‘A force so depleted and demoralised that they hold no fear for the bad guys’

• WHEN our ex-prime minister took his leave outside Downing Street, he managed to deliver a parting blow to public trust in politics by boasting about how he had brought down crime during his lively tenure.

I doubt whether there is a single reader of your newspaper who would see this as true. And destroying trust in our democratic politics gives succour to those who would scrap it altogether to make way for charlatans and dictators.

And your story (Police close case on catching car thieves, September 8) tells of a force so depleted and demoralised that they hold no fear for the bad guys they should be locking up.

W WILLIAMS, NW3