Another New Labour triumph has been turned upon its head. Despite Gordon “McCavity” Brown declaiming that crime had been reduced massively under their careful stewardship, it seems that it was all just an illusion, a carefully constructed sham of carefully spun and stage-managed opinion polling. When someone sat down and compared actual crime reports, a...

When it comes to crime, David Cameron is more concerned with headlines than policies. That’s why he talks Britain down by deliberately misleading the public about crime figures even though his party has been censured by the Statistics Authority for doing this. The reality is the Conservatives have voted against Labour’s measures to fight crime including opposing changes to the retention of DNA evidence – making it harder for the police to catch criminals. And they have campaigned against the use of CCTV which reduces the fear of crime and anti-social behaviour. Alan Johnson MP, Labour’s Home Secretary said: “Labour wants to see a future fair for all and today I am setting out the tough action we are taking to tackle crime and anti-social behaviour....

The other day, we set out our policy on reporting crime, aruing that crime statistics were one of the useful things we could report. So, reader Rob called our bluff - you like crime statistics, do you? Well here's a wodge of data about stabbings across London to wade through.The data he sent us was a table of ambulance call outs in London for knife injuries over the last two years (Jan 08 - Dec 09) and broken down on a ward-by-ward basis.As Rob pointed out, Lewisham's stats are relatively high, compared to many other boroughs (although inner London boroughs suffer a higher average rate than outer London boroughs). In Lewisham's case, the problem is particularly accute in the north of the borough, in wards like Evelyn, Lewisham Central and New Cross, which is in the top 10 wards in London,...

We've been thinking about how we cover crime locally - about what gets covered and what doesn't. We've tried to codify our approach and we wanted to ask you whether you think we've got it right.Firstly, the local papers are pretty comprehensive when it comes to crime. Brockley Central has always tried to fill in the gaps when it comes to local reporting, so we don't give a lot of space to the issue, about which we have little to add anyway.Secondly, we try to write about stuff you can do something about - businesses you can try, events you can attend, causes you can support, behaviours you can change and so on. Trends are important - they tell you how good a job we're all doing at creating a safe community - which is why we report the crime figures, whenever they're published. We also...

Dear David Cameron, As a conservative voter approaching a General Election, I would like to think that my confidence in the Conservative Party would be fairly secure by now.  What we have seen over the past few weeks, though, is a painful combination of naivety, incompetence, stupidity and inappropriateness that has dragged the party down in the polls and brought a hung parliament sharply into focus.  Furthermore, the individual incidents bode extremely badly for a future Conservative government. First, naivety.  For a party that claims to be leading in terms of internet savvy, it was humiliating to watch your blatantly airbrushed face get mocked up and down the country.  I find it shocking that no-one predicted this with such a gift of a poster to your opponents, and I dread to...

Getting the numbers wrong seems to be becoming a habit among Conservatives. First we had those dodgy crime statistics, with the Conservatives claiming wrongly that violent crime had massively increased over the last decade. Today we discover the Conservatives have inflated tenfold the number of girls getting pregnant in deprived communities. What’s a tenfold increase between friends? As the Guardian reports: The Conservatives launched the attack document, called Labour’s Two Nations, to try to show the rise in inequalities under the current government. It claimed – three times – that women under 18 are “three times more likely to fall pregnant in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived areas. In the most deprived areas 54% are likely to fall...

An errant decimal point leads to Conservatives inflating pregnancy rates among the poor by a multiple of 10The Tories were facing embarrassment last night over an errant decimal place, after a key statistic in a document issued to much fanfare turned out to be wrong by a multiple of 10.The Conservatives launched the attack document, called Labour's Two Nations, to try to show the rise in inequalities under the current government. It claimed – three times – that women under 18 are "three times more likely to fall pregnant in the most deprived areas compared to the least deprived areas. In the most deprived areas 54% are likely to fall pregnant before the age of 18, compared to just 19% in the least deprived areas."Within hours, the Labour party had leapt on the accusation, showing that...

Welcome to this latest LDVideo instalment, highlighting three political video clips from the past week. Nick Clegg answers the top 10 questions posed by Reddit.com users as voted by users of the site. (You can see all of the questions posed to him here). (Also available on YouTube here). BBC reports Tory shadow home secretary Chris Grayling gets into trouble for using misleading crime statistics. Sara Bedford covered the story for LDV here). And, finally, Boris Johnson does the hokey-cokey … seems he always wants to go one better than his party leader, who preferred to stick to the cokey: (Also available on YouTube...

ToryDiary: Liam Fox says military force must remain an option in 2010's confrontation with IranSeats and candidates: The extent of the increase in women and ethnic minority Conservative MPs at the general election Gareth Johnson on Platform: Labour's scandalous early release of prisoners demonstrates the need for honesty in sentencingLeftWatch: Gordon Brown's electoral reforms would INCREASE Labour's advantageLocal government: How Boris could treble River transportThinkTankCentral: CSJ proposes that houses with new granny flats should be exempt from Capital Gains TaxTories 9% ahead in new ICM poll - The Sunday Telegraph | Yesterday evening's ToryDiary listed five reasons why the Conservatives will get a better majority than projection models suggestThings may not be going well for Cameron...

All over the place: reporting methods have changed twice since 1997As you will know, shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling has been rapped over the knuckles for misusing official statistics by the head of the UK Statistics Authority, Sir Michael Scholar.Sir Michael wrote to Grayling:"I must take issue with what you said yesterday about violent crime statistics, which seems to me likely to damage public trust in official statistics." Grayling's offence was to claim that official stats show violent crime has been increasing under Labour. In reality they don't show that - or indeed anything - because of changes in recording methodology since Labour came to power.Now, as we've blogged before, we have the greatest respect for Sir Michael. He's one of our few remaining...

I found this article on the BBC website to be in equal measures interesting and depressing.  It is called Why do people vote against their best interests? and is about the US healthcare issue, but really has lessons for the left over here too.From this side of the pond it looks like a no-brainer.   Here in West Sussex we have huge uproar over hospital issues.  To put it in perspective, we have GP surgeries right across Horsham and Crawley that are free to everybody, we have hospitals in Horsham and Crawley that are free to everybody and can treat most conditions, at Crawley there is an urgent treatment centre that can treat most walk-in cases and quite a few ambulance cases too – all free to use – and to back it all up there are two major acute hospital within 20 miles of...

1. Croydonian says there is nothing quite like war, famine, pestilence and death to perk you up. 2. Obselete discovers a new breed of disturbed prankster. 3. Laban Tall explains the dangers of non-existent racism. 4. Liberal England wonders if libertarian bloggers will ever grow up. 5. John Ward supports Chris Grayling in the ‘dodgy crime statistics’ row....

Working as I do with data day in and day out the one thing you learn is that you have to compare like with like to get an actual comparison. There are little comments all over our spreadsheets which say when something started, moved or a calculation was changed. It not simply for us to keep a track on changes but also so that we know if data from different periods is comparable simply from...

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling is accused of misleading the public in his use of crime...

Britain's head of statistics rebukes Conservatives for wrongly claiming violent crime has skyrocketed under LabourThe Conservatives are embroiled in a political row after the UK's head of statistics accused the party of misleading the public over violent crime.Sir Michael Scholar, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, wrote to the shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, after Tory activists were sent leaflets suggesting violent crime had vastly increased over the past decade under the Labour government.The Tories failed to make clear that the definition of violent crime was changed in 2002, making direct comparisons between the late 1990s and 2008-2009 unreliable."I must take issue with what you said yesterday about violent crime statistics, which seems to me likely to damage public...

Yesterday I wrote about Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling’s extraordinarily twisted use of statisticsto try to justify part of the Conservatives’ ‘Broken Britain’ narrative. Today the BBC’s Mark Easton, who broke the original story, has the newsthat Chris Grayling has just been sent a sharp letter from Parliament’s statistics watchdog, informing him that his mis-use of statistics about violent crime is ‘likely to damage public trust in official statistics’. The Chairman of the UK Statistics Authority (UKSA), Sir Michael Scholar, says he does ‘not wish to become involved in political controversy’,  but ‘must take issue’ with Grayling’s comments ’yesterday about violent crime statistics’. The...

Sky News reporting that the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority has officially rebuked Cameron's Conservatives over their scaremongering tactics over violent crime (as I posted HERE.In a letter sent to David Cameron, the UK Stats Authority says the Tory attempt to show violent crime had risen is misleading and a misuse of statistics.The UK Stats Authority questions why the Tories did not use the well respected British Crime Survey figures.The answer of course is obvious...Because the independent BCS shows that violent crime has in fact HALVED in recent years.The Tory fox is now well and truly shot.So no more 'Broken Britain' bollox Mr Cameron.UPDATE: How The Times is reporting the story.UPDATE 2: The BBC's Mark Easton gives his take on the rebuke for the Tories and says the Stats...

This morning’s Today programme provided another of those ‘mustn’t miss’ moments, as presenter Evan Davis  took the Conservatives’ Shadow Home Secretary Chris Grayling to task over the party’s misleading use of crime statistics. Last week Mark Easton, the BBC’s Home Affairs editor, had asked ‘Are the Tories being honest with their claims on violent crime’: Last week, David Cameron told me that one reason he could justify the phrase “broken society” was because of “significant” increases in violent crime, notably gun and knife crime in Britain.  When I challenged him to produce the evidence, his party press office sent the BBC a list of statistics. It emerges that the only way the Conservative leader can back up his claims is to ignore the klaxon...

Between 1999 and 2009, “violence against the person” offences here in Salford rose by 44%. Labour have launched endless initiatives and top-down schemes which have made little difference. Their broken promises have undermined people’s trust. We can’t go on with the police filling in forms instead of fighting crime. People also remain frustrated with our criminal justice system, and too many local residents feel that the justice system is not on their side. I’m really pleased, therefore, to see the draft Conservative crime manifesto produce some concrete pledges that will really tackle these problems. A Conservative Government would: Give Salford’s citizens greater protection if they have to defend themselves against intruders in their homes, or if they stop a...

Murder rate in England and Wales at 20-year low with falls in burglary, robbery and violence in the 12 months to SeptemberThere was an unexpected 8% drop in crime recorded by the police in the 12 months to September with falls in burglary, robbery and violence despite the recession, according to the quarterly crime figures (pdf) published this morning.The Home Office data also confirms that the murder rate in England and Wales has fallen (pdf) to a 20-year low, with 651 homicides in 2008/09 – 102 fewer than the previous year.The latest British Crime Survey, based on people's experience of crime, also published today, shows that crime was broadly stable over the 12 months to September 2009 in England and Wales. However, it reports that the risk of becoming a victim of crime has fallen...

Spain launched a campaign for a Europe-wide system of restraint orders aimed at curbing violence against women, calling for crime statistics to be reconfigured to highlight gender violence and for EU legislation offering protection to battered women across national borders. Opening Madrid’s six-month rotating presidency of the EU and seeking to build on its progressive governance agenda, Alfredo Rubalcaba, the interior minister, called for a new approach to the problem, for special police units dealing with battered women, and for special treatment of the issues by European judiciaries. In Brussels yesterday Spanish officials, supported by officials from 11 of the 27 EU member states, initiated draft legislation on a European protection order which would, if it became law, mean that...

It is, as we like to say on this cynical little island, "typical" that a few weeks after the Met Office assured us that this would be one of the warmest winters on record we find ourselves in the midst of the deepest freeze for thirty years. This is, after all, the same Met Office that assured us of a "barbeque summer" last year. The past three years have seen a similar pattern of Met Office hype followed by disappointment and shivering. In today's Sunday Telegraph, Christopher Booker claims that the Exeter-based institution's bad record in recent years is no coincidence:What is not generally realised is that the UK Met Office has been, since 1990, at the very centre of the campaign to convince the world that it faces catastrophe through global warming. (Its website now proclaims it to...

Put in your postcode, out comes the data | Tim Berners-Lee and Nigel Shadbolt - Times Online ....The Cabinet Office has also launched a developer’s version of a website — known as data.gov.uk — which will be publicly launched at the start of next year. It is home to more than 1,100 datasets ranging from traffic counts on the road network, through reference data on schools to the Farm Survey. More than 1,000 people are helping us to put the site through its paces. We have demonstrated that we can integrate a whole range of data about your postcode — ranging from crime statistics to recycling, from travel times and timetables to adult education and healthcare provision. We have shown that freeing data is practical and economic to do.... Openly available public data not only...

Much has been made of the crime stats in South Africa.  There is, undoubtedly, a high level of crime and violent crimes in particular.  But the statistics suggest that these tend to be focused in the domestic communities with little impact on visitors.  I don’t mean to trivialise the seriousness of the situation but this weekend we thought we had our first personal experience of crime.  My wife thought that she had had her mobile phone stolen during a short shopping trip to a local Mall.  Before reporting the theft she decided to retrace her steps to see if she’d dropped the handset only for it to be found by a stranger and handed in – optimistic you might think. Well here’s the thing.  The phone had been found, under the table...

From Counago and Spaves quoting Laurie Taylor:"....smiling white collar fraudsters who during the course of their everyday jobs steal massive amounts of money from banks, pension funds, corporations, government and private individuals.According to even the most conservative estimate £20 billion was stolen in 2005 and City accountants believe such fraud figures may treble as a result of the current recession.And how much of that fraud will be detected? One leading police fraud officer told me that the figure was probably no more than five per cent. Cases of financial crime are complex, but can that really be sufficient explanation for the news that the Financial Services Authority failed to initiate a single prosecution last year?"A tip of the broadest-tipped titfer to Wilbur the...

Parents of gays and lesbians, teachers and activists carrying photos of hate crime murder victims including Harvey Milk and Matthew Shepard will demonstrate in front of the White House on Wednesday 28 October from noon to 2 p.m. prior to the President signing the Matthew Shepard Amendment. The amendment adds gender, sexual orientation, gender identity and disabilities to the federal hate crimes act. The demonstration is organised by Equality Forum, an international LGBT civil rights organisation with an educational focus. According to the National Coalition of Anti-Violence Programs, there were 29 hate crime murders of LGBT Americans among the 2,424 LGBT hate crimes in 2008. Since 1998, when Matthew Shepard was murdered, there have been over 16,000 hate crime victims, on average, about...

Violent crime now even worse than unthinkably thought in 2000*Returning from a couple of days sans broadband, we've been catching up with the Village Postmaster.He and his family have suffered what's officially categorised as a high trauma crime - robbery in their own home. But we're pleased to see they're back up and running, and they've clearly had huge support from their customers and the local community. After 50 years of soft criminal justice and corrosive welfare dependency, it's reassuring to know some bits of Britain remain unbroken.At least the police do seem to be taking it seriously. They told the VP that the raid on his store was one of many - the night after his own raid, three more retailers in the county suffered the same fate, quite likely at the hands of the same gang....

Mervyn King (pictured above) the Governor of the Bank of England, has launched a blistering attack on Britain’s banks, describing the £1 trillion plus taxpayer support given to them as “breathtaking”. In a rare controversial outburst, in which he made his clearest call yet for the banks to be broken up, King warned that the British people will be paying for the cost of the credit crunch and recession for a generation. ”To paraphrase a great wartime leader, never in the field of financial endeavour has so much money been owed by so few to so many. And, one might add, so far with little real reform,” he said. King’s remarks came as several banks, which either weathered last year’s storm, or only survived because of big government bailouts, are...

There's a new website showing crime statistics by area. You just put in your postcode and it reports the statistics for different types of crime.The information on the map is at beat area level, in our case the Yate beat or the Chipping Sodbury and Cotswold Edge beat. Both have average crime levels for the Avon and Somerset Police area. Focus on Sodbury, Yate and...

Fresh from the clogged tubes of teh intarwubs… How the Real-Time Web Is Leaving Google Behind "The creators of these new engines argue that their goal isn't to answer questions— à la Google—but to organize experience into a keyhole glimpse of what the world is doing at this very moment. "It's exactly what your friends are going to be talking about when you get to the bar tonight," OneRiot executive Tobias Peggs says. "That's what we're finding." Google settles arguments; real-time search starts them." Tagged with: technology • internet • trends • real-time • search • architecture • futurism • Smart ‘Lego’ blocks take touch screens into 3D "Each Lumino block has a pattern on its...