Crime focus for election launches

All parties are expected to focus on nuisance behaviour and crime

Labour and the Lib Dems will launch their English local election campaigns later by looking at neighbourhood crime and anti-social behaviour.

The two parties will focus on tackling crime, in preparation for the elections across 312 local authorities on 3 May.

Meanwhile the Tories will call for more local control of policing.

The elections in England, which coincide with polls in Scotland and Wales, will be Tony Blair's last as prime minister.

He will stand down later this year, but a clear timetable has not yet been set out.

Mr Blair and his expected successor, Chancellor Gordon Brown, will launch their campaign in Nottingham later.

'Beat meetings'

Mr Blair is expected to say Labour-led councils offer the best value-for-money, and to highlight powers given to councillors to tackle issues like graffiti and noise pollution.

Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell is expected to focus on the success Lib Dem councils have already had in cutting crime locally, as the party launches its local elections manifesto.

Sir Menzies is to visit Woking, in Surrey, later to meet a youth theatre group which works with disadvantaged young adults.

The Conservatives are not planning a big launch event on Tuesday, but are due to make an announcement on police reform.

They are publishing a consultation paper which will suggest that the 43 police forces in England and Wales must either co-operate more fully with one another, or that a national Serious Crime Force should be introduced, leaving existing forces to concentrate on local crime.

The Conservatives will call for people to have the right to discuss crime with police officers at regular US-style "beat meetings".

They also want police structure to be overhauled and stronger local accountability, with directly-elected police commissioners.

Nick Herbert, the Conservatives' police reform spokesman, said: "People don't feel they're getting value for money... people want to see officers on the streets and at the moment they're spending more time doing paperwork than on the streets and that's unacceptable."