London Daily

Focus on the big picture.
Thursday, Sep 18, 2025

Liz Truss vows to bring back national crime targets for police

Liz Truss vows to bring back national crime targets for police

Plan to publish league tables for forces in England and Wales if she becomes PM condemned as ‘failed approach’

Liz Truss would return to national crime targets – pledging a 20% reduction in murders, other violence and burglaries within two years if she became prime minister – under a plan immediately condemned as a “failed approach” and political meddling.

In another example of the policy arms race with Rishi Sunak as they vie for the Conservative leadership, with limited detail on implementation or costs, Truss said her government would publish league tables for police forces in England and Wales.

An announcement from her campaign team said Truss would “expect” all forces to reduce rates of homicide, serious violence and neighbourhood crimes such as burglary and car theft by a fifth before the end of the parliament, which is December 2024 at the latest.

Chief constables of forces that fail to achieve this would be forced to attend a meeting of the National Policing Board chaired by the home secretary to explain how improvements would be made.

The announcement did not offer any new resources or say how such a dramatic reduction could be achieved, though Truss’s campaign said it believed some chief constables were “not cracking down as hard as they should be” on traditional crime, and were instead focused excessively on identity issues and social media.

A Truss administration would divert training resources and ensure officers were “policing our streets, not debates on Twitter”, the campaign said.

In a statement, the foreign secretary added: “It’s time for the police to get back to basics and spend their time investigating real crimes, not Twitter rows and hurt feelings.”

Liz Truss: ‘It’s time for the police to get back to basics and spend their time investigating real crimes, not Twitter rows and hurt feelings.’


The plans were criticised by a former senior chief constable as a return to a past failed policy, first rolled out under Tony Blair’s Labour government, which could create “perverse incentives” for forces.

Sir Peter Fahy, the ex-chief constable of Greater Manchester police and former vice-president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, said: “Most police chiefs would be against going back to national targets. We know that going down the targets route often has negative consequences on what police focus on and creates perverse incentives.

“National targets remove discretion from forces and officers, which is the heart of the British system. People chase numbers.

“You need to concentrate on the most vulnerable and not what is an easy statistic. It is a failed approach which has longer-term negative consequences.”

Fahy said of Truss’s rhetoric on online crimes: “It is misleading to say police should not cover the internet, as that is where some crimes start from, such as stalking.”

Truss has said she would maintain the existing government target to recruit 20,000 more police officers. But Fahy said this would produce little benefit if they were pressured to do the wrong thing. “You can have more police officers, but if they are working to a failed model there is not a lot of point,” he said.

The Truss plans are similar to measures discussed by senior Home Office officials and police chiefs in late 2020 and 2021, but which were not enacted. Then, ministers discussed pressing for cuts of up to 20% in offences including homicide, serious violent crime, burglary and vehicle theft, according to sources.

Advocates believed it was fair to ask for the crime reductions in return for 20,000 new officers, replacing those cut during austerity. After opposition from police chiefs, a weaker plan was put in place, including league tables of forces’ performance.

The Liberal Democrats said national police targets involved overly centralised control.

“Local police chiefs and officers on the ground know how to do their jobs better than Liz Truss does,” said Alistair Carmichael, the party’s home affairs spokesperson.

“Making police officers chase arbitrary Whitehall targets won’t make our communities safer or end the scandal of 5,000 unsolved crimes every day. All it does is waste police time and undermine public trust and confidence.

“What our communities really need is not damaging centralised targets but proper community policing, with the officers, resources and time to focus on preventing and solving crimes.”

Newsletter

Related Articles

0:00
0:00
Close
US Tech Giants Pledge Billions to UK AI Infrastructure Following Starmer's Call
Saudi Arabia cracks down on music ‘lounges’ after conservative backlash
DeepMind and OpenAI Achieve Gold at ‘Coding Olympics’ in AI Milestone
SEC Allows Public Companies to Block Investors from Class-Action Lawsuits
Saudi Arabia Signs ‘Strategic Mutual Defence’ Pact with Pakistan, Marking First Arab State to Gain Indirect Access to Nuclear Strike Capabilities in the Region
Federal Reserve Cuts Rates by Quarter Point and Signals More to Come
Effective and Impressive Generation Z Protest: Images from the Riots in Nepal
European manufacturers against ban on polluting cars: "The industry may collapse"
Sam Altman sells the 'Wedding Estate' in Hawaii for 49 million dollars
Trump: Cancel quarterly company reports and settle for reporting once every six months
Turkish car manufacturer Togg Enters German Market with 5-Star Electric Sedan and SUV to Challenge European EV Brands
US Launches New Pilot Program to Accelerate eVTOL Air Taxi Deployment
Christian Brueckner Released from German Prison after Serving Unrelated Sentence
World’s Longest Direct Flight China Eastern to Launch 29-Hour Shanghai–Buenos Aires Direct Flight via Auckland in December
New OpenAI Study Finds Majority of ChatGPT Use Is Personal, Not Professional
Hong Kong Industry Group Calls for HK$20 Billion Support Fund to Ease Property Market Stress
Joe Biden’s Post-Presidency Speaking Fees Face Weak Demand amid Corporate Reluctance
Charlie Kirk's murder will break the left's hateful cancel tactics
Kash Patel erupts at ‘buffoon’ Sen. Adam Schiff over Russiagate: ‘You are the biggest fraud’
Homeland Security says Emmy speech ‘fanning the flames of hatred’ after Einbinder’s ‘F— ICE’ remark
Charlie Kirk’s Alleged Assassin Tyler Robinson Faces Death Penalty as Charges Formally Announced
Actor, director, environmentalist Robert Redford dies at 89
The conservative right spreads westward: a huge achievement for 'Alternative for Germany' in local elections
JD Vance Says There Is “No Unity” with Those Who Celebrate Charlie Kirk’s Killing, and he is right!
Trump sues the 'New York Times' for an astronomical sum of 15 billion dollars
Florida Hospital Welcomes Its Largest-Ever Baby: Annan, Nearly Fourteen Pounds at Birth
U.S. and Britain Poised to Finalize Over $10 Billion in High-Tech, Nuclear and Defense Deals During Trump State Visit
China Finds Nvidia Violated Antitrust Laws in Mellanox Deal, Deepens Trade Tensions with US
US Air Force Begins Modifications on Qatar-Donated Jet Amid Plans to Use It as Air Force One
Pope Leo Warns of Societal Crisis Over Mega-CEO Pay, Citing Tesla’s Proposed Trillion-Dollar Package
Poland Green-Lights NATO Deployment in Response to Major Russian Drone Incursion
Elon Musk Retakes Lead as World’s Richest After Brief Ellison Surge
U.S. and China Agree on Framework to Shift TikTok to American Ownership
London Daily Podcast: London Massive Pro Democracy Rally, Musk Support, UK Economic Data and Premier League Results Mark Eventful Weekend
This Week in AI: Meta’s Superintelligence Push, xAI’s Ten Billion-Dollar Raise, Genesis AI’s Robotics Ambitions, Microsoft Restructuring, Amazon’s Million-Robot Milestone, and Google’s AlphaGenome Update
Le Pen Tightens the Pressure on Macron as France Edges Toward Political Breakdown
Musk calls for new UK government at huge pro-democracy rally in London, but Britons have been brainwashed to obey instead of fighting for their human rights
Elon Musk responds to post calling for the murder of Erika Kirk, widow of Charlie Kirk: 'Either we fight back or they will kill us'
Czech Republic signs €1.34 billion contract for Leopard 2A8 main battle tanks with delivery from 2028
USA: Office Depot Employees Refused to Print Poster in Memory of Charlie Kirk – and Were Fired
Proposed U.S. Bill Would Allow Civil Suits Against Judges Who Release Repeat Violent Offenders
Penske Media Sues Google Over “AI Overviews,” Claiming It Uses Journalism Without Consent and Destroys Traffic
Indian Student Engineers Propose “Project REBIRTH” to Protect Aircraft from Crashes Using AI, Airbags and Smart Materials
French Debt Downgrade Piles Pressure on Macron’s New Prime Minister
US and UK Near Tech, Nuclear and Whisky Deals Ahead of Trump Trip
One in Three Europeans Now Uses TikTok, According to the Chinese Tech Giant
Could AI Nursing Robots Help Healthcare Staffing Shortages?
NATO Deploys ‘Eastern Sentry’ After Russian Drones Violate Polish Airspace
Anesthesiologist Left Operation Mid-Surgery to Have Sex with Nurse
Tens of Thousands of Young Chinese Get Up Every Morning and Go to Work Where They Do Nothing
×