THE TELEGRAPH: Britain faces widespread civil unrest, strikes and more crime as a result of cuts in public spending, one of the country's leading police officers will warn.
Derek Barnett, the president of the Police Superintendents' Association, will say that the harshest austerity drive since the Second World War is likely to lead to a period of rising "disaffection, social and industrial tensions".
In a speech to his association's conference, he will suggest that history shows that widespread disorder is "inevitable" at some point. Chief Supt Barnett will also warn that crime will rise if front-line policing is cut too severely.
Fears of widespread civil disobedience are being voiced as unions threaten co-ordinated strikes and a "campaign of resistance not seen for decades" against spending cuts.
Delegates at the Trades Union Congress yesterday voted almost unanimously in favour of a motion that called for a co-ordinated campaign against the cuts.
One union leader branded the Government the "demolition Coalition" and said it had declared war on working people.
Brendan Barber, the usually moderate general secretary of TUC, said the cuts would make Britain "a darker, brutish, more frightening place".
Mr Barnett will say that it is "disingenuous" to suggest that any warnings of rising crime under the cuts is scaremongering. Theresa May, the Home Secretary, will be at the superintendents' conference to hear him say that there was "surprise and disappointment" that the police service was not offered protection from cuts like some other public services, such as the NHS.
"In an environment of cuts across the wider public sector, we face a period where disaffection, social and industrial tensions may well rise," Mr Barnett, of Cheshire Police, will say. "We will require a strong, confident, properly trained and equipped police service, one in which morale is high and one that believes it is valued by the government and public." Cuts will bring civil unrest, says police leader >>> Tom Whitehead, Home Affairs Editor | Tuesday, September 14, 2010
