WHILE the Tories lost the plot and contemplated their Eurosceptic navel, Labour concentrated on what really concerned the public -- and won the last general election.

One of the main planks of that successful strategy was the pledge to be tough on crime.

Today, at the second Labour conference since their election victory, Home Secretary Jack Straw had to come good on that promise to our crime plagued country.

And he homed in on the most disturbing aspect of the crime boom of the last two decades.

To have your home burgled is one of the most disturbing experiences of all.

The thought that some stranger has invaded your private space and rifled through your most personal belongings is one from which some people never recover.

As Jack Straw so rightly says, for many the sense of violation and fear never fades.

But that trauma is one with which more and more people have been having to cope over the past 20 years.

The sad truth is that in the year from January to December 1997 there were 5,476 reported burglaries in Lancashire.

Last year that figure had risen to 14,678 -- that's a whopping 168 per cent increase. And that percentage rise is not out of step with the rest of the country which now has the highest burglary rate of the 11 industrialised countries featured in the International Crime Victimisation Survey.

Only one force has registered a decrease and, to confound all the comedians' jokes, that is Merseyside.

The truth is that burglary is a crime that has become more profitable for the villains, many of them at work to fund a drug habit.

They have been getting away with it for too long and it is one crime that does pay.

Now the government is cracking down with a raft of measures to deter the criminal.

A total of £50 million will be spent over three years on 500 targeted areas.

The money will be spent on alarm loan schemes, rapid repair services to prevent repeat victimisation, mobile CCTV schemes, enhanced Neighbourhood Watch, better street lighting and improved IT to help police target and detect criminals.

Beat the Burglar security advice packs will be mailed to all residents in high-crime areas.

But is this enough?

Deterrence is obviously important and we could reduce burglary at a stroke if we all turned our homes into mini-fortresses.

Is this how we want to live?

People still hark back to the "good old days" when you could leave your front door open in case a neighbour wanted to nip in.

But in those days the burglar had a very good chance of having his collar felt.

We need to get back to that ideal.

The police need to target the burglars and get them to court. There the punishment should fit the crime.

Until the public feel that ALL burglaries are being dealt with seriously and that there was a good chance the culprit would end up having his privacy invaded by being locked up they will not believe that Labour is being as tough on crime as their election campaign would have us believe.

Converted for the new archive on 14 July 2000. Some images and formatting may have been lost in the conversion.