David Cameron closing speech of Conservative Party Conference 2007

David Cameron closing speech of Conservative Party Conference 2007; - But undoubtedly the biggest threat that people face in this country is the crime on their streets / Our Prime Minister has said that our society isn't broken but when you think of 20 children shot dead on the streets of London / When you think of gun crime doubled, violent crime doubled, a boy on a bike shooting Rhys Jones / I wonder what society the Prime Minister is living in / But let us resolve right here, that we will not pursue the old politics / No more Downing Street summits / Get together a packet of measures for the 6 o'clock News, brief them out and then while everyone has reported them they never actually happen and everyone moves onto the next thing / That is not what this Party is going to do - Yes we will make changes to the criminal justice system where necessary / How can it possibly be right that magistrates can only send someone to prison for a few weeks rather than a year / Yes we need to scrap that early release scheme in prisons / 24,000 released on our streets that David Davis spoke about yesterday / Yes we will take those steps / But as important, probably more important, is actually to reform the police / I went out on the beat the other day with a police office in mid Wales / Really dedicated public servant who wanted to do the best for his community and he told me a story / He said a mother had come to him and said her son was nicking money out of her wallet / And he said do you know how I had to handle it / I had to explain that I couldn't just give him a talking to because of all the targets, and the bureaucracy, and the paperwork / I have to take him down to the station, I have to go through all the paperwork / I've got to caution him, and then I can turn round and say I have detected a crime, I've cleared up a crime and I have solved a crime / Well what a ridiculous way to treat the police force - So we will reform the police / We will cut out that paperwork / W...