Lies, damned lies and ignoring statistics
Another anecdote reaches us from last night’s Time Out hustings.
One Boris-stopper was approached outside the event beforehand by one of the Boris-backers, who offered him a leaflet.
“No thanks!”
“Oh come on, you want one really!”
“No, I really don’t - you have no idea just how much I don’t want one.”
“Who do you think would be a better Mayor than Boris then?”
“Pretty much any of the other candidates.”
“Even Ken Livingstone?”
“Well, yeah, he’s been good.”
“Good? Hah! He hasn’t been good. For a start, crime is up in London…”
An argument ensued.
There are no two ways about this: this is an out-and-out lie. Crime is not up in London. Police recorded crime figures have fallen every year for the past five years or so.
Brian Paddick’s approach to this is to turn instead to the British Crime Survey (BCS), which covers unreported crime as well, using statistical polling techniques to get a picture of overall crime. He claims these figures show that crime has remained steady in London for the past four years, but actually the BCS has only had London broken out into a separate region in it for the past two years, which it’s difficult to extract any trend from.
But whatever way you look at whatever statistics, it’s impossible to draw the conclusion that, as this person from Boris’s campaign was insisting, “crime is up”.
It looks like Lynton Crosby is living up to his reputation for saying anything, no matter how false, to get his employer elected.
April 6th, 2008 at 12.56
Crime is really going up people!!! If you think people aren’t getting killed, robbeb and raped on London streets - you are mad!
Try walking the streets before you make lunatic posts like this one … get out of the Ivory Towers and start talking to real people.
April 6th, 2008 at 13.48
Oh dear, there you go again. You Boris campaigners just can’t get your head around the fact that a lie coming from your campaign is still a lie. It’s not only alleged lies from the other side that can be characterised as ‘dirty tricks’.
Show me the figures and statistics that prove your assertion that crime has gone up and I might come around to your view. Until you do that - which will be very difficult when the figures and statistics show the opposte - I will continue to characterise your campaign as pumping out lies to scare vulnerable Londoners into voting for someone who will do nothing to help them.
Oh, and I am a real person, whereas you are a Boris campaign representative who has been plaguing anti-Boris blog posts from all over the internet with ridiculous comments.
October 2nd, 2008 at 22.19
[…] is interesting, as it’s certainly not what the Back Boris campaign said in the run-up to the Mayoral […]