Spent whole morning and lunchtime at a conference about the future of the Police Consultative Group (PCG) in Haringey. The Met Police Authority are cutting the funding – which is terrible. Haringey’s PCG is active, useful and works really well with the local Commander and all the groupings.

There is a very dedicated group of activists involved – and it isn’t really fair that they will have funding cut to equalise funding to all PCGs across London. I remember well from my time on the PCG that there were some that local MPA link members said were obsolete, non-functioning and needed to be ended – and then others that are active and quite vibrant like Haringey.

Anyway we all say at tables and had sessions addressing a number of issues around how local people could hold the authorities, politicians and police accountable; about the different levels of engagement; about young people and so on. Reasonably useful – but not sure about whether we reached conclusions.

Even more usefully, I met a couple of guys who work with young people. And one was lobbying me basically to stop politicians paying so much attention to the kids who go off the rails but to pay more to those who are positive role models but who might just need a bit of help or funding to get on – into uni – or whatever. And to spend money on a centre for the kids who are good but just need somewhere to go – not just pay attention and money to the negative.

And actually, that evening I am involved in a crime think tank (or anti-crime more accurately), so I bring it up and get it in to the consultative papers that Lib Dems will debate and take forward.