The Conservative Party chairman has admitted the Tories made a “mistake” cutting police numbers during their time in Government.

Kevin Hollinrake weighed in on the number of police officers “on the beat” in the wake of the gruesome attack on passengers aboard a train from Doncaster to London King’s Cross on Saturday evening.

“On the Tory watch, the Government cut police numbers by 20,000,” GB News’s Andrew Pierce commented. “Now I know they were restored, but they’re not experienced officers. That was, in hindsight, a terrible mistake.”

Sitting down with Andrew on the Camilla Tominey Show, the top Tory concurred: “I agree. It was a mistake and I think we thought we could control crime by other means.”

Between 2010 and 2019 under the Conservative-Lib Dem coalition and subsequent Tory Governments, 20,000 officers left the force, either by retiring or resigning.

But Mr Hollinrake further claimed that when the police numbers were cut, crime did not rise.

He said: “I thought, you know, we’re clearly you’re trying to protect public money. That’s what you’re trying to do.

“But it was a mistake. That’s the reality. And as you say, we restore those numbers. They’re actually above the numbers that were prior to those that were prior to those cuts.”

The Conservative Party under Kemi Badenoch has now pledged to increase the numbers by 10,000 more visible police officers.

He added that he believes every single one of the officers should be deployed with a taser, again in agreement with the presenter.

Andrew asked: “It’s up to a chief constable [to decide whether officers have a taser].

“Some forces have them, some don’t. Some officers don’t want to carry them. But police officers run into the danger while we run away from it. Shouldn’t they at least have a taser?”

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The Conservative responded that the decision “sounds eminently sensible”.

He added: “Any police officer could have been facing that that situation yesterday, and to go there just without something like a taser would would be really unthinkable.

“So you need to be able to act in those situations. So that would seem perfectly sensible to me.”

Two British nationals have been arrested and kept in police custody after the brutal knife attack on Saturday night that left 10 hospitalised.

Delivering an update this morning, police have confirmed that two victims are still fighting for their lives after sustaining injuries from the gruesome event.

On Sunday morning in the wake of the attack, Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Mayor Paul Bristow lauded “everyday people doing extraordinary things”.

Speaking to GB News, the Tory mayor further paid tribute to the gentleman who reportedly sheltered a young girl from the Cambridgeshire train stabbings suspect.

Olly Foster, who spoke to the BBC, recalled: “There was a girl who was really, really in a bit of a state because the guy actually tried to stab her.

“One of the older guys was an absolute hero and had blocked it with his head. He had a gash in his head and a gash in his neck.”

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