slot had the Labour MP for tooting, Sadiq Khan, saying what a success moving police on to the beat had been. I'd like to see some accurate figures on this; I really doubt there is any notable reduction in crime rates or an improvement in civic cohesion; Khan only gave sound-bites to backup his points.

Dedicating police staff to what is essentially a PR exercise is a complete waste of tax-payers money in my view. Why not focus on tackling outstanding issues like unsolved crimes, or people trafficking?

Luckily those police walking the streets for no good reason aren't actually fully fledged police officers, and are only Community support officers. Which does lessen the wasted resource at least; it's still a big enough waste of money when budgets are so tight.

However, the real solution is to tackle the underlying social problems which cause the visible symptoms of crime and anti-social behaviour. Poverty and not having a job (for various reasons) are two big factors. Tackle these by building communities, creating jobs, providing social, youth and sports facilities for people to come together and make the most of life.

Let's see if any accurate figures materialise from Labour about the bobby on the beat, or even an independent study!? Or perhaps the next government will simply cut out PR exercises like this..