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Home Secretary's
farcical walkabout
• Well done to the New Journal for reporting the Labour
Party’s election stunt in Camden Town last week. It was
a farce.
The Home Secretary Charles Clarke was led along an unusually
drugs-free Inverness Street lined by uniformed officers and
street wardens, while less than a hundred yards away a dozen
drug dealers had lined up along the High Street openly accosting
everyone who passed by.
Predictably, he refused my invitation to go and see for himself.
The Labour Party in Camden have not only tolerated this situation
for years, but have actively encouraged it. Only four years
ago, they called on the government (without consulting anyone
else) to legalise cannabis, cocaine and ecstasy.
Since then, they have refused to oppose the government’s
reclassification of cannabis and now plan, never mind local
opposition, to establish a needle exchange for heroin addicts
in Tottenham Court Road Tube station.
For too long Labour in Camden has been addicted to the woolly
idea that drugs markets exist in isolation to the crime figures
generally. But the truth is that the drugs markets breed violence.
Although momentarily displaced by the bulky presence of the
home secretary, drug-dealing on Inverness Street is carried
out by a gang. They guard their territory. They are young men
who have become used to breaking the law, and the official tolerance
of the situation has fed a violent knife culture with the tragic
results that we have seen.
Labour councillors, who for years have shouted me down whenever
I mention this problem, now offer us this staggering U-turn.
Labour, four months before the borough elections, and against
all its instincts, suddenly talks tough on drugs. Camden’s
executive councillors, who urged the government to legalise
drugs, are now asking us to believe them when they say that
they want to “crackdown” on the problem. The simple
fact is that they do not have the will to do anything of the
sort, and no matter how many police officers are stationed in
the borough, street crime will continue to rise until someone
has the will to face it head on.
And that means doing what Labour has utterly failed to do –
smashing the drugs market in Camden.
Cllr Piers Wauchope (Con)
Leader of the Opposition
Town Hall
Judd Street
WC1
• You quote Home Secretary Charles Clarke as saying
on his Labour party walkabout that: “It is clear that cannabis
is a serious problem, and in the past the eye has been taken
off the ball, when tackling it.” (Make Streets Safe Plea,
February 2). Does he mean that his Labour government has taken
its eye off the ball? Or the police? Or – perish the thought
– the Labour Council?
I and other residents have been raising this question for months.
We must get concerted action to tackle this serious problem
before it gets any more deep-rooted.
While selective anti-social behaviour orders (Asbos) may sometimes
help, what is needed is more real police on the ground to scare
away drug-dealers before they commit crime, not after.
Chris Naylor
Ivor Street
NW1 |
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