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Brooke Kinsella backs Cameron to cut crime |
Brooke Kinsella - whose 16-year-old brother was brutally murdered two years ago - has just come out for Cameron.
In a moving speech in South London, the former Eastenders actress said: "I want to put my faith in a goverment that I believe will try to make our streets safe again.
"I think David Cameron and the Conservatives will do this."
The NOTW is on Cameron's battle-bus all day. There will be more updates here later..
Ms Kinsella said the death of her brother had completely destroyed her family.
Since then she had been going through a journey trying to make sure it did not happen to "someone else's brother, someone else's son".
"This year nine teenagers in this city alone have been murdered, and that is nine families going through the worst grief," she said.
She insisted that education, rehabilitation and discipline were need to tackle the problem.
"We do need discipline because we need to show there is a right and there is a wrong and if you do wrong you can't be allowed to get away with it."
She went on: "It's all very well saying we won't tolerate the carrying of a weapon, you should expect to go to jail. But how often is this being enforced?"
Ms Kinsella said she did not want to "slander" anyone in the Government, and was only "talking from the heart".
"The Government does need to help, and although they care, I do not think they have done enough."
She said she did not want to see another murdered youth's face in the newspapers and not be surprised.
"I just want change, like many people out there," the actress said. "I'm not that knowledgeable about politics and I don't pretend to be."
Ms Kinsella said she wanted to "put my faith" in a government that would make the streets safe again.
"I do think that David Cameron and the Conservatives will do this. Their policies on knife crime seem to be the toughest."
The actress said she was "petrified" about her new role.
Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling said there had been "far too many tragedies, far too many families whose lives have been wrecked" by violent crime and anti-social behaviour.
Setting out plans to involve grass-roots projects in tackling the issue, he said: "Solving the problems needs community as much as it needs justice."
Tory leader David Cameron said he had heard a lot of speeches during the election campaign, but: "I do not think I have heard a more passionate, a more heartfelt, a more courageous, more meaningful speech than what we have just heard from Brooke."
Mr Cameron said Ben Kinsella had become one of a number of victims who were "household names", including Rhys Jones, Gary Newlove and Damilola Taylor.
Pointing to the recent killing of a young man at rush hour in Victoria Tube station, Mr Cameron said: "There's a danger that we as a society can slowly become almost immune to unbelievable events like this.
"Each time the shock is a little bit slighter, a little bit quicker to pass.
"And as our sensitivity gets coarsened, we get a step further away from what it is to be civilised.
"So I think it is time to be honest about what has been happening in our country.
"There has always been violence. There has always been evil.
"But there is something about the frequency of these crimes - the depravity of these crimes, that betrays a deep and fundamental problem in Britain today.
"As I have argued for many years now, these acts of murder and abuse are just the most violent and horrific expressions of what I have called the broken society."