Reform’s Dame Andrea Jenkyns has demanded a return to “common sense policing”.
The Mayor for Greater Lincolnshire made the comments in the wake of the vicious attack last night which took place aboard a train travelling from Doncaster to King’s Cross.
Speaking on GB News’ Camilla Tominey Show, Dame Andrea demanded “complete transparency” with subsequent police proceedings.
“The public deserve to know about what’s truly happened, as quick as possible,” she said.
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“They must make sure measures are in place to protect the British public, because no doubt there’s a lot of frightened people out there,” the Reform Mayor for Greater Lincolnshire told presenter Andrew Pierce.
“The key issue is, though, that Lincolnshire has been severely underfunded for consecutive Governments,” Dame Andrea pointed out.
In the summer, “tens of thousands” of tourists descend on seaside communities up and down the coast without the adequate resources to account for any rise in crime, she added.
She explained that she wanted to get “her hands on” the Police and Crime Commissioners powers to “get back to common sense policing”.
“But I think the policing we saw clearly in Cambridge, we’d like to see that kind of straight-there, tackling the issues right across the country, wouldn’t we?” she said.
On Sunday morning, superintendent John Loveless delivered an update outside the station where the train halted as the stabbing was carried out.
He revealed that two British nationals were arrested eight minutes after the 999 call was made.
Responding to Dame Andrea, the GB News host pointed out: “The fact is where the Cambridge Police HQ was very, very close to that station. So there were a lot of armed police officers who could be there very quickly.”
“It’s interesting that you’re the elected Mayor of Greater Lincolnshire and I imagine your mandate is much larger than the Police and Crime Commissioner, who most people won’t have heard of,” Andrew commented.
The Tory Police and Crime Commissioner for Lincolnshire Marc Jones was elected for his third term with almost 40,000 votes in May 2024.
It marked a 22 point swing away from the Conservatives for the policing role.
Meanwhile, Dame Andrea was catapulted into her position with 104,000 votes (42 per cent) earlier this year as Reform UK snapped up two regional mayoralties during the Local Elections.
“I’ve got a lot on my plate to get my teeth into which I am doing,” the former Tory said, adding that Mr Jones had a “good” mandate.
The knife attack aboard a London-bound train has spurred on a national debate about policing
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She further hit out at the number of visible police officers, telling Andrew: “People don’t feel safe. They tell me that.”
In addition to “serious underfunding”, her area is afflicted with rural crime as well as petty crime along high streets.
“So I think we need to go to a bit like Rudy Giuliani did, isn’t it, in the US when he was mayor, where it’s a zero tolerance approach where no crime is too small to go unpunished.
The former minister warned: “There’s always got to be that place of consequence, because if not people have progressed to more serious crimes.”