Abraham Lincoln famously said: "You can fool some of the people all of the time, you can fool all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time?"

But his final point is what New Labour has been trying to do to us for 10 years.

Ex-president Blair said several years ago that Labour would be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime.

Almost every day for the past few weeks, there has been a shooting, stabbing or beating to death of members of the public.

Recently Downing Street said that violent crime was going down. What planet is Downing Street on?

Millions of pounds of taxpayers' money is spent on think tanks and commissions to try to resolve problems, not only about crime but the NHS, education and immigration, but alas, it seems there is a lot of thinking and talking but never any positive action.

There have been gun and blade amnesties but, it seems, to no avail and it's only going to get worse - there is no doubt about that.

The police, bless them, do all they can to resolve these crimes and bring the culprits to justice, but the sentencing is nowhere severe enough to suit the crime.

While we have the Human Rights Act, or should it be 'Inhuman' Rights as far as the innocent are concerned, there will never be any real deterrent to those who want to inflict harm on the majority of us law-abiding citizens.

David Cameron has started to talk the talk which people want to hear, but he has lost a lot of Brownie points in the past because of some stupid things he said.

Let us hope it's not too late and there is some hope, some light at the end of the tunnel, but just remember, Mr Cameron, we have been used to broken promises and want action, not just empty words. Bring back corporal punishment, the cane in schools, the birch for yobbos and maybe the death sentence for extreme cases.

People may find my views a bit barbaric, but when we had these punishments, we never had problems on the scale they are today and those problems really are barbaric.

MICHAEL CLARKE Lewell Avenue Old Marston Oxford