The Government has, yet again, delayed publication of Sir Ronnie Flanagan's report on police bureaucracy, as it scurries to incorporate the latest Conservative proposals. At the risk of another delay, here are a few more.
Violent crime has doubled in 10 years. On Friday, public confidence took a further blow, as Home Office figures highlighted the stark reality of the problem we face. Gun killings are up by 20 per cent on last year, blade killings by 18 per cent, but police numbers are falling for the second successive year.
Labour's attempt to plagiarise and pre-empt our policy announcement on stop and search signals an exhausted Government bereft of ideas. But where does that leave the policy differences between Labour and Conservatives on law enforcement?
Let's not forget where all the police red tape came from in the first place. Ten years of legislative and regulatory hyperactivity has buried police officers in paperwork and tied them to their desks with red tape. It now takes 10 hours to process an arrest. As a result, the public only see a police officer for the 14 per cent of his time actually spent on patrol.
Whilst paperwork distracts from real policing, targets distort priorities. Last year a grandmother was issued with an £80 spot fine for littering, when her granddaughter dropped a couple of crisps. In contrast, in most parts of the capital, police policy is only to respond to burglaries if the burglar is still in the home. Labour's litany of central targets is warping a common-sense judgment on law enforcement priorities.
The Government's regulatory zeal has also driven a health and safety culture, which risks paralysing officers tasked with protecting the public. In Wigan, a 10-year-old boy drowned in a pond, having rescued his younger sister, because officers were told not to intervene on health and safety grounds.
At the other end of the scale, the Metropolitan Police was prosecuted under health and safety law for the shooting of Jean Charles de Menezes. That law was never designed to scrutinise counter-terrorism operations. It proved a poor means of holding the police to account and risks a chilling effect on officers responding to emergencies.
I can only sympathise with those trying to operate in this bureaucratic straitjacket. Officers are leaving the police in droves - resignations have tripled under Labour - many to work for police forces abroad.
The root cause of these problems is a triple failure in the policy and approach of the Government. First, a failure to listen and respond to local concerns about crime. Second, a failure to place greater trust in the professional judgment of officers on the street. Third, an obsessive, centralising approach to policing - micro-managed from Whitehall.
The Flanagan report is the Government's fifth review of police bureaucracy in nine years. In that time, we have had 150 recommendations, but precious little delivery. Ministers claim to have cut 9,000 types of form, but cannot name a single one.
And if the Government was genuinely committed to cutting the paperwork it spent a decade churning out, why has the Home Office post of National Bureaucracy Adviser - set up to slash police red tape - been vacant for a year and a half?
In contrast, the Conservative commitment to deliver on police reform runs deep, and our policies have been developed over years. Last week, we announced a wholesale review of the framework for police stop and search. By scrapping the stop and account form and replacing stop and search forms with an oral recording procedure, we would save over a million police hours per year - freeing up officers to get back on the street.
We would also empower officers to respond to serious situations on the ground, such as a stabbing or shooting, including by giving sergeants a power to stop and search for a limited period (without reasonable suspicion), when a serious crime has been committed or is imminent.
Restrictionson stop and search no longer protect ethnic minorities, as originally intended. Two-thirds of the victims of murders in London since January 2007 were black or Asian. Keith Jarrett, former president of the National Black Police Association, called for greater stop and search to protect young victims.
We are committed to a review of RIPA, the law regulating police surveillance. In too many cases, RIPA forms get in the way of ordinary policing. It should not take 13 hours to fill out the paperwork to authorise officers to watch a known burglar. A Conservative government will amend RIPA to exempt these kinds of cases.
We will take on the health and safety culture that is undermining the heroism that has traditionally defined our police. The law needs to be rebalanced behind the principle that the overriding duty of police officers is to protect the public, even where this places individual officers at risk.
And we would take our reforms even further, in three ways. First, a Conservative government would aim for dramatic reductions in the current 29 central government targets for the police. In their place, we would introduce directly-elected police commissioners, to make police forces directly accountable to their local communities.
The police are currently reviewed by a range of national and local audit bodies - one force was subjected to 12 days of inspection visits. We would consolidate the different bodies and alleviate the burden of excessive auditing, by requiring joint inspections.
Second, we will restore government's trust in the professional police officer. As part of wider reform, a Conservative government will abolish "statutory charging" in straightforward magistrates court cases, restoring discretion to the custody sergeant and eliminating the reams of paperwork that police prepare for the Crown Prosecution Service. This will free up to a million police hours per year, allowing officers to re-focus on fighting crime.
Third, we will allow defendants at police stations to appear before magistrates by video for a range of hearings, cutting the time wasted on travel to and from court and waiting for a case to be heard.
These are some of the policies that drive a Conservative vision of law enforcement. If Labour is truly committed to releasing its stifling grip on the police, it should adopt the Conservative policy of directly-elected local police commissioners. But that would reverse 10 years of centralisation - a U-turn that would make the Sweeney proud.
There is no silver bullet, no single policy to eliminate crime. Law enforcement is only part of the answer. We must also address the causes of crime - including family breakdown, drug abuse and 24-hour drinking. But tackling crime starts with robust law enforcement. We need a sea change in approach. It will take a Conservative government to deliver it in full. But let us hope that the Flanagan report, due out this week, can make a start.