Reaction to a leaked report on crime rates and police cuts provoked some of the most interesting discussion on site today. We’re also looking at your views under a new series from Australia.
To join in the conversation you can click on the links in the comments below to expand and add your thoughts. We’ll continue to highlight more comments worth reading as the day goes on.
Amber Rudd denies seeing leaked violent crime report
Discussion around Monday’s politics live blog focussed on the home secretary’s reaction to a leak to the Guardian saying police cuts have “likely contributed” to a rise in violent crime.
‘Tories just never understand that promoting properly-funded public services are an investment in the people’
Rudd’s maladroit handling of this spike in knife crime will have done her no favours. Her blanking of the Home Office research that ties the reduction of police numbers to this dramatic increase beggars belief. If the Home Secretary is unaware of the research then what does this say about her competence? Of course, in common with all public sector funding – and there is not a single sector of state provision that is not in crisis – is only the inevitable consequence of eight years to Tory austerity.
The lack of police on the streets in areas of deprivation and violence is the savage outcome of a wilful lack of support services, from Sure Start to school education and social services. These are political decisions and they are all about what a government chooses to prioritise. Amber Rudd will fall in the next general election.
Asktherightquestion
‘Driving legal highs underground while cutting police funding is about as stupid as a policy can get’
May has compounded the problem with her ridiculously regressive “psychoactive substances bill” that nary gets a mention anymore. Driving legal highs underground while cutting police funding is about as stupid as a policy can get, especially when other countries are liberalising drug laws to wholly positive results.
Yesterday I read of a gang arrested for lifting nitrous oxide canisters from hospitals. Can anyone imagine that happening if the completely harmless sale of nitrous-oxide whippets wasn’t unnecessarily banned just so the tories looked like they were doing *something*?
CropplyCrab
The struggle for Melbourne: has the world’s ‘most liveable’ city lost its way?
Guardian Cities and Guardian Australia are embarking on a week long series looking at changing metropolitan lives in the country. You’ve been sharing thoughts on this piece about Melbourne.
‘The upsides of living in Melbourne are intrinsically linked to migration’
I lived in Melbourne for a year back in 2012/13 and had an absolute blast. What I loved about it was that it had all the multicultural influences that you get in London (my home city) but in a more condensed space and in an embryonic phase. Street art was accepted and everywhere. Loved the bars and underground music was still actually underground, with small crews putting on great parties which had an organic, community vibe to them which I have never experienced in the UK. Amazing food too.
The people I met, lived and worked with in Melbourne were rarely born and raised in the city. They were either Australians who had moved there from other parts of the country or international, like me. To me, the upsides of living in Melbourne are intrinsically linked to migration/immigration. You can’t have one without the other.
oooobobbyzamora
‘Much needs to be done to make sure we can keep pace with the growth’
I don’t think I’ve travelled enough to say for sure just how good it is in Melbourne, but I haven’t been to many places I’d rather be living.
Much needs to be done to make sure we can keep pace with the growth, but we’ve plenty or land if the transport infrastructure can be in place. Roads or trains, I don’t think concentrating ever more on the city centre is really viable. The outer suburbs all around need the kind of attention the East has had. Box Hill, Ringwood, Dandenong. These places can be centres in their own right, rather than a stop along the way to the CBD. They are reasonably well connected and the suburbs around them benefit from the links there.
LucidFugue
Comments have been edited for length. This article will be updated throughout the day with some of the most interesting ways readers have been participating across the site.
