Since his re-election last May Boris Johnson has cut over 1,300 police officers ““ despite promising an extra 1,000. The latest drop in police numbers comes at a time when the Mayor and government are considering buying water cannons for the police.
London wide Assembly Member, Murad Qureshi AM, said:
“These latest figures are deeply concerning. Not only have we lost 259 police officers in Westminster but nearly 3000 have been cut across London since May 2010. The vast majority of these officers have been lost from the borough’s police teams. Hollowing out the frontline like this cannot continue.
“Instead of cutting the police budget by 20 per cent and buying water cannons the government and Mayor should be properly resourcing the police. These cuts are completely unacceptable. Boris’ latest policing plan claims that it will put more police into the boroughs and on the streets, the evidence tells a very different story. The Mayor and the Government’s cuts are too far, too fast.”
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Notes
1. Murad Qureshi AM is a Labour London wide Assembly Member.
See attached with link to “Raw” data , then Police Officer and staff numbers, by staff type, detailing the number of police officers in London and by borough for 2010 and 2013.
3. In September 2012 Boris Johnson said at Mayor’s Question Time: “I do think that it is important to keep Police numbers high”¦It is something that not everybody necessarily agrees with me about. A lot of people say that the numbers themselves do not matter. I think that they do matter. I think that it is important that we keep them at or around 32,000.”