Starmer promises Labour will “restore faith in law and order” ahead of locals

There is a victims crisis in our criminal justice system, Keir Starmer has declared. The Labour leader is continuing to hammer home his favoured local elections theme. Labour today highlighted figures showing that a quarter of reported crimes are being dropped for a lack of evidence with victims deciding not to support further action. Starmer pledged to “restore faith in law and order”, adding: “Faith in the criminal justice system to deliver for victims is a pillar of a civilized country. Under the Conservatives, it’s being devastatingly undermined. As ever with this Prime Minister, the institutions he vows to protect are being damaged.”

Crime is one of two prongs in Labour’s attack ahead of the locals, the other being the crippling cost-of-living crisis inflicted on households by 12 years of Tory policies. The Tory record on community safety has been abysmal: official figures showed just last week that successive cuts have left just one neighbourhood police officer for every 2,400 residents – despite repeated vows from Boris Johnson to boost police numbers. Crime has (predictably given the Prime Minister’s own lawbreaking) risen up the agenda. Labour candidates are finding that the fines issued to Johnson and Rishi Sunak are repeatedly coming up on the doorstep.

Labour is making trust, in justice and by implication in our institutions more broadly, a key theme – and Johnson is certainly making it easier to demonstrate that you cannot trust the Conservatives. As Starmer said, the poor Tory record on crime is “in addition to a Prime Minister who shows no respect for law and order”. Johnson will finally make a statement on ‘partygate’ in parliament at around 3.30pm today. He has decided, however, to include his lockdown partying in an address also covering the war in Ukraine and Britain’s energy security strategy. Given the importance of each issue, you might have expected that they would deserve their own statement – and, in a week where a Prime Minister was not battling for survival, that is probably what we would have seen.

Labourlist has had some excellent contributions over the bank holidary weekend. John Spellar MP argued that Labour must show that – as well as being uncaring and heartless – the Tories are incompetent and that Britain simply isn’t working under their leadership. Stella Creasy MP has written about the Labour Movement for Europe’s open call for Labour selection hopefuls to seek the group’s endorsement. And Luke Akehurst has taken a look at what a good set of elections on May 5th would look like for Labour in his pre-locals analysis for LabourList. Sign up to LabourList’s morning email for everything Labour, every weekday morning.