The Mayor of London Boris Johnson suggested in 2008 soon after he was elected Mayor that building more boxing academies could help curb youth violence and it was vital that the “root causes” of such crimes were addressed.
And of course Mr. Johnson continued his speech by saying that the government wanted to encourage more children from less advantaged backgrounds to go to top universities and that education was one key issue to some many of all the social problems.
Looking back with hindsight as to what has happened with the Coalition Government and with the input of the new policies for education and cuts, it’s probably not surprising that Mr. Johnson must now think twice and predict what his Conservative led government with the Liberals Democrats will come up in terms of new policies.
Although senior police officers believe that the huge rise in the number of teenagers being killed on the streets of London is the biggest threat facing the Capital after terrorism, the Coalition Government unfortunately has not taken this fact into account while announcing the devastating cuts in funding.
Police in London were busy last year to put young gang members, including children as young as 11, under observation to try to tackle the rise in street violence, especially the growing use of knives.
But yesterday a police report revealed that Crime levels in London could rise because of current and future budget cuts. Officials from Scotland Yard warn that police will struggle to tackle youth violence, robbery and burglary unless efficiency is improved.
The reports revealed that cutbacks also mean police are scaling back a central anti-burglary operation to deal with a rise in youth violence, police will priorities serious youth violence.
It is a very big job for the Mayor of London to tackle youth crime with all these cuts in the police force budgets; as he had promised voters when he was elected Mayor. He said that it was his “top priority” as Mayor and he would do everything possible to stem the loss of life resulting from knife and other violent crime.
Bad news for Mr. Johnson as knife crime is up by 4.1 per cent and there is also a rise in the number of youth murders in the last 12 months as compared with 2009, which is worrying senior police officers.
Mr. Johnson, we have not forgotten what you said in June 2008, “We have got to deal with root problems – why kids are getting lost in a nightmare of guns and gangs and knives.”
The expectations are immense for a Mayor figure in one of the most diverse cities on this world. Yet both old and current Mayor has so far failed to live up to what they promised.
And we are still waiting that our London Mayor deals with these problems. Simply by repeating the rhetoric to select audience through columns in national newspapers or media genrally does not make the problem go away. We all wonder as to how the record of the Mayor on this and other similar promises will stand up as we come up to the next Mayoral election in May 2012.
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Semra Eren-Nijhar 