Thank God Ken Livingstone is no longer Mayor of London.

Some will lament his passing, but not me.

While I applaud some of his more progressive policies, I cannot help think that there is only one issue on which he lost the election - crime.

It is, to use an over-used phrase, the elephant in the room for our politicians.

Most of them - such as Ken Livingstone - have promoted themselves to the guardians of the planet and become obsessed with green policies which are based on largely unfounded scientific evidence, hearsay or inaccurate projections.

They took their eye off the ball by not getting to grips with crime. They used widely disputed and massaged crime figures to justify their inaction, while kids stabbed each other to death.

Our politicians ignored the fact that lots of people have lost faith in the police, so no longer contact them if they are a victim or witness to a crime.

They turned the other way when confronted with the facts and refused to get to grips with a difficult situation.

Our politicians also refused to criticise the police publicly for fear of damaging the "partnership" approaches they champion.

That approach does little for the cold, hard bodies lying on the mortuary slab.

I hope Boris keeps his promise to meet crime head on. If he does not, we are all in trouble.

TONY SMITH, via email