This opens a space for Labour, which has repeatedly called for more money to fight crime. It did its best to snatch the Tories’ law and order mantle at last year’s general election, promising to recruit an extra 10,000 police officers. This sally was undermined when the shadow home secretary, Diane Abbott, could not remember the policy’s cost. But after terrorist attacks in London and Manchester last spring, Labour successfully turned the ensuing debate into one about austerity.
Mr Javid has pushed back hard against the idea that a flood of extra cash would stop the recent rise in crime. A similar panic over fatal stabbings in 2007 happened when police departments were relatively flush. In this argument, Mr Javid has an unlikely ally in Charles Clarke, a former Labour home secretary, who says that the problems at the Home Office stem from poor strategy rather than a lack of money.
Not all agree that a tight-fisted Treasury should escape criticism. Cressida Dick, Britain’s most senior police officer, has said it is “naive” to separate funding from the recent increase in crime. And local leaders have questions to answer too, since many policing powers have been devolved. Mayors and local crime commissioners now have a big say over strategy and spending.
For now, Brexit and the NHS still trump law and order in the minds of voters. But crime has proven potential to balloon into a serious political issue, argues Will Jennings, an academic at the University of Southampton. A violent-crime wave coupled with horrendous, high-profile incidents such as the murder of James Bulger, a Liverpool toddler, triggered a “moral panic” in the mid-1990s, he argues. This resulted in Labour and the Conservatives attempting to outgun each other with tough legislation and spending pledges. A few notorious incidents may once again force MPs to find a way to make crime pay—politically, at least.
