MyShout
Getting tough on crime really means getting creative to reach target figures says Stephen Oliver.
When I was a kid, around nine or 10, me and my mates were mucking around at a local cricket ground, climbing on the clubhouse roof. A neighbour saw us and called the police. Next thing we knew a very burly policeman was shaking his fist at us and we all wet our pants before scarpering. 'Nuf said and - apart from a three-point run-in with a traffic cop on the M6 in 1995 - it was the one and only time I was in trouble with the law.
However, today I would have been a crime statistic, helping to bolster crime-fighting targets. Last week the Police Federation heard that the police managed to turn a single theft into 542 different solved cases, by interviewing everyone who sponsored a child accused of nicking £700 due to go to Comic Relief. Another child was arrested for chucking buns at a bus and two kids were found guilty under gun laws for having a toy pistol.
"Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime," said the young Blair in his first speech as Shadow Home Secretary at the 1992 Labour Party Conference. I don't think he had bun crime in mind at the time, but what he did want was numbers to prove the battle was being won. Nowadays it seems the police are ordered to get the numbers no matter how ludicrous or minor the incident.
The papers are full of talk of the departing PM's legacy; among dodgy dossiers, Iraq, the NHS, cash for questions and BAE corruption scandals, there was little talk of licensing reform. Even the Daily Mail barely mentioned it. Yet, changing the antiquated licensing laws this country had to endure for decades has been one of the more notable - if controversial - achievements of New Labour. True, it's not quite up there with peace in Northern Ireland, but it has grabbed its own set of headlines and made pub-going a more civilised experience
From Bernie Ecclestone's dosh to Levy's loot, there's always an undercurrent of the slippery quid pro quo. As Boris Johnson so eloquently put it: "Tony Blair is a mixture of Harry Houdini and a greased piglet. He is barely human in his elusiveness. Nailing Blair is like trying to pin jelly to a wall." Well, soon we'll no longer have Blair to nail down, but that other master of obfuscation, Gordon Brown, a deceitful man who can disguise a tax rise as a 2p tax cut. So it's odds on that our industry will be in his sights before long. And, as with his predecessor, it'll be the law and order agenda.
The latest round of underage drinking campaigns is with us again. Except it's not a short-term campaign any more, it's going to be part of the way all of us operate, running pubs more responsibly than ever before. The penalties for serving underage drinkers are too severe, too far-reaching, with pub closures and swingeing fines, not to take this really seriously, and to make Challenge 21 part of our daily lives. If the police want to boost their crime detection figures and keep their clunking new boss at Number 10 happy, what better place to start than down the pub nicking licensees and bar staff? We got licensing hours changed, now we're really going to start paying for it.
