IT is not so much crime that affects the quality of most people's lives in Britain today, but the fear of crime.

Similarly, our view of the effectiveness of our police service is often not based on the realities of our day to day lives, but on the headlines about the police being under strength.

The Metropolitan Police does have a real problem with recruitment and retention of officers, and William Hague has been right to highlight this. However, he has given the impression that all forces are struggling with low numbers and equally low morale.

Figures released yesterday show that in the North-East, three people are chasing every police vacancy and that Durham has an all-time high number of officers.

While it might suit some politicians to fire up the electorate with a fear of a weak and dispirited police force, here in the North-East that is not the case.

Our problems with crime need more sensitive discussions than wham-bam pronouncements that are not backed up by reality. Another of those pronouncements came yesterday when Mr Hague decided more people should be slammed up in prison.

It sounded good and tough, but once inside they are only likely to pick up a more serious drug habit and once they return to the outside they are even more likely to re-offend.

If this is the quality of the debate on law and order, it is little wonder so many people live in fear of crime.

No great debate

ANOTHER day, another example of the chaos surrounding Britain's railways.

Many families across the country have discovered over the Christmas holidays the extent of the poor service offered by the train operating companies. Then, just as they were scouring the timetables and information lines to discover how they might get their loved ones home again, they were told that in the New Year they will have to pay more for this poor service.

No one from the operating companies appeared willing to justify the above inflation increases or their appalling public relations, and so it fell to poor John Prescott on a post-Christmas ramble around what he had hoped would be a good news story: the £165m regeneration of Leeds station.

The public has, generously, not turned on Mr Prescott for the shambles on the lines. They still blame the Conservatives for a privatisation too far, a view that will be enhanced by yesterday's announcement. Passengers will have to pay the rises because, unless they take to the road, they have no alternative. There is no effective competition.

But Mr Prescott's action about the rises shows how impotent the Government still is even after three-and-a-half years in office. He is to ask the Strategic Rail Authority for a full report. How the operating companies must be quaking in their tracks as they prepare for increased takings from January 7.