VIDEO: ‘We need a mayor who cares.’

Keith Prince is on a mission to help tackle knife crime in Havering and Redbridge.

The GLA Conservative representative for Havering and Redbridge has been spending his time working with counseling agencies and the police to see first hand the impact knife crime has and looking at the reasons why the capital is overwhelmed with continuous stabbings, to the point of it being almost a daily occurrence.

The Havering Daily spoke with Mr Prince in regards to crime across the capital and in particular Havering.

We asked him if he felt the current Mayor Sadiq Khan was doing enough to tackle knife crime.

“No he definitely is not. When he first started his policy was to reduce stop and search and we all knew it would be disastrous and we can now clearly see that it was.

“He has placed all his friends in high positions like Deputy Mayor and yet he has not tackled knife crime.

“We need to tackle knife crime by increasing police pressure and stop and search. We also need to educate the people, give them the opportunity of good jobs and a good education.

“It is vital to work with partner agencies to help tackle knife crime. This is something we told the Deputy Mayor recently and they failed to hear us. With the current Mayor Sadiq, everything is somebody else’s fault. The delay in Crossrail was not his fault, everything is not his fault.

“We need a mayor who is prepared to accept responsibility.

“He pledged he would not reduce police numbers and within the first few weeks he broke his promise. He makes outrageous promises.

“The Conservatives have shown that if you cut waste here, such as all his public relations staff you can fund extra police officers. We put forward an amended budget where we identified an £80 million savings that could fund these extra officers.”

The Havering GLA representative is angry at the way the current mayor is running City Hall.

“When Boris was mayor there were 850 people in City Hall, now the current Mayor has 1150 people. He’s empire-building.“

Keith has been working with ‘You and Me Counselling’ in Hornchurch hosting presentations across schools.

“I have been working with the counseling team and have had regular meetings with the Borough Commander and go out with the police on action days.

“I have been out with Upminster Police Sargent Bargus on action days with Transport Police and Revenue officers seeing things for myself. It’s about proactive working in the borough. You can’t police your way out of this, it needs to be a two-pronged attack.

“We need a Mayor of London who cares. This Mayor doesn’t care about Londoners. Shaun Bailey cares and he know’s first hand what the challenges are.”