The 'Crime Wave' sweeping our country

Just sitting through a Liberal Democrat Party Election Broadcast on television, with that nice - and if you believe his self-proclamations in GQ magazine, (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7324541.stm) incredibly virile - Mr Clegg. There's apparently a crime wave sweeping across our country. It must be true, because the lady on the council estate said so, and there's no way she'd get her lines wrong. She said some streets become no go areas at night - she's "terrified to go out".

The only consolation, of course, is that after the local government elections on 1st May, the Liberal Democrats will stop door knocking innocent citizens, and return to whatever it is that they do for the rest of the year.

And once again our streets will be safe to walk.

Of course, the more serious point of this indiscriminate election scaremongering is the fear it creates among the elderly and vulnerable who can't see it for the propaganda it really is. On a recent walkabout in Tunbridge Wells, one of our uniformed colleagues told me how he read a recent newsletter which spoke of "the increase in crime throughout Tunbridge Wells" from the LibDems.

Not only did he not recognise this at all in an area where crime was on a significant downturn, but it actually caused him more work because local residents, particularly the elderly, needed more reassurance that the junk pamphlet really was just that - junk.