Tag Archives: milton keynes

Police urged to investigate campaign against Labour and Lib Dem councillors in Milton Keynes

By Mark Pack | Wed 16th May 2012 - 8:55 am

Milton Keynes Liberal Democrats are asking the police to investigate campaign leaflets put out during this year’s council elections which attacked both Lib Dem and Labour councillors for their views on providing space for Travellers.

A series of leaflets were put out during the election attacking named candidates from the two parties, accusing them of putting too much effort into housing Travellers compared to “the homeless, OAPs, and the disabled”. Although the leaflets contained a name and phone number, they did not contain the election imprint information required by …

Posted in Election law and News | 29 Comments

Conservatives’ use of crime statistics ‘selective and mendacious’

By Sara Bedford | Wed 3rd February 2010 - 12:10 pm

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 warning attached to the statistics following changes in the way police record violent incidents in England and Wales.

Tory Central Office e-mailed this claim to me: ‘Violent crime has increased from 615,985 offences in 1998-9 to 1,034,972 in 2008-9, an increase of 68 per cent’. The document cited, however, includes this massive caveat: ‘The National Crime Recording standard was introduced in April 2002. Figures before and after that date are not directly comparable’. And yet, that is exactly what Mr Cameron appears to do.