Ken Livingstone Takes Boris Johnson To Task Over Police Force Cuts

Ken Livingstone takes Boris Johnson to task over police force cuts in new campaign

 

Ad inspired by classic 1960s ‘Watch Out! There’s a Thief About’ posters

 

One of the best-known ads of the 20th century has inspired a new campaign highlighting how the London Metropolitan Police Force has been cut under Mayor Boris Johnson.

 

The new campaign, created by BETC London on behalf of Ken Livingstone’s mayoral campaign, features the strapline: ‘Watch out, there’s less police about’. It came about after Boris Johnson admitted in an interview with Nick Ferrari on LBC that he had cut the number of police officers by over 1,700 since March 2010.

 

Since then, statistics published by the Labour Party show that robbery is up by 13%, knife crime is also up by 13% and burglary has risen by 8.8%. The ad features these figures, as well as encouraging people to text ‘Copper’ to the BORISSTOPPERS hotline, 66007.

 

The ad will run in the London Evening Standard and other London regional press.

 

Ken Livingstone, who is the Labour mayoral candidate, has pledged to reverse these cuts in a bid to make London’s streets safer.

 

The ad is inspired by the famous ‘Watch out! There’s a thief about’ ads run by the COI in the 1960s, which told people call the police if they saw something suspicious.

 

It is part of an ongoing series of ads planned by BETC London in the run-up to the mayoral election on Thursday 3 May, 2012.

 

Earlier this year, the agency created an ad highlighting how under Boris Johnson, Tube and bus fares have risen dramatically. The ad ran in the London Evening Standard.