Police row erupts

Cllr O'Brien attacks Kent Police for Tory driven cuts.

A major war of words is brewing tonight between the Kent Police and the Chair of the Medway Safety Partnership, Councillor Mike O'Brien after he released a press statement claiming the Police are proposing to cut the number of PCSOs by half.

If true, and there is no public information to support (on the face of it) an unprecendented leak by the Chair of the MSP, it has been challenged robustly by those tasked with safeguarding our streets - the Kent Police - who have tonight rubuffed the allegations as false:

In a tweet riposte to Cllr Mike O'Brien the Police made clear that no decisions had been made on PCSO numbers.

Medway Conservatives have a long and discredited history of playing politics with the Police which actually has positioned Medway in a difficut spot. In 2010, the River Ward by-election campaign was mired when Tories brazenly accused Ian Learmonth of triggering the by-election whilst it was actually poor research on selection by the Conservative selection panel.

Medway Conservatives are also in dispute with the Kent Police Federation and the Kent Police Authority and their own colleagues in Kent Conservatives in KCC. All are opposing the blatant politicisation of the elected Police commissioner proposals which were dreamt up by wonkers in CCHQ.

It seems that not only are these facts disputed but the Councillor has failed to be honest about why the Police are reducing front-line officers in the first place. As the Kent Police Federation stated in a supporting tweet we are 'still going to loose 500 cops & 1000 staff'

His Tory government, supported by our ineffective MPs, are directly responsible for cuts to crime fighters across our towns. Criminal cuts to Police budgets which Labour has consistently warned would send the wrong message to criminals from Rainham to Cuxton to the Peninsula villages and must be opposed.