The Tories’ crime crackdown

Dealing with crime is a political necessity for the Tories, I say in the Times today. Whenever Labour outflanks them on the issue, as Tony Blair did, the Conservatives are in trouble. But law and order has taken on even more importance for this government because of its link to levelling up: Boris Johnson is convinced you can level up only if you deal with crime. He believes that places are poor because of crime, rather than the other way round. So, next week we’ll see a slew of announcements, with a particular focus on increasing drug rehabilitation efforts.

The public are not sure what levelling up means but, as far as anyone can guess, dealing with disorder is seen to be part of it.  Polling from Public First, one of whose founding partners co-wrote the Tory manifesto, found that more than half of those who think where they live is worse than it was a decade ago cite crime and antisocial behaviour as one of the main causes.