Cameron praises Wolves initiative

David Cameron today paid tribute to Wolverhampton Wanderers for the way the club is working with young people in the community.

The Conservative leader was speaking as he travelled to the West Midlands to visit the Express & Star's headquarters in Wolverhampton before moving on to the Wolves community project in Dudley. "I'm going to see the programme that the Wolves are running to get young people involved," he said.

"It's a classic example of the sort of social responsibility I want to see," he said.

"Here we have an organisation saying 'We want to play our part in giving kids something to do, getting them off the streets and trying to improve their lives'," he added.

"It's a really good idea, and I am looking forward to hearing about it from the young people involved." Mr Cameron was also optimistic that the Conservatives would make the breakthrough at the next general election in areas such as the Black Country, where candidates have to win seats like Stourbridge and Wolverhampton South West if they are to have a chance of forming the next government.

"We have a really strong message on issues like crime, getting police back on the streets, a moratorium on accident and emergency and maternity unit closures, and opening up education to more providers. We have some excellent candidates who are working very hard, so I'm very confident," he said. "We have unity and momentum, and we know what we have to do." Mr Cameron said the Tories would help to boost the West Midlands economy by completely opening up the supply of education to allow more organisations to run schools in the public sector.

During a speech to West Midlands Conservative councillors, the Tory leader proposed to give ward councillors the cash needed to spend on local community projects. "That would be real democracy, real accountability, and we think councils are better placed than Whitehall to decide what is best for individual areas," he said.

"Ward councillors know what their streets need, they know what individual residents want, and they'll know how to get things done."

Mr Cameron said a Tory government would also make sure that local people were given greater information about their areas including "crime maps" to show precisely where criminality and anti-social behaviour was occurring.