John Bird raises a good point. "why can't we just arrest them and punish them quickly and efficiently."The reason is simple. After the 2008 financial crisis, that brainless goon, Prime Minister Gordon Brown, spent £500 billion of our money, propping up banks, which even he admitted, were "poorly regulated" . Brown then foolishly gave away the 2010 general election, to the Tories. A bit like asking a lion to look after a lamb !True to form, the Tories set about applying their trusted economic management to restabilise the UK's fiscal position. The governments "austerity programme" set about slashing public spending, across the entire social, judicial, military and health service infrastructure of the UK. After 10 years of Conservative austerity measures, although the economy was managed to produce growth, the judicial services, the prison services and the police services around the UK, were severely reduced. By 2019 massive court backlogs were developing. The prison service was falling apart, with severe staffing shortages. The police services around the UK were severely under-resourced and at the same time, facing overwhelming demand.All this and whatever good works to the economy that were done, up to 2019, were then swept away by the double-damage COVID epidemic and the triple-disaster that was the Johnson/Truss/Sunak premiership period. These three's premierships, absolutely trashed the UK's already fragile, yet growing, economy.So, there it is. There aren't enough police to catch smash & grab raiders in Richmond and the criminals know it. Shoplifters know that they are very unlikely to end up in police custody and even if they do, the courts are so submerged in backlogs, dropping prosecutions now looks like the cost effective way out, for those who want to uphold the law.London needs more police. If police are to be effective, they need a judiciary to prosecute wrongdoers promptly. For prosecuted wrongdoers to then be dealt with , we need more prisons or some sort of creative social justice system.That will all cost a great deal of money. Do Londoners want to pay more taxes ?Steve Taylor must be an alien, whose only knowledge of life in London is through watching T.V. Steve Taylor obviously does not understand about Richmond and its his ignorance that is on show, to all.
Roland Bolowski ● 1d