Jacqui Smith On Walking At Night

Libby Purves, The Times

The Home Secretary was droning peacefully on about how “people are safer in terms of crime than ten years ago” (ignoring, as they always do, the fact that much street crime goes unreported because there's no point, and that the drop in crime figures has more to do with car alarms than policing).

Then the canny reporter asked whether she personally, would feel safe walking alone in Hackney at night? And the minister said “No. Why would I do that? ... I just don't think it's a thing that people do. I wouldn't walk around at midnight. I'm fortunate that I don't have to ... You don't walk in areas you don't know, in any circumstances”; and that her task is to “persuade” people that they are safe.

No. The task is to make them safe. On any street, any time. We do not ask for the right to walk around naked with bags of gold, just to be more confident that men like Garry Newlove will not be kicked to death by lads on bail, that a stabbing will be a nine-day wonder not a routine shrug, and that shift workers, women, partygoers, insomniacs, eccentrics and teenagers themselves should walk in safety.