The leader of rank-and-file police officers accused Jack Straw of irresponsibility last night over his proposed review of the law on self-defence.

Mr Straw, the Justice Secretary, was also accused by the Opposition of a cynical preelection stunt after he proposed to review the law less than two years after a similar review.

But the attack by the Police Federation caused the most surprise, with their warning that any changes must not encourage the public to take the law into their own hands.

Jan Berry, chairman of the federation, expressed surprise at the latest review of self-defence law and said that nothing should be done that encourages vigilantism by the public.

“It is irresponsible for a government, either current or shadow, to use such a potentially dangerous subject to demonstrate a proactive stance on crime – not least the danger of raising public expectation when the reality is not achievable,” she said. “We need commonsense laws that protect the law-abiding public against a minority of offenders but we don’t want this to act as a green light to use excessive force nor to encourage people to take the law into their own hands.”

She said that a review of the self-defence laws was a laudable sentiment but in 2005 Charles Clarke, then the Home Secretary, and his officials had found the legal implications “fell short of a deliverable solution”.

Nick Herbert, the Shadow Justice Secretary, questioned the timing and motive of Mr Straw’s announcement. He said: “Jack Straw, the Government and Labour MPs have fought us for years when we repeatedly urged a change in the law to allow people to protect their homes against burglars, and the last time the Government cynically signalled a change on this they reneged just months later.

“People will rightly question the motive and substance of this latest review and whether the author of Labour’s Human Rights Act really believes in a long overdue rebalancing of the law in favour of the victims.”

Mr Straw said that he had been a “have-a-go hero” on four occasions. “I was presented, just by chance, with being a witness to criminal behaviour and thought I should intervene,” Mr Straw told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme. He said that he knew “from personal experience that you have all of a millisecond to make the judgement about whether to intervene”.

Mr Straw’s career as a “have-a-go hero” began in 1980 in Blackburn when he disturbed and then detained a burglar. It continued with the detention of a mugger at the Oval Underground station. In the early 1990s he chased a man who had attacked a woman at the same station but failed to catch him. In 1996 he chased a man who had robbed a member of the public and detained the suspect until police arrived.

Later, in her first speech as Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith attacked television programmes that “celebrate” drunkenness, in a speech to Labour delegates billed as the start of a new zero-tolerance drive against crime and antisocial behaviour. The Home Secretary told the conference in Bournemouth that she had no time for those who excuse bad behaviour because they were drunk.

She was also sharply critical of those who exploited images of drunken young people. “Why celebrate drunken behaviour on our TV screens?” she demanded. “Alcohol misuse can cause real damage to real people.” Officials said later that she was referring to programmes such as Ibiza Unearthed.Ms Smith emphasised the importance of local involvement in policing and laid out new policies to foster this. The publication of local police statistics would help to determine the priorities of local beat patrols in every neighbourhood from next April, she said.

Ms Smith also accepted one of the recommendations of a recent official review that there should be new “local community safety budgets” shared between police and local councils. The Home Office said that the budgets would cover areas smaller than council wards and that it was working with the Department for Communities and Local Government on how residents can influence how the cash is spent.

Providing further details of Gordon Brown’s announcement of 10,000 hand-held computers, Ms Smith said that it would be paid from a new £50 million capital fund for police technologies. It would also pay for mobile finger-printing devices that would allow officers more time on the front line.

Jack the lad

— Mr Straw’s cuttings file brought three more occurrences of his crime-busting exploits

— Neighbours recall an 11-year-old Straw in the late 1950s berating an ice-cream seller for illegally sounding his chimes after 7pm.

— Mr Straw, described by one neighbour as “a toffee-nosed boy nobody wanted to play with”, said he did not remember the event

— In 1999, as Home Secretary, he accosted a youth who was spitting from a Blackburn railway bridge. “I thought, ‘You can’t just stand and watch this’,” Mr Straw said. “He gave me quite a lot of lip, but after a while he calmed down.”

— Later that day he was forced to admit that he was accompanied by armed protection officers. Mr Straw’s spokesman said that he did not remember the event. (Patrick Foster)

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