Balls launches police cuts campaign

By Mark Ferguson / @markfergusonuk

As we reported last week on LabourList, Greater Manchester police have announced the loss of 3000 police jobs, around half of which will be front line staff. Whilst this has hardly been mentioned in the press (in part due to the royal wedding announcement), it is remarkable that the Tories would allow a 23% cut in police numbers for one of our major cities.

Today Ed Balls was in Manchester to launch a new campaign against the police cuts – 999, wrong cuts, wrong time – along with local MPs Kate Green, Tony Lloyd and Simon Danczuk. Ed said:

“These are the wrong cuts at the wrong time. The top priority of any Government should be to make people feel safer in their homes and communities. But this government is taking big risks with your safety. The cuts they are making to the policing budget will be impossible to achieve without massive cuts to the number of police on the street and programmes to fight crime and anti-social behaviour.”

You can join the campaign by visiting the website