Labour police pledge: Keir Starmer and Yvette Cooper's promise needs to come true quickly

But their answers often circled round to the proposed recruitment - 13,000 new police officers, spread across the country, during the term of this parliament. Dame Diana admitted that there wasn’t a timeframe at the moment, and that allocations between each force were still being looked at - and as she said, the government had only been in power for just over a 100 days so work was still ongoing.

But both Ms Cooper and Dame Diana insisted that the 13,000 were front-line officers - a mix of PCs, PCSOs and specials.

Today, prime minister Keir Starmer has reiterated the pledge in his speech at Pinewood Studios, which has widely been seen as either the starting gun on domestic reform or an emergency reset, depending on how sympathetic one is to the government. Ms Cooper told NationalWorld that the aim was to start with community policing in town centres - Sir Keir has gone slightly further and put “a named, contactable officer in every community” as the goal.

On the face of it, this is exactly what the Silent Crime campaign demanded. Across the NationalWorld stable of titles, from Scotland and the north east and north west, to the south coast, we reported a litany of woes of good, honest, residents and businesspeople feeling under siege from seemingly untouchable yobs and thieves, acting with impunity because there - apparently - just aren’t enough police to cope. Shoplifting from cafes, stores and even charity shops. Persistent window smashing and other criminal damage. Blatant daylight drug-dealing. Yes, these crimes aren’t murders - but yes, they can affect people’s lives, and make everyday existence a stressful torture. While we always acknowledge and are grateful for the fact that overall, crime is dropping, it’s the so-called “low-level” offences that are the concern.

Today’s announcement reminds me of starting as a cub reporter in Rushden, Northamptonshire. In the early noughties, as I tried to build a contacts book after moving to a new area, I got to know four community beat officers, whose job it was to look after Rushden and neighbouring town Higham Ferrers. After some nagging, they even created a homemade “Think press” poster for their staff room, and we’d talk each week about what they had encountered - with these turning into stories about what they wanted to flag up to the community. Often it was an increase in, say, car crime, or that kids had been spotted on the roof of one of the derelict shoe factories in the town. Basic, boots on the ground, friendly policing. They were clearly chosen for the roles because they were good with people - the guy assigned to Rushden High Street knew all the traders and they all knew him (it helped that he was about 6ft 4in tall and built like a rugby player). But that basic police presence is what’s needed - yes, you won’t catch criminals while out on patrol but you might gain so information - and crucially you make people feel that the police are there.

As ever with announcements such as today’s, the devil will be in the details and also what actually turns up. The Tories are already suggesting that the number of “full officers” is closer to 3,000 and that there isn’t enough money allocated - but then they would do that.

We will be watching, and listening, and counting as officers are brought on board. We hope the voices of our Silent Crime victims continue to echo in the corridors and meeting rooms of the Home Office. And we hope this only adds speed to the recruitment drive.