Category Archives: Law and Order

How many more?

by maxattacks

I’m not naturally a fan of Piers Morgan (who is), but something clicked yesterday (don’t worry, I will get back to this original point). Admittedly I’d spent a very long time at work, (same lifeguard in two days was over half an hour late to relieve me from poolside, not a happy bunny) I was listening to the radio on the way home and I just happened to stumble upon the speech being delivered to a press conference by Wayne LaPierre, chief executive of the National Rifle Association (NRA). This was then followed by an NRA spokesperson being interviewed live on BBC Radio 5 Live.

Even now, over 24 hours after hearing these two men, I’m still struggling to comprehend and properly articulate a response to the sheer detachment from reality and supreme level of wheedling these two men committed. In case you missed either men, LaPierre advocated that US schools should be guarded by armed guards and that ”The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun,”. The latter blamed gun violence in the US on mental health issues and lack of proper treatment.

At this point I was seething in the car. Now, I’m not saying I have all the answers, but I have a pretty good idea of what the problems are. No Mr LaPierre, giving “good guys” gun to stop “bad guys” is not a good idea. You see Mr LaPierre, I’ve never had crack cocaine for breakfast, one because I never would, but mainly as I don’t keep it in the fridge. I’ve never been butchered by my slave’s in a bloody uprising, primarily by not keeping slaves. Because you know what Mr LaPierre, not having the means to commit crimes is a far better method to preventing gun homicides than simply believing everyone should arm themselves in the name of mutual deterrents.

I’m not advocating outright banning of guns in US right now, as like I said, I don’t have all the answers and there’s a chance there’d be a backlash against such a move. But when you live in a country where there’s no nation-wide policy on firearms this allows dangerous people to easily buy guns from other states without any background checks and then bring them into other neighboring states. The system also has no check for those “good guys” who you so uphold Mr LaPierre who may turn dangerous (and indeed they do, for whatever reason). It gives no account on a federal level for other members of a family who may own firearms (as what happened with the latest Connecticut shootings). And Mr LaPierre, you live in a country where there are roughly 300 millions guns or 89 firearms per 100 civilians and have an average death toll of around 10,000 gun homicides a year (roughly 3.2 deaths from guns per 100,000 people). This is in direct contrast to countries like here in the UK or in Japan, (countries you probably believe have “bad guys” running around unchecked) have roughly 6 and 0.6 guns per 100 civilians respectively yet have a mere 0.1 and <0.01 deaths by firearms per 100,000 people respectively.

I’m sick and tired of hearing such divorced ideas from reality that if you give people more guns there’ll be less gun crime. This is something that really struck me with Piers Morgan, I actually agreed with him on something:

Like I said, I don’t have all the answers, but how many more people are going to have needlessly die before the likes of Mr LaPierre realise that having more guns to solve gun crime is an absurd idea?

Max

firearms 3

For Jack Matthew’s benefit (and yes, Norway is included).

A Free Web

by Nash

@PalaeoNash 

Every so often there is a news story absurd enough to make cliched people ask: “Is it April 1st?” This week there was one, it was April 1st, but the story is depressingly real. I refer to government plans to extend the surveillance of our online lives.

While I believe in a strong state, and I certainly trust a democratic state more so that any private company, this represents another unnecessary intrusion into the private lives of us all. I believe that the internet must be totally free; that is as a true anarchy. A “crime” can only exist on the internet where is co-exists in reality (e.g. fraud). It must be a totally free place where ideas can be exchanged and where speech must be entirely free. While this naturally carries risks, I believe these can be better averted through user education rather than through cumbersome regulation. The internet can never be policed to protect the naïve or the over-sensitive from the troll, nor should it be. I realise that this probably sounds a little woolly or idealistic, but I will always favour the optimism of hope in humanity’s better instincts over the pessimistic urge to control and restrict us.

This isn’t just about our ability the watch daft videos of cats, to pointlessly argue the toss in comment sections, or to create weakly satirical memes. Consider how online communication is used to build campaigning and enable activism. Most organised protests will have Facebook events, with wildly optimistic “attending” lists. Debates over the injustices or otherwise of government policies will rage on page walls, or in twitter feeds. Last year saw the (perhaps over-hyped) power of online protest in deposing dictators. Fear those in positions of power who wish to curtail our online freedoms – they are a threat to democracy itself.

I am not talking only of the specific implications of these more recent proposals. They build gradually on the already extensive powers of our police and security forces. If implemented I imagine they will ultimately be another notch on the ratchet towards an authoritarian state. A future Prime Minister, trying to reduce these powers, would no doubt have their ear bent by senior security figures. They would supposedly be so useful in catching the genuine terrorists (who may in any case have been caught though traditional methods). Never mind the “inconvenience” to the ordinary citizen who by now has normalised having their online activity watched. I argue for a free internet, and against all efforts to regulate it, from a point of principle.

Remember ID cards. New Labour was at its worst in its authoritarian spasms. Remember the Tory manifesto of 2010: “Labour have subjectedBritain’s historic freedoms to unprecedented attack. They have trampled on liberties.” Now see that opportunism exposed as another incumbent government threatens the sacred privacy of the individual. To quote inhuman oxygen thief Chris Grayling in 2009 “Too many parts [of the government] have too many powers to snoop on innocent people and that’s really got to change.” This same creature is now involved in the DWP’s outsourcing of databases to India, with the privacy of millions of innocent people being dependent on the integrity of the lowest bidder.

If the Tories believe in freedom it is merely the freedom for the powerful to enslave the rest of us. Labour have barely shed the worst of our authoritarian Blairite heritage. The Liberal Democrats are making very promising noises, but I don’t fancy placing too much faith in them any time soon. Who then will stand up for our online freedoms?

9/11 Ten Years On, Coalition Politics and Blood Donation

by labourluke

9/11 – A Warning from Recent History

For someone of the age of the current crop of Labour Students, it is particularly difficult to believe that it is ten years tomorrow since the lives of millions were changed forever on September 11th, 2001. Most of us were still in primary school at the time, and it is perhaps apt that our generation – one that was constantly told we were growing up too fast – had our innocence of the world around us robbed so suddenly on that bright Tuesday morning. Hearing and seeing the images of the planes hitting the World Trade Center still transfixes all of us, and as much as we might want to look away having seen enough, we can’t quite bring ourselves to stop watching.

However it is our generation – the 9/11 generation – who will be the politicians and headline-makers of the coming years, and if anything good can come of the last decade, it is surely the lesson  that those in power have a responsibility not to overreact when faced with such onslaughts. Our party’s most successful leader (in electoral terms) no doubt had good intentions, but made the grave error of marching the troops gung-ho into an unplanned and illegal war, probably creating a whole new generation of terrorists in the process, while at home him and those around him were complicit in eroding many of the freedoms we were meant to be protecting, including detention without charge and freedom from torture. If the horror of terrorism reaches us again, we must pause and assess the causes before acting. The same rule should apply for other crises, like the riots this summer.

Backbench Tories Have Nothing To Worry About

Today is the final day of the Plaid Cymru autumn conference in Llandudno, north Wales. The outgoing leader, Ieuan Wyn Jones, made his final conference speech yesterday after an electoral drubbing for the nationalist party in the Welsh Assembly elections in May. Unlike in Scotland, where the SNP have been successful, he argued that coalition government in Cardiff Bay (of which Plaid was the junior party) meant Plaid’s achievements in government were smothered by Labour, and that the party was punished by voters for not claiming credit for them.

Aside from the fact that Plaid achieved very little in government in a time of economic turmoil other than a referendum with poor turnout which managed to bore even political anoraks, their experience in coalition should serve as a lesson to Westminster politics. This week Tory backbenchers, angry over law and order, Europe and abortion, moaned that the Lib Dem ‘tail’ was wagging the Tory ‘dog’ and that Nick Clegg was being given too many concessions by the Prime Minister. However come the election in 2015, the Tories will have nothing to worry about, as the voters are likely to give them sole credit for any successes – particularly if the economy picks up (not a given considering Osborne’s slash-and-burn approach) – and they will certainly not be looking to make some sort of permanent alliance with the Lib Dems, contrary to what some commentators are predicting. The coalition dog will probably have his tail docked when the voters are next given a choice.

About Bloody Time

This week the ban on gay and bisexual men giving blood for life in Britain was finally overturned (although you’d be forgiven for not noticing the leap forward because the BBC thought Strictly Come Dancing was more important on the news bulletins that night). This is a triumph that equality campaigners have been working tirelessly for for years, and at last gay men will be able to save lives and help tackle the urgent need for more donors. No more will the official policy imply that gay men cannot be trusted to practice safe sex and ‘probably have HIV’.

Although the ban was only replaced with a one-year time lag since a donor’s last encounter, it is still progress, and puts us more in line with the situation in similar countries.

Danger, Danger – High Voltage

by labourluke

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-cumbria-14553613 

Yesterday a young man in his prime died needlessly following an incident with the police where a Taser gun was allegedly used by officers. The case has been referred to the Independent Police Complaints Commission. It would be premature for me to claim that police had been unreasonable in this case or to cast aspersions on Dale Burns, however the case has led to calls for a rethink over the use of Tasers by Amnesty International, and I echo their sentiments.

This is not the first time someone has died suspiciously not long after being subject to a Taser ‘shock’, yet still this and the previous government have both ordered their wider usage to please the ‘hang-em-and-flog-em’ brigade – no doubt they will be used more extensively as a method of crowd control following the riots. If police leaders can question politicians’ orders to use water cannon and rubber bullets where needed, citing Britain’s century-and-a-half long tradition of unarmed community policing, then why have they not criticised the authorisation of these brutal weapons? Anyone who has seen a video clip on Youtube where someone has volunteered to receive the shock treatment will tell you that it does not look pleasant.

Police officers are only human beings who can overreact like ordinary citizens, and in many public order situations can fear for their lives. However these weapons have not only been used against armed assailants but also when carrying out routine arrests on the most unthreatening of suspects, and in the US it has even been reported that sick and bored police have been ‘testing out’ their device on farm animals to pass the time. These weapons are lethal and do not discriminate between those bent on harming others and innocent bystanders caught in the wrong place at the wrong time; they do not ask questions. There are millions of people walking along Britain’s streets with heart problems – what if one of these went on a legitimate peaceful protest which turned violent and were Tasered trying to restore calm or quickly leave the scene?

Since the tragic cases of John Charles de Menezes and Ian Tomlinson, the tuition fees protests and following the riots of this month, police are in an unenviable position where they don’t know whether they are being too harsh or too soft in the heat of the moment. Despite this, however, the monstrous Taser should have no place on our streets.

Why Turn Blue When Just ‘Labour’ Will Do?

by labourluke

As Ed Miliband gathers opinions and considers the future policy direction of the Labour party as part of the Policy Review, there has been much debate recently about whether or not to pursue ‘Blue Labour’, as proposed by the academic and Labour peer Maurice Glasman. Blue Labour, a response to ‘Red Toryism’, aims to put co-operatives and the community at the heart of the lives of ordinary British people, and is a rebuttal of New Labour’s strangling embrace of neo-liberalism, which left swathes of grassroots Labour supporters feeling alienated and ignored by the party leadership.

Glasman has a point, for throughout the history of the ‘people’s party’ there has been a split between liberals, state socialists and those who favour co-operatives and more local organisation – many Labour MPs today are also members of the Co-operative Party, and since its inception at the turn of the twentieth century the Labour movement has been associated with local organisation and mobilisation.

Martin Pugh in his 2009 book “Speak for Britain: A New History of the Labour Party” argues persuasively that the real dilemma for Labour through its history has not been attracting liberal support, but attracting hard-working but low-paid voters from the temptations of the Conservatives: many ordinary working class communities share the Tories’ patriotism; love of the armed forces (many of them have close relatives or friends serving in Afghanistan); desire for home ownership and a tough stance on law and order – why did so many vote for Margaret Thatcher in 1979, read the Daily Mail, and in a few cases drift to more extreme parties through fear of their jobs because of immigration and globalisation? Pugh stresses that when Labour came into being many voters were torn between it and the Tories because of these economic concerns, plus social beliefs like temperance or the role of the Church in schools.

Where Glasman takes the wrong path, in my view, is in his attempt to respond to Cameron’s Big Society by mimicking it and advocating a further retrenchment of the state, along with a return to a 1950s-style focus on the family, the flag, and feminism being almost unheard-of. That’s not ‘Blue Labour’, that’s just conservatism. If we as social democrats want to see equality of provision across the board, we need to expose the Big Society for what it is: a cover for cuts dreamt up by Steve Hilton when the Tories needed to be seen to be shedding the aura of Thatcherism.

If Labour is to win elections again without ditching our principles – to do so would be an insult to people like the families of those killed in Norway – we need to ‘re-connect with the grassroots,’ to use the spin-doctors jargon, by addressing, or at the very least appreciating, the legitimate concerns of the hard-working folk who keep the economy growing and keep money coming into the Exchequer. Instead of Big Society initiatives, we need to take the lead on key issues like housing, providing ample employment for deprived communities and young people generally, and not simply dismissing people’s concerns about migration and welfare dependency. That does not mean leaving the EU, saying we should only have British jobs for British workers, or undertaking humiliating fit-for-work tests like those currently going on under Iain Duncan Smith. It just means listening to those too well-off to be on benefits but on low wages, as well as staying true to  proud values like tolerance. If we go some way to pointing out these worries in opposition, whilst criticising the Con-Dems’ unfair cuts, the sought-after swing voters will follow, and we may just wake up to find ourselves in government again.

The vast majority

by suzannahrobinson

School children at a protest march against the swingeing cuts and rising fees join hands to prevent any more damage being done to a police van that had already almost been tipped over onto other protesters. These girls represent one side of the student protest, and one we can all be proud of.

A more difficult, but very real element is the violence, from those whose anger has been brewing long before any cuts to spending or raising of fees were confirmed. Some young people seem to have joined in partly for the sake of having a go at the police, the everyday face of the state.

Imagine you’d developed a suspicion of authority because your family had been falling through the cracks for decades. Then suddenly EMA arrives, you’re entitled to it, and you decide to go on to 6th form. You feel like maybe things are changing, maybe the government cares about you after all.

Now that it’s being scrapped the damage won’t just be seen in our schools and universities but in our social cohesion, our sense of possibility and social mobility. Dialogue about yobs hijacking middle class protests and disgraceful schoolgirls wreaking havoc is threatening student unity before we’re even getting started.

Our young people need to acknowledge the anger but keep it peaceful, and stay united. We want equal treatment, we should extend it to each other.

Suzy

‘snooping state’

by maxattacks

Now personally, I don’t particularly mind the Lib Dems, except when it comes to civil liberties, as unfortunately they are as insecure as the Tories. Nick Clegg’s speech in London said he wanted the people to “to take their privacy back” against ID cards, DNA databases and CCTV cameras. Now I’ve done a similar rant on this in a previous blog but that was restrained to the DNA database, but really come on Clegg(y), I accept there is somewhat of an argument behind ID cards but he’s kinda forgetting they’re intended for foreign nationals.

CCTV cameras hardly ‘invade your privacy’, they’re in the streets to keep an eye out for criminals, they’re not exactly in your houses are they as well that would be a breach of privacy, but people can’t stand it not knowing who’s watching you at the other end, i.e. fear of the unknown. And finally, DNA databases, the biggest insecurity of them all, I’m all for the state to keep a record of everyone’s DNA from birth as what they going to do? Take mine find out I’ve got hay fever then send me a bunch of flowers?

Rant over

Max

‘Broken Society’ an excuse to batter Britain.

by maxattacks
I do not like to use isolated incidents for point scoring. So I think David Cameron’s use of the Doncaster killings is no better than populist electioneering. Tony Blair used the Bulger killings in a similar way. Not to say that these killings are not newsworthy. Truly they are horrific. But the reason that they are newsworthy must surely be because they are so shocking? If our society was broken, to the extent that David Cameron says, why would this sort of incident not occur more often. But if we take the Bulger killing in Liverpool and this latest one in Doncaster, we can see that the killings took place in similar areas. Liverpool, in 1993, was a wreckage of a place slowly struggling out of the depressing circumstances of the 1980s when its main industries were closed, communities uprooted and many families livelihoods threatened. Type into google ‘the Toxteth riots’ for an indication of how bad it was. In 1993 then, Liverpool was a down and out place, not the resurgent and confident city that it has began to be rebuilt into in recent years. Doncaster similarly is an area that had its main industry (mining) torn out from under it in the 1980s. It has had similar problems with unemployment, uprooted communities and crime. Hence we see the parallels between the two places.
Clearly there are problems when crimes such as the Bulger and Doncaster killings take place. As I said, I think it is unfair for anyone, Labour or Conservative, to use one crime for political purposes. Just as I think attributing such crimes to a “broken society” as Mr Cameron does, when these killings have taken place in communities that have been broken by a Conservative government, which David Cameron largely intends on reciprocating, and whose leader Mrs Thatcher stated “There is no such thing as society.” The angry public reaction to these killings, suggests, in my view, that while there is certainly evidence of problems within our society, it is very much in existence and is still far from broken.
 
Sean Woodcock, BULS Member

Does it really matter?

by maxattacks

Leading Tories have recently said, innocent people trying to get their DNA records removed from police databases in England and Wales face a postcode lottery. Now sorry this is something that really gets me going, the whole issue of the DNA database is completely pointless. I can understand the arguements against a database on everyone’s details and ID cards but the arguements against this are based on mere insecurity.

People may argue, I haven’t done anything wrong, yes that may be true, but what physical harm will it cause you? None. I’m all for the state taking and keeping a sample of my DNA, why what’s the worse that could happen, they find out I’ve got hayfever and then send me a bunch of flowers?…………………Rant over now.

Max

Random statistics: Crime and cars

by Brigidjones

0.5 % of the UK population will die in a car accident.

Figures out today show that 0.7 % of Glaswegians were crime victims last year.

It’s 0.6 % in New York.

While the BBC finds that distressing, I found that rather reassuring. Given that most of us don’t think twice about climbing into a car, the fact that the chances of becoming a crime victim are roughly the same as dying in a car should surely set a lot of people at ease… or maybe it should have them diving for the trains and busses, depending which way you look at it.

What’s a number?

by Tom Guise

When it comes to national security, I’ve always thought that the police, army and intelligence services should be granted the powers, within reason, that they feel are necessary to help them do their difficult job.  Afterall they are experts at what they do.  This is especially pertinent when discussing the moves to increase the detention without trial limit from 28 to 42 days, Parliament will be debating the matter this afternoon.

For me this is not a moral issue, the nature of modern crime fighting demands the need to sift through vast computer files, bank accounts and other records.  This takes time and a judge needs to approve the holding of any suspect without charge for more than 28 days (under the proposals), the measure is purely a contingency and comes into force after a chief constable and direct of prosecutions ask the Home Secretary.  It clearly has the safeguards in place to prevent any corruption.  We won’t have ordinary bobbies in local stations locking up individuals as they wish for 48 days, the judge and Home Secretary will only grant such powers if there is considerable evidence or considerable leads towards such evidence.

Moral arguments on this issue make me feel a little queazy, we need to catch people who want to kill us indiscriminantly, we can’t let them slip out of the system because it would make us feel morally complete.  It’s time to get real.

Can respect work?

by Birmingham University Labour Students

Fans of the West Wing will know what a News Cycle is. I think the last time the Government controlled the news cycle was around this time last year when, like we had a few weeks ago, we made big announcements on anti-social behaviour orders and the wider respect agenda. That day last year the Prime Minister sent his entire cabinet to various hard-struck places to investigate the progress of the agenda, every hour or so there was breaking news, an announcement being made, a minister at another estate. It was a professionally run day culminating in our glorious leader using a power hose to clean graffiti, how good it was to be Labour that day, tough on crime, and tough on the causes of crime. Yet, I am cautious about all this hoo-hah. Are we actually trying to fix a deep-rooted social problem or are we trying to score political points?

ASBOs seem to be working to a certain extent, they have managed to keep re-offending down which, anyone from the Criminal Justice System will tell you, is the key to cutting crime consistently. Police Community Support Officers, or mini-coppers, are good at scaring people but have little real power, we’ve even got one on a bicycle on my estate. Every night he’s there cycling around, scaring hoodies off with the fearsome sound of his bell. I feel uncomfortable giving people with little training any real power, but surely after a duration of service, PCSOs can be given top-up training courses. There seems to be a large resource of committed people who aren’t being used to their full potential.

Most of us will understand that to get elected we need to flex our muscles in traditionally Tory areas. Showing that we can be tough on crime has been a successful tactic. At the last election we consistently led the polls on crime, which voters put in the top 3 of their concerns. But is beating the Tories more important than getting the job done? There’s more we can do, but it’s not headline grabbing stuff, certainly not for the Daily Mail, or the Sun who want us to bang up as many people as possible. We should offer counselling, some of these youngsters have traumatic backgrounds and their only means of escape maybe through a gang environment, there could be more variety and choice for children in schools so they don’t get disheartened. I was forced to do Latin until Year 9, God knows what would have happened to me if I had had to carry that on until later. Yes my approach is a bit too cosy for some neo-conservatives but my feelings towards the respect agenda is that it’s too focused on blaming people, punishing people and even shifting the blame to anyone except a system that could be letting these children down. Let’s expand our horizons and look at all the ways to deal with these long-term problems.

Posted by Tom Guise, BULS Freshers Officer.

Big Brother, blah, blah, blah…

by Birmingham University Labour Students


I’m writing this blog as a rant, partly because I missed the point: Tony Blair unveils his latest assault civil liberties yesterday’s Independent announces in typically outraged and scandalized fashion. The latest advance of the state will take the form of a super-computer (dash added for effect).

But let’s be clear what this super-computer mean; all the details the government have on us will be centralised. No new data about us will be collected. What data the government does have on us pales in comparison to the information held by supermarkets. This will undoubtedly make the bureaucratic and inefficient business of government more effective. The Tories have been quick to ‘announce’ that it will cost £20 billion, a hugely over inflated sum. However, the government can realistically expect to make efficiency savings as different departments will not have to hold files containing duplicate data on the same individual. My attitude to the DNA database and ID cards is the same. I do not break the law, I have nothing to hide, what do I have to fear? Quite simply this is an irrational fear of government. I understand if people don’t trust a politician or party yet I can’t help but feel the notion of a society based on fear has permeated. Today on ‘The Wright Stuff’ on Channel 5 one brainless panelist in panic pointed out he didn’t even know what information the government had on him. For starters as he is a Tory I very much doubt at any stage he collaborated with the KGB. Secondly under the Data Protection Act, a citizen can write to any government department requesting to see what information the department holds on that citizen. The department is legally obliged to do this. I suggest the panelist picks up a pen.

I am however saddened by the constant evocation of George Orwell’s 1949 work: 1984. In this perceptive novel Winston Smith is a free thinker in an authoritarian world. This is a highly emotive and saddening work, partly because by the end Winston Smith has ‘lost.’ Following torture and interrogation at the hands of the party he is turned into a brainless drone that will unquestioningly follow the party. He didn’t lose because the government constantly had him under surveillance. He lost because by the end did not have the capability to think for himself. In this modern age of mass media, I think this is a very important lesson for us to remember.

Posted by Tom Marley, BULS Vice-chair and Treasurer

78.96% of Tory bloggers need to check their statistics

by John Ritchie

In British Parliamentary-style debating, a point made by your opposition, regardless of how outlandish or inaccurate it may be, will stand unless you rebut it. I have some sympathy with this rule, as all too often in political debate, parties will make claims and spout rhetoric in the hope that the opposition won’t check the facts. This is very often the case in political campaigns, and is a method that has been employed by the Liberal Democrats for years. The problem perhaps stems from the need for a political campaign to be constantly on the offensive – it is seen as a weakness to be back-footed by your opponents – you need to have your own material. But the need for a good soundbite is never conducive to the debate that we need in order to hammer out the real issues, and expose the spin.

I have had a number of crime figures thrown at me recently on the BUCF blog which have, directly or otherwise, challenged me to respond, whether due to their selectivity and so misrepresentation, or just complete inaccuracy. Let us start with Iron Mike’s article, where he states:

“violent crime has DOUBLED under this government.”

The British Crime Survey begs to differ with Mike, however. In fact, the data on the Home Office Crime Statistics website appears to indicate a huge fall in violent crime since 1997. Another Labour success, I’d say. Mike goes on to say:

“In particular, with the most serious offence- homicide (murder and manslaughter), the number of crimes that have been committed since 1997 has risen by a quarter”

Let’s go back to the Crime Statistics, which show – wait for it – no change in the number of homicides between 1997/98 and 2005/06. In fact, there is a caveat to the data, stating that the figures for 2005/06 were skewed due to the 52 victims of the London bombings. Discounting these victims, there is a significant decrease in homicides from 1997, but in any case it is difficult to see where any increase could come from, let alone a 25% increase. Perhaps Mike has taken his figures from a better or more independent source than the Home Office – the National Daily Mail Crime Figures, perhaps?

The next gauntlet laid down was from prolific Tory blogger, praguetory, who said:

“John R – here’s a selective figure for you. Throughout the whole of the UK robberies with knives rose by 72% last year.”

Praguetory appears to have gleaned his figures from this BBC article. Rather than peeling off the most convenient figure from the article or simply copying the article’s soundbite verbatim, let’s look at the full range of statistics that accompany the article (I’ve put the party of government in square brackets to assist your analysis of whose policies might be succeeding here):

Violent crime in 1995 4,256,000 [Conservative]
Violent crime 2005/6 2,420,000 [Labour]

Interesting – a 43% decrease in violent crime between the last Tory and current Labour governments.

Violent crime involving knives in 1995 340,480 [Conservative]
Violent crime involving knives 2005/6 169,400 [Labour]

This isn’t going well for the Conservatives – more than a 50% drop in violent crime involving knives! Of course the 72% increase in robberies with knives that was originally referred to accounts for only 17,730 of the total violent crimes committed in 2005/06 – or less than one percent of all violent crimes. Not that impressive in my mind any more – but a good negative headline/soundbite when you need it.

praguetory goes on…

“And it’s not just us Tories having a moan. On a recent return to Brum several non-Tories said to me that they can’t recall there ever being as many shootings and knifings in Birmingham as has been reported as late. Can’t wait for you defence of the government on your rejuvenated blog.”

Well, here it is. The Tories can attempt to slate the government’s law and order policies in blind opposition (and without any of their own), and choose to selectively glean figures to suit the matter in hand. A look at the figures from the British Crime Survey tell the real story. This selective gleaning of figures and misreporting helps to do nothing other than cause a mood of panic amongst the public and create a false perception of a crime problem greater than is actually the case. Very much in the interests of an opposition party to create this impression, but certainly not in the interests of community cohesion – but I suppose the Tories never cared much for that. So yes, there may be a perception of an increase in crime which may well prompt people to say there is a big problem – but I think the reasons for that have less to do with the government and more to do with the Tories and their cronies in the right-wing press.

In your reference to Birmingham, as a candidate in the City Council Elections in Birmingham next year, I can see how council policies have a significant effect on community crime levels, not least in the ward I am fighting to represent. You can criticise the government for national crime trends, but local crime needs to be, to a great extent, the responsibility of the local authority and its policies. In answer to your point, therefore, I suggest you have a think about who was in control of Birmingham City Council a few years ago, when things were apparently better, and who has been in control “of late.”

I’ll let you fill in the square brackets yourself this time… good luck.

John Ritchie is Chair of BULS