The minister in charge of policing had her purse stolen at a conference about…policing. Crime, Policing and Fire minister Diana Johnson met with senior police officers earlier today when her wallet was nicked, having just spoken at the conference bemoaning the “epidemic of anti-social behaviour, theft and shoplifting”. You couldn’t make it up…

The incident sent the Home Office into hight alert as they are now “probing security risks” while Warwickshire Police have confirmed they are investigating the theft. Let’s hope it wasn’t one of those early released prisoners…

Labour’s election manifesto features an endorsement from former Detective Chief Superintendent Gavin Thomas, an approval Labour hoped would bolster their promise to crack down on crime. Though Thomas hasn’t been one to encourage the full force of the law on some serious offenders…

Back in 2016, Thomas called for a review of the sex offenders register and a debate about diverting some paedophiles into treatment rather than imprisoning them. Speaking of his concerns about there not being enough room to jail all paedophiles, he said: “Should we be going down the criminal justice route or, based on a proper assessment, should we be going down the health route?”  Thomas also argued that young hackers should face “virtual prisons” rather than jail-time, proposing the use of wi-fi jammers and educational programmes rather than the “19th century punishments to deal with 21st century crimes.” Not exactly a model of ‘tough on crime’…

Sadiq Khan and his cronies in the London Assembly put the brakes on a Conservative proposal to inject £200 million into the Met police yesterday. Some of the funding would have gone into tackling knife crime in schools and in the streets. A reminder: knife crime in London has increased by 54 per cent under Khan.

Tory mayoral candidate Susan Hall slammed Khan’s move:

“Sadiq Khan and his allies have shown their true colours today, refusing to back the police after underfunding them for eight years. Sadiq Khan has arrogantly ignored Londoners, taking money from the police to splash on pre-election gimmicks. One thousand people have been killed since he was elected, but he is more interested in holidays, beach parties and selling his book than doing anything about it.”

It’s surprising to hear Khan couldn’t bring himself to support the worthy cause, considering he’s not stranger to spending a load of taxpayers’ cash. Guido recalls our London Mayor had no qualms spaffing £123 million on beach parties and woke projects, £30 million to tube strikers, £28.7 million on virtue signalling and self-promotion, all while raking in £26 million a month from pinching pennies off those who can’t afford ULEZ-compliant cars. Guido’s sure all these projects are much more important to Londoners than keeping crime off the streets…

Some politicians aren’t interested in keeping the streets safe. Sadiq Khan’s office has been forced to reveal today that the London Crime Reduction Board, founded in 2011, has been scrapped. The LCRB was established as the place “where the Mayor, the Police Commissioner and London’s boroughs come together to agree a coordinated approach to crime reduction, local policing and community safety in London”. A Freedom of Information request has revealed that there has not been a London Crime Reduction Board since July 2023, when it had its last meeting. Meanwhile, violent crime is up 30% since Khan took office in 2016. Khan must be dropping everything to focus on his re-election campaign…

Yvette Cooper gets the award for most Blairite speech at Labour conference so far. Apart from bringing back “Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime”, she focused on tackling shoplifting, bringing in tougher sentencing for assaults, and starting up “Youth Futures Hubs” to fix knife crime. The message: “We did it before, we can do it again“. Things can only go back to how they were before…

Ahead of baby killer Lucy Letby’s sentencing later today, Rishi Sunak has hit out at “cowardly” criminals who don’t face their victims at their sentencing hearing. Those who commit “horrendous crimes” should be compelled to attend court:

“I think it’s cowardly that people who commit such horrendous crimes do not face their victims and hear first hand the impact that their crimes have had on them and their families and loved ones. We are looking, and have been, at changing the law to make sure that that happens and that’s something that we’ll bring forward in due course.”

Surely it is a simple matter to change the sentencing guidance to take into account their refusal?