Mayor Ken has been out and about in Camden today alongside ex-New York Police Commissioner and poster boy for 'zero tolerance' Bill Bratton.
As the Beeb reports the couple "toured the St Pancras and Somers Town area," and Bill was shown how the Safer Neighbourhoods' scheme operates.
Bill also shared a bit of his policing wisdom with us, opting for the relatively uncontroversial "police should have good relationships with the local communities" line as opposed to, say, the "NO DANCING! NO DRINKING! NO FUN!" angle.
Ken also took the opportunity to share a bit of his wisdom by announcing that by March next year every neighbourhood in London will have its own dedicated police team (look for the thrilling new drama series 'Police Team' on ITV3 in the Summer of 2007).
The Police Teams were already pencilled in for mid-2008 but Ken has managed to speed the process up a little.... by cutting back on the number of police.
Originally the policing units were going to consist of six police officers, but under the new plan they'll only be four strong. That's a third less police power maths fans.
The other downer is that these law and order types don't come cheap:
Mr Livingstone said the plan, which is subject to final ratification by the Police Authority, would lead to a 5.5% rise in the mayor's precept on council tax bills in London.
This was in addition to an 8% increase to pay for the 2012 Olympic Games
Ian Blair said something about the whole thing as well, but we couldn't make it out thanks to the impenetrable wall of bullshit he was stood behind at the time
