Ken Livingstone is a party animal. Not a Labour party animal – but a realparty animal. From his own bash at the Tate Modern to the Mansion Housedinner – Ken’s on the ‘A’ list now. Perhaps that’s why he wants all Londonto party every New Year’s Eve.

I don’t want to be a party-pooper, but Ken’s party will cost £3 millionevery year just to police. This – as I pointed out at a recent meeting ofthe new Metropolitan Police Authority – is the equivalent of 100 policeofficers. Now you simply cannot stand on a manifesto, as Ken did, whichpromises to put 2,000 police back onto London’s streets and in practicallyyour first act as Mayor knock a hundred off. I’ve suggested that if theMayor wishes to pursue his promise he look elsewhere to find the £3 millionto pay the police for their services that night.

The reality of how few police we have left is stark. At night, about 20officers police Haringey. It only takes one significant incident in one partof the borough and the rest of the borough is left unattended. Crime figuresare rising and response times are lengthening.

The policing structure in Haringey has been changing: front countersclosing, local stations closing and/or opening fewer hours and fast responsevehicles being centralised. The police line has been that this new regimewill produce more efficient and better policing. When the changes started Ilobbied senior local police officers, worried that these changes would meanrising crime in areas where reductions were being made and that responsetimes would lengthen. Sadly this is just what has happened.

A friend was concerned that if I wrote my column and stated how stark thingsare it would frighten people. I don’t want people to panic, but when thepolice commissioner himself, Sir John Stevens, states publicly that hecannot guarantee to police London safely at the current level of policeofficers, I think the government needs to take note and we citizens, inwhatever capacity, need to apply pressure. We deserve to be safe and we havea right to proper policing.

By the time this article is published, we will have heard from theGovernment as to how much the police will get in the Comprehensive SpendingReview. And I hope it is a lot – because Labour have been appalling on theirmanifesto pledge to ‘put more police on the beat, not pushing paper.’Instead, we have seen the loss of 2500 officers and thousands of civilianstaff since they came to office.

But I have no doubt it will be too little, too late. So much damage has beensustained that rebuilding our police force, recruiting and retaining themand ensuring a representative police force, will take years. And theConservatives deserve a knocking on this one too. They like to knock Labourfor cutting police numbers, but seem to hope that everyone will forget thatthey did just the same when in power!

So in order to help Ken avoid cutting police numbers – let alone our poorpolice force having to work every New Year’s Eve in perpetuity – I suggestthat Ken has his bash once every four years. And perhaps it should be theNew Year’s Eve of the last year of the Mayor’s term of office so that he cancelebrate his term’s success – or if his performance has been foundwanting – at least go out with a bang.