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Blair pledges to halve asylum levels Tony Blair's pledge to halve the number of asylum seekers arriving in Britain by September has been dismissed as "pie in the sky" by a leading expert. Mr Blair's prediction suggests that he believes recent moves such as placing British Customs officers at Calais will have a significant effect. Mr Blair said: "I would like to see us reduce it by 30% to 40% in the next few months and I think by September of this year we should have it halved. I think we can get below that then, in the years to...

This is how to halve the crime rate: so why aren't we doing it? (Filed: 15/09/2002) The American approach to law enforcement has long been ridiculed as barbaric, pointless and expensive. But, as Alasdair Palmer and Charles Laurence in New York report, putting people behind bars works On April 24, when concern over street robberies was at its height, Tony Blair told the House of Commons that "we will bring street crime under control by the end of September". It is now the middle of September, and figures released last week by the Home Office indicated that street crime has...