AMID a spate of appalling attacks on old people in East Lancashire, there is bound to be a welcome for the crackdown on crime and disorder pledged today by Blackburn's MP, Home Secretary Jack Straw, as the Queen's Speech showed the government giving top priority to beating the yob culture in Britain.

Among the measures proposed are all-night curfews that will sweep youngsters as young as 10 from the streets in trouble-plagued spots and a ban on alcohol and drinking in town-centre streets.

Both are, quite rightly, targeted at modern-day menaces that are far too manifest. Hyndburn MP Greg Pope's recent remarks about parts of his constituency being turned a "war zone" by young thugs and the drive among licensees and club owners in Burnley to curb drink-fuelled night-time disorder are just two instances of how yobbish behaviour curses our own community.

Mr Straw is evidently borrowing from tried-and-tested schemes which have shown these crackdowns can work.

A pilot project targeting children under 16 in Scotland, involving police escorting youngsters home or to a police station's "safe room" if they are found still out after 7.30pm, is credited with cutting crime by a third on three housing estates where it has been tested.

And trials in Manchester of a scheme to curb the use of alcohol in city-centre streets have also cut down on trouble.

But if the nationwide extension of these measures is among the five new anti-crime laws which are at the heart of today's Queen's Speech in Parliament, Mr Straw must ensure that they are backed up by the police having sufficient resources to make them work.

Encouragingly, he tells us that today's proposals include putting more bobbies on the beat. Lots more are needed and unless there are bobbies on regular and high-profile patrols to supervise the curfews and anti-alcohol restrictions, the curse of the yobs will continue. In short, action must follow today's words.