They do not cover much of the crime people experience in their homes or on the streets, much of which goes unreported. Vehicle crime, on official definitions, is down; so is burglary. Yet most people are unlikely to say they feel safer than they did three years ago. Worse, in 1995 there were more homicides and a worrying pick-up in crime on the railways Muggings rose but sexual offences fell. The police are most effective when they act as a catalyst for the public doing more for themselves to police society. Making society safer for law-abiding citizens requires a joint effort by the public and the police, local authorities and companies, the courts and social services. Judges, constrained by a tougher sentencing regime laid down by Mr Howard, send more offenders to prison, where they learn the error of their ways Crime falls: simple as that.
The trouble is, it isn’t.

Detecting and deterring crime is much more complicated than this Home Secretary seems able to admit. Mr Howard seeks to persuade us that crime is governed by straightforward causal relationships. More police on the beat make more arrests and clear up more crimes. Yesterday, he had some moderately good news to impart: the third annual fall in recorded crime. Yet even as he delivered the news you could see his credibility draining away. Everyone’s natural reaction was to ask: where’s the catch? That must be the appropriate response since these new figures, welcome as they are, present such a mixed picture that they give no endorsement to Mr Howard’s dogmatic penal disciplinarianism.

Michael Howard, the Home Secretary, is his own worst enemy. On the casting vote of Tony Benn as chairman by 15 votes to 14 Hayward was chosen.Those colleagues who remain in the Labour Party, especially those who rowed the most with him, will remember Ron and Phyllis Hayward as wonderful comrades sincerely committed to the ideals that they espoused and continued to espouse throughout their immensely worthwhile lives.Ronald George Hayward, politician: born near Chipping Sodbury, Oxfordshire 27 June 1917; Secretary-Agent, Labour Party, Banbury Constituency 1945- 47, Rochester and Chatham Constituency 1947-50; Assistant Regional Organiser, Labour Party 1950-59, Regional Organiser, Southern Region 1959-69, National Agent 1969-72, General Secretary 1972-82; CBE 1970; married 1943 Phyllis Allen (three daughters); died Birchington, Kent 22 March 1996.. He started a new phase in Transport House as a man who had come from the regions and was prepared to reorganise the centre in order to have closer contact with the regions. Before Hayward, it had been a question of the hierarchs of the party taking the attitude, `If I say, you do do it!’ Hayward started the process of doing away with tight central control.”When it became necessary to appoint a successor to Sir Harry Nicholas as General Secretary of the party the choice was between Gwyn Morgan, for 10 years the energetic and bright International Secretary of the party, and Hayward.