Prime Minister Sir Kier Starmer is set to announce that every neighbourhood in England and Wales is set to get a named, contactable police officer. The PM described this plan as giving ‘a relief to millions of people scared to walk the streets they call home.’
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00:00Well, there is no doubt that policing and the general rule of order is what makes for
00:08a good society. We all agree with that. So I think it will be welcome news. You're absolutely
00:14right. I mean, in a sense, it will take quite a while for this to feed through the system
00:18because you don't produce police officers in factories. You have to recruit them and
00:22train them. So it's going to be many months before we see any sort of evidence of this.
00:27But nonetheless, the fear of crime is ripe. And of course, we hear statistics saying it's
00:32getting better in some cases and worse in others. But undoubtedly, the presence of more
00:37police officers on the streets would be a really good thing, as I say, to have that
00:41visible deterrent. But also the fact that somebody that you know, I mean, there used
00:47to be a sort of thing when I was growing up of the local bobby, as they were called, after
00:52Robert Peel. And he or she, for that matter, was the sort of the person who would sort
00:56of know people. And it was very much community based. And in that sense, they knew who to
01:02sort of contact. So I think overall, it's a good thing. I think the real difficulty
01:06is, is that sort of people sort of think that you can, as I say, press buttons and you get
01:10sort of an instant cure to all sort of society's ills. And it doesn't work like that, as we
01:15know, policing and the sort of the order of society. It is about the sort of the greater
01:20good. And it's, it's, it's beyond the party politics. And it shouldn't be sort of a political
01:24football. So I, you know, personally, I, you know, I wish this policy well, because, but
01:30a bit like all the sort of the public service, we want them to be better, because we all
01:34benefit.
01:35So to be specific, Labour is thought to have six major milestones that they're aiming for.
01:39These include raising living standards in every part of the UK, rebuilding Britain with
01:441.5 million homes in England and fast-tracking planning decisions, ending hospital backlogs,
01:51putting police back on the beat, giving children the best start in life and securing homegrown
01:56energy.