Why the Tories are talking tough on crime

Although Brexit remains the top of the news agenda, the Conservatives believe they will need to talk about more than just leaving the EU if they are to triumph in an early election. Boris Johnson used his conference speech to push a domestic agenda beyond Brexit. The areas he focussed on were the same ones that Downing Street has repeatedly pushed since the summer: the NHS, law and order, education and investment in the north.

Johnson singled out tackling crime as a priority:

‘The first thing we must do in spreading opportunity is to insist on the equal safety of the public wherever you live to make your streets safer and that is why we are recruiting 20,000 new police officers and that is why we are committing now to rolling up the evil county lines drugs gangs that predate on young kids and send them to die in the streets to feed the cocaine habits of the bourgeoisie.’