FOLLOWING the attack on Home Secretary Jack Straw by my colleague, Coun John Williams (Letters, September 14), at the following council meeting, Coun Dorothy Walsh predictably blamed the increase in juvenile crime and drug abuse on the previous Conservative government.

Coun Walsh says that the problems of the previous 18 years cannot be rectified within 17 months, but we are getting there. Well, according to the latest edition of the Police Service Personnel Bulletin, there are now 1,100 fewer officers than when Labour took over in 1997, with the biggest fall in the past 12 months.

Perhaps Coun Walsh has forgotten Mr Straw's pledge in the 1997 Labour manifesto to put more officers back on the beat.

We are informed that Lancashire Constabulary has to cope with £15 million-worth of cuts thrust upon it. Indeed, Chief Constable Pauline Clare expressed personal disappointment at the level of government funding last year. Does Coun Walsh support these cuts which Mr Straw has imposed? Are they part of the progress she talks about?

Clearly, in spite of talking tough on law and order, the Home Secretary has failed to provide the resources so that the police forces can do their job properly. Therefore, Coun Williams was fully justified in attacking the poor record of the Labour government on crime since coming in to office more than two years ago.

COUN D PEARSON, Rawstorne Street, Blackburn.

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