JUST as Home Secretary Jack Straw unveiled the government's five-year strategy to cut 30 per cent of car crime and the £3 billion a year it costs, Police Federation chief Fred Broughton was launching a bitter attack on police numbers being slashed by nearly 1,000 a year.

Mr Straw can, quite rightly, look for safer car parks, more closed-circuit TV surveillance and more-secure cars, but any drive against crime needs the back-up of adequate policing.

The government was elected on its pledge to be tough on crime and cutting the police ranks does not honour that.

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