Tories tell Met to make £472milllion savings

For all the - untrue - Tory rhetoric of falling police numbers, you'd think they had a policy of massively increasing the number of bobbies on the beat, wouldn't you?

Of course, the reality is utterly different to the Tory spin. London Mayor Boris Johnson has told the Metropolitan Police Authority to make an astonishing £472 million in cuts.

It gets worse.

In the same breath as they claim that this massive cut will not reduce police numbers, they announce their intention to recruit 900 unpaid special constables in order to pick up the slack created by "redeploying" 550 existing Police Officers to other duties which have been vacated by retirees.

Doesn't that sound like a cut to you?

It really is back to the future with the Conservatives. In 1993, Wandsworth had 693 Police Officers. By the time the damage Michael Howard and the Tories had wrought had fed through, we were down to 568. That's a Tory cut in local Police numbers of 125!

By the end of November last year, Labour had increased Police numbers to 592 plus 96 Safer Neighbourhood Community Support Officers - a total of 688. Don't take my word for it: the Metropolitan Police Authority records the figures here.

Of course the Tories can't cut £472 million without sacking Police. Of course that means fewer police in Putney. And of course that means they lied to you when seeking election last year.