IT WAS Nick Ross, late of the BBC Crimewatch beat, who frequently used to sign off by saying: “Don't have nightmares, do sleep well”.

Hardly surprising, perhaps, considering he and his co-presenter had just rattled through a litany of some of the country’s worst crimes, amid police appeals to find those so-far untraced villains who had committed them.

It highlighted, just as Gordon Brown did yesterday, that people’s fear of falling victim to crime is probably as worrying a problem in Britain as the menace of crime itself.

The chance of any one individual falling foul of a criminal act is actually very small. Indeed, the risk is lower than at any point in the past 30 years.

But many don’t believe that . . . they fret about the chances of being mugged, attacked, or worse, almost certainly needlessly.

The Prime Minister has obviously latched on to these fears – as well he might, with only a matter of weeks to go before the general election. He has, for instance, urged Merseyside police to respond faster to non-emergencies, in the cause of easing people’s anxieties.

The Mersey force’s efforts so far have been described as “fair”, with the premier taking the opportunity to urge officers to increase their visibility on the beat, and thus do their bit to reassure their own communities. These are fine – and possibly predictable – words, with a vital poll on the horizon. But do our police face an impossible task in concentrating on two prime tasks – reducing crime, and people’s fears about it, too?

With so many cost cuts looming, no matter who wins the election, it will be a challenge of the highest order for Merseyside, or, indeed, any force, to sustain whatever success they have achieved so far.