Blair: Go straight or leave UK

Tony Blair gets tough on drug dealers

Sunday, 23, Apr 2006 12:00

The prime minister has said that criminals will be made to go straight or will have to leave Britain, as traditional policing methods have failed.

Tony Blair accused the opposing political parties and some of his own MPs of being out of touch with general public opinion.

In emails published in the Observer, Mr Blair said he wanted to "harry, hassle and hound" organised criminals.

He set out a range of proposals to beat crime, including new powers for police to seize money from suspected drug dealers.

"I would generally harry, hassle and hound them until they give up or leave the country," Mr Blair wrote.

"I would make it a presumption that those who deal in drugs to young children should go to prison; and I would make breach of a drugs treatment order an arrestable offence.

"But at the same time, we should increase massively, as we are doing, the provision and speed of drug treatment to offer abusers a way out."

He said it was vital to use new policing methods as the traditional ways of dealing with crime had failed.

But shadow home secretary David Davis said it was important for Mr Blair to realise who had created the problems of crime in the first place.

"The prime minister, yet again, is putting out a whole series of headline-grabbing initiatives, one or two of which may be sensible," Mr Davis told ITV1's Jonathan Dimbleby.

"But the raw truth is the public will say who is responsible, who's been in charge, whose watch is it in which hard drug-taking has now crossed a million, in which violent crime appears to be out of control?"