HAVING served on operations in Northern Ireland, I appreciate the value of the humble foot patrol.
My Guardsmen would return with a mass of intelligence that no camera, drone or listening device would ever secure.
Most importantly, our presence both reassured the civilian population on both sides of the religious divide and deterred terrorists’ movements and actions.
I have no doubt that more bobbies on the beat would be equally effective.
More officers are finding themselves desk-bound, battling on-line crime, but a Sunday Times analysis shows that officers now spend only 13 per cent of working hours investigating crime, and 47 per cent on community work.
In my view, the role of a police force – not service - is simple: to catch criminals and prevent crime.
Both objectives are not helped by reducing the numbers on patrol by a third over the past three years.
Nowhere is this problem better highlighted that in our capital city.
This week saw the 100th murder investigation since January, acid attacks on the rise, and stabbings recorded almost daily.
The carnage has led to calls for more police powers, especially the use of ‘stop and search’, curbed in 2010 by Theresa May.
Unsurprisingly, perhaps, we are seeing an increase in vigilantes and private police forces.
To the hard Left, the solution is easy.
A fringe event at Labour’s conference will debate the Empty Cages Collective, which proposes a “world without prisons and police”.
Anarchy would only be the only consequence.
I have argued for more police officers since I was elected back in 2010, and I shall continue to do so.
Technology has a place, yes, but nothing can ever replace the ‘mark one eyeball’, as we used to say in the army.