Howard: Crime push

Michael Howard has said he wants to use fear to combat Britain's yob culture.

The Conservative leader was announcing his party's "five-point action plan" to tackle yobbish behaviour and make the streets safer.

Speaking just days before the likely announcement of a May 5 general election, he said: "I don’t want members of the public looking over their shoulders – I want the yobs looking round in fear."

Howard is aiming to woo what he says are the millions of hard-working people "who do the right thing", but who are "regularly intimidated" by yobs.
 
He said: "Instead of greeting the police with contempt I want them [yobs] to fear them."

The Tory leader also made a bid to rubbish Labour's crime record and attempted to regain the initiative following the Howard Flight affair.

"In today’s Britain no-one seems prepared to take a stand – to hold these arrogant young yobs to account for their appalling behaviour," he said.

"It’s living proof that for all his talk Mr Blair has quite simply lost the plot on crime. 

And he added: "Mr Blair’s government lacks the political will to take a stand on crime, to listen to the people instead of the do-gooders."

New York

Howard described the main problem in Britain as "too few policemen, filling in too many forms and chasing too many central government targets."

Under the five-point plan, the Tory leader promised 5,000 more police every year, and he used the controversial example of Rudi Giuliani's New York yob crackdown to maintain that more police on the streets works.

The Tories would get rid of government targets for police forces and make them publish their weekly crime statistics on the internet for local people to check - again following the New York 'Compstat' model.

Officers' paperwork, which Howard said uses up vital police crime fighting time, would be cut back under the Tory plans, and police wouldn't have to fill in forms every time they arrest someone.

And Howard also promised the introduction of elected police commissioners so local people have the power to decide how their communities are policed.

"The rights of the community need to be centre stage," he said.

"Police muscle power will go behind the public’s priorities – tackling crime and disorder: vandalism, rowdiness, thuggery."

Howard concluded by saying the crackdown on yobs was only the start of the Conservative's campaign to get tough on crime.

He said: "This election is going to be as much about crime as anything else."

When asked if the Tories would keep ABSOs,  Howard confirmed they would be retained and would "have a part to play".

But he said ASBOs were "very far from being the be all and end all in dealing with these problems".