elfman

I'm sure this will attract the attention of the usual sad UK-bashers and Daily Wail readers eager to claim stuff about government lies and cover-ups, but still, here it is:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/7511192.stm

some highlights:

Police-recorded crime in England and Wales fell 9% in the 12 months to March, latest figures suggest. The first-ever reliable figures for knife crime showed there were 22,000 offences last year. They also show that while the risk of being a victim is at its lowest ever level, people still think that the rate is going up. (so not 64,000 as someone posted recently)

The annual crime report for 2007-2008 reveals the longest recorded period of falling crime - down 48% from 1995. It shows there were five million recorded crimes. All the main categories were down, including violent crime and sex offences, but drug offences were up 18%, gun crime was up 2% and murder was up 3%.

The annual report combines police-recorded crime and statistics from the British Crime Survey (BCS), a victimisation survey in which adults living in private households are asked about their experiences of crimes. For the types it covers, the BCS can provide a better reflection of the true extent of crime because it includes ones that are not reported to the police and crimes which are not recorded by them.

The BCS showed the risk of being a victim of crime has fallen from 24 to 22%, the lowest level recorded since the survey began in 1981.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

It continued ..

However, 65% of people said they thought rates had gone up nationally. But the same proportion again thought crime had fallen locally.

The overall picture from the survey was that crime was down 10% to 10.1 million crimes. It also showed that 947,000 violent offences were caused by alcohol.

Which is further evidence if anyone needed or wanted any of the devastating effect of the bloody media. It's long been known that the fear of crime is more crippling (on a national level) than crime itself - also leading to self-fulfilling prophecies in certain areas.

Tableland

A lot of mysterious things seem to be happening at the moment though. Things that really seem to bother people right now include knife crime, speed cameras, not being able to defend yourself if your house is burgled, having their pensions stolen by James G. Brown, our PM, not being able to buy a house and fuel duty.

In the last few days we are told that people who lost money with Equitable Life will be refunded, speed cameras are coming down in various places, fuel duty will not go up in the autumn, you are allowed to defend yourself against burglars in the home and you've never had less chance of getting stabbed in Britain. The statistics say so.

Funny that, what with the government being less popular than ever before, a by-election next week and a GE in the next two years. It's almost as if they're trying to, I don't know, WIN POWER.

Fat chance. Labour are gone for at least three Tory terms after this.

rabsody

I'm not a fan of the Conservatives, but I don't think Labour will survive another term.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

I take your sentiment on board .. but .. I will not excuse the media, in particular when it comes to forming opinions about personal safety and health, for creating an atmosphere of hyped up doom, gloom and heightened fear.

Tootsie Frickensprinkles

What most people remember about the tories though, or certainly have as a large part of forming their opinions is Thatcher and Thatcherism. Current conservative policy and personalities are no more like her than Blair was Kinnock.

Tableland

To me, this is a separate issue. I have detested the British tabloid media for a long time. Unrivalled in their capacity to stoop to any level if it means a story.

Tableland

Labour are finished in the UK, IMO. The only debate is the extent by which they lose. Will it be a landslide for the Tories? Also, Tootsie, you're right about Thatcher. Most people think of her when they think "Tory" - and the (generally) leftist media promote this as much as they can. The things is, there is a bunch of people out there now who do not remember her. Many of the students I teach at uni are surprisingly conservative, actually.

rabsody

Funnily enough we've had the exact opposite happen here in Aus with John Howard and the Liberal Party's defeat last year - they were in power for 13 years. Apparently a lot of younger people who had never voted before voted Labour, despite the protestations of those who remembered it last time around.

IMHO, any pollitical party that is in for too long, say more than two terms, makes a mess of things by taking their policies too far.

derbyflan

Well I still won't go into my local town because of safety issues.

Crimes are also reported by the media because they actually happen.

A friend of a friend was recently kicked and stamped on until he could barely breath. His injuries were so bad that a passerby was reported (not by the media) to have vomited. This happened about 4 months ago. I believe he's still in hospital having had a few operations.

The reason? None! A completely random attack.

The other night an 18 year old boy was beaten senseless and hospitalised for no reason other than he was there. This happened where I walk my dogs everyday.

My neice (aged 16) was slapped across the face outside a shopping centre by some bloke just for glancing at him.

A woman (whilst trying to take her kids back out of their car seats and put them in the trolley) had a knife pulled on her by some lunatic in my local Tesco car park. Why? Becuase he said that she'd cut him up at a roundabout.

I'm in the military and am fairly confident that I can handle myself if needs must but I felt safer in places such as Bosnia and Kosovo than I do in a small market town in the south east of England.

Believe what you want. The UK has a serious violent crime problem.

Tableland

I would agree with this. After two terms they start to forget what the real world is like and the power starts to corrupt. Party colour has little to do with it other than they destroy different institutions along the way.

backagen

It's inevitably hard to know just how true or otherwise the statistics are but it's probably fair to assume there is some truth to them, and that crime has fallen. The same has happened over the last 10 years here in Australia.

Unfortunately though we all know that crime tends to fall when the economy is strong, and we all know that right now the economy in Britain and Australia (and most of the world) is not so good, which most probably means crime will once again increase, at least a bit, over the next few years.

backagen

Maybe not always the case. Here in Australia we recently voted out the best prime minister the country has ever had, mainly because he had been in power too long!

What we have now is Kevin Rudd, who is probably not doing too badly, but certainly doesn't compare very well, and personally I believe John Howard still had the ability to keep things going well for at least a few more years.

I think you have to simply look at how well the government has done, and what their REAL plans (as opposed to election promises) are for the future, when deciding how to vote.

rabsody

Hmmm interesting. Doesn't necessarily mean violent crime specifically rises during poor economic times though does it? It could be more fraud, burglary, shoplifting etc. Not saying that's any better, but violent crime seems to be the one everyone perceives as being rampant in the UK.

Tableland

Although, statistically, you are more likely to be stabbed to death in Australia than the UK, I think many people feel like this. This is because statistics only tell us half the story. Who is doing the stabbing? In the UK it is large numbers of children, basically, and their victims are often selected indiscriminately, much like when The Lads kick some poor guy into a coma for being outside the wrong pub at the wrong time.

I wander around cities in Canada and Australia and feel no sense of danger at all, yet I really keep mywits about me when out in a British town centre at night. The violence is palpable and I don't think this is just hyperbole.