Tom Watson: How Manchester showed the love last night – and why May must now rewrite her manifesto to protect police

I took my kids to the One Love concert in Manchester last night. A lot of mum and dads did. Every parent, determined to give their children the lifetime of memories that help form well rounded adults. And the kids loved every minute of it. They were singing, dancing, laughing, taking selfies and getting their faces painted. They were a credit to their parents. As an act of defiance it was a big one. To let our children live their lives enveloped in love, no matter what.

And that young singer, Ariana Grande singing “where is the love?” with the Black Eyed Peas was a moment my kids will never forget. But there was something for everyone yesterday. When Liam [Gallagher] swaggered on stage, having cancelled all his engagements to sing Rock n Roll star I couldn’t think of a bigger finger you can give to these freaks who want to kill our kids. God bless him.

Our kids all arrived home safely last night. I could see the relief on the faces of the organisers as the stadium emptied peacefully. And there are a lot of people in the British music industry who should be very proud of themselves this morning. They did their bit and spread the love.

So today I’d intended to outline what I thought was at stake on Thursday. I wanted to describe what might happen were Theresa May to be elected with a working majority.

But in the last 75 days we have had three of the most appalling terrorist attacks on mainland Britain in my adult life.

After Sunday’s attack on London, I want to say things of greater substance, that go beyond a stump speech in a general election campaign.

I’ve had cause to reflect very deeply on what Theresa May said in her speech outside Number 10 Downing Street on Sunday morning. If you cut out her rhetoric she made one substantial point:

That there is now a new paradigm to Islamist terrorism.

That the threat we face in 2017 is not that of a single evil organisation planning and training for terror attacks over several years, but of random attacks by lone actors, who are inspired by previous atrocities, who use the crudest, cruellest methods.

And if the battle plan of the enemy has changed, then so too must ours, if we are to stand and meet this new threat.

And that is what I would like to address today. My words are in reaction to hers, yesterday, and to the horrible new modus operandi of those who seek to kill us and our loved ones.

Firstly though, before I begin, one criticism of Theresa May. When she made that speech in front of Number 10 I think it would have been stronger had she suspended campaigning and invited all the party leaders to stand with her, shoulder to shoulder, in defiance of these despicable wretches. It is a shame that she laid herself open to criticism of electioneering at a time when the whole country needs to be united.

But in outlining this new head of the terrorist hydra, she invites us to revisit all our previous assumptions.

And in so doing, I think there is room for change and perhaps even common cause amongst the main political parties.

The new paradigm recognises that there is an urgent requirement for more armed response teams in our policing service.

Theresa May told the Police Federation before the last election that spending cuts hadn’t affected front line policing. She was wrong, and we all know it.

To be clear, nobody is saying that police cuts caused this attack. But the last thing we need at a time of heightened threat is an overstretched police force.

Even today, ministers are seeking to justify cuts to armed officers by pointing to the need for the government to make “very difficult decisions”. Cutting armed officers may have been a difficult decision. I think it’s now time for Theresa May to acknowledge that it was the wrong decision.

I’d like to pay tribute to all of our emergency services but particularly those police officers – on and off duty – who displayed conspicuous gallantry on Saturday night.

Officers like the off duty policeman who rugby tackled a knife-wielding attacker on London Bridge, who was seriously injured as a result.

Like the British Transport police officer, who faced the attackers armed with only his baton, who was also seriously injured.

And like the highly-trained men and women in the armed units that responded to the attack, who made that split-second decision, under extreme pressure, to take three lives in order to save many others.

They are all the bravest of brave and they deserve not only our respect, but the highest public recognition.

Secondly, I think we need to re-examine how we monitor and surveil radicalised individuals who haven’t committed an offence. I don’t want to make this party political but I believe that we should look again at control orders. I think Iain Duncan Smith was right yesterday when he said that TPIMs were a “watered down” version of the control orders. This is not the time for diluted anti-terror laws.

Thirdly, and this is where I think we can all find common cause, I think all political parties should commit to no further reductions in police numbers.

Labour is committed in this election to providing 10,000 new police officers. It’s worth repeating that reversing cuts to capital gains tax will more than fund these new officers.

On current government plans though, there is a further cut to the policing budget of £850m. You just can’t achieve savings like that without cutting thousands more officers. Given the changed paradigm, I’m sure the prime minister would be forgiven for making another change to her manifesto in order to guarantee that there will be no further cuts to police numbers. She’s rewritten her manifesto once. She can rewrite it again.

Finally, as Jeremy Corbyn said yesterday, it’s time to have some difficult conversations with states that have funded and fuelled extremist ideology. And the Government’s report into foreign funding and support for jihadi groups in the UK needs to be published, not suppressed.

We have to say “enough is enough” to anyone, any state, any organisation, who is funding or supporting terrorist activity here or anywhere else in the world. And the British people have a right to know who funds terror. So:

1. A re-examination of control orders

2. No more police cuts, and a restoration of armed officer numbers as quickly as possible

3. Exposing and cutting off the source funding and ideological roots of terrorism, wherever it is and whoever is responsible for it.

Whether your campaign slogan is For the Many Not the Few or Strong and Stable it seems to me that we can unite around these three points.