Alan Johnson: The half-baked libertarians of the coalition must not ruin our legacy in reducing crime

It's like walking into a mirror. When Home Affairs is debated in Parliament, I am placed directly opposite where I used to sit. The despatch box looks (and is) identical but the Chair is now on my right instead of my left.

Like discovering the dark side of the moon, I have now found Speaker Bercow's other profile.

As a metaphor for taking a fresh perspective, it couldn't be more appropriate. The effect of going from the Cabinet to the Shadow Cabinet and vice-versa is profound.

My side all look healthier and more relaxed, the Treasury Bench look increasingly grey and wan except for the glint of satisfaction that comes from winning an election (after a fashion) and actually being in power.

As Tony Blair once said, in opposition you wake up every morning and think "what am I going to say today". In government you think "what am I going to do today".

I wish Theresa May and her team well in the Home Office. It was one of the first two great Departments of State (with the Foreign Office in

1782) and those who work for it in the police service, counter

terrorism and border control are among the bravest and most

dedicated public servants in the world. We left the Department in good shape but, like any government in power for so long, there were things we did wrong, issues that I wish had been addressed more quickly and problems that we should have tried harder

to resolve.

For instance, it took too long to get to grips with the backlog on immigration/asylum cases that stretched back to when Willie Whitelaw was Home Secretary in 1982; we coasted on anti-social behaviour for a couple of years when we needed to maintain the momentum of the first two terms and I regret not doing more to tackle the problems caused by binge-drinking during my period

in office.

The Government is right to stop alcohol being sold below cost price. It's something that we should have done.

We did however boost resources, with police numbers at record levels and 16,000 police community support officers making an additional contribution in Neighbourhood Police Teams across the country.

Thanks to the terrific work of the police and the other agencies, we were the first government in living memory to preside over a fall in crime, which had been rising inexorably since the end of the First World War. The Conservatives accept that crime is going down overall but have struggled to admit that violent crime has reduced.

But the independently collated British Crime Survey (which the UK Statistics Authority regard as the best measure of crime trends) shows violent crime down by 41 per

cent since 1997. Recorded violent crime is down by 13 per cent since 2002 when the National Crime Recording Standard was adopted in

all forces.

And just for good measure, the University of Cardiff collates information from across the NHS and shows 64,000 fewer violence-related attendances (a 15 per cent reduction) since the survey began in 2001. Murder is at its lowest level in 20 years and in London lower than at any time since 1978.

The new team at the Home Office must come to terms with this inconvenient truth and ensure that they don't destroy this legacy by their ideological quest to remove CCTV camera, restrict the police's ability to use the DNA database to catch dangerous criminals and politicise police forces by introducing elected commissioners to sit alongside the Chief Constable.

The Conservatives became

confused about these issues in opposition. Now they need to appreciate that CCTV helps to prevent crime and catch criminals. The

public don't want fewer cameras, they want more.

The DNA database has identified 410,589 crimes with a DNA match over the last decade.

Last year in 800 of the most serious cases – murder, rape and manslaughter – DNA was central to police inquiries.

The Government plans to reduce the DNA matches that the police can make in such cases because they think that Scotland has a better model. But the police in Scotland, where they have a 13 per cent lower success rate, want to move to the current system in England and Wales.

The Conservatives have got themselves in the terrible position

of supporting criminals in their efforts to evade capture and opposing the police.

With a 25 per cent cut to the Home Office budget announced on Tuesday, the police face reducing numbers as well as diminished

powers and structural upheaval as elected commissioners are forced upon them.

I don't understand why the present Government thinks that the budget for International Development must be ring-fenced while funding for the police must not.

The political focus is on the economy. It will shift to crime and policing before long. The Home Secretary's primary duty is to keep the public safe. She can do that or pursue the half-baked libertarian agenda cooked up with the Lib Dems. She can't do both.