Cameron bid to fight 'crime crisis'

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The Tory leader insisted it was time to draw a line in the sand after a series of high profile murders - most recently the shooting of 11-year-old Rhys Jones in Merseyside.

Fundamental social change was needed to fight back against "gangs, guns and graffiti", he said.

"These murders must serve as a line in the sand - the point at which British politics and society declare that enough is enough. It is simply unacceptable - a moral reproach to our country - that someone should have the opportunity and the inclination to kill an 11-year-old child with a handgun."

Under a Conservative government, the obligation on police to keep a written record every time they stop someone in the street would be scrapped - although it would be kept for when individuals are searched.

Companies which make film, music videos and computer games could be subject to tighter controls to stop them influencing young people for the worse.

The 24-hour licensing law introduced by Labour could also be axed as part of a drive against binge drinking.

Mr Cameron said: "I am calling on the country to fight back. We must fight back against the gangs, the guns and the graffiti. We must fight back against the drugs, the danger and the disorder.

"Above all, we must fight back against the attitude that treats rising crime as inevitable, that treats social breakdown as an irreversible fact of modern life, that despairs of ever making our streets safe and civilised places to be."

Mr Cameron said Prime Minister Gordon Brown had failed to follow through on Labour's famous sound bite: "Tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime."