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This week, the Tories are looking to talk tough on crime. Suella Braverman has been appearing in front of TV cameras and broadcast journalists alike on Monday, after announcing the Home Office’s latest plans to tackle illegal behaviour.
The Home Secretary has called upon police officers to investigate every case of theft more thoroughly. This, despite the number of serving law enforcement officials only growing by 3,000 in the past 13 years. The extra demand is likely to prove difficult to meet.
‘Small Boats Week’ ended in disaster earlier this month, as have the Tories attempts to gain a foothold in the polls. Most surveys have the governing party trailing Labour by at least 20 points, ahead of next year’s General Election.
So their latest crime blitz may not capture the public imagination in the way they would hope. Therefore, some political commentators believe that we could hear a few embellished facts and figures from ministers in the days ahead.
Jim Pickard, the Financial Times’ political editor, has drawn attention to the caveats that are conveniently ignored whenever Conservative Party officials trot-out these claims, and says that the reality of the situation is starkly different.
“There are two main crime measures: The one [referred to by the Tories to claim crime has halved] is the Crime Survey of England and Wales, which estimates national level of offending by extrapolating results of interviews with sample of 13,500 people.”
“The other – actual crime offences reported to police – are currently at record high levels.” | Jim Pickard
The fact-checkers at FullFact have also pulled-up the Tories – and specifically, Rishi Sunak – on this matter. They report that the PM has claimed ‘crime has fallen 50%’ under their leadership on four separate occasions this year. However, there’s a major problem with that:
“This figure is based on specific data from the crime survey for England and Wales which doesn’t count fraud or computer misuse offences, so doesn’t represent all crime.”
“In 2022 the crime survey estimated that fraud and computer misuse accounted for around 4.4 million out of 9 million total offences. The total number of offences including fraud and computer misuse has dropped by about 20% since 2017.” | FullFact
Omitting almost half of all reported crimes is, by any standard, a questionable measure. It’s certainly something that grinds James O’Brien’s gears. On Monday, the outspoken LBC host slammed the Tories for ‘spreading and normalising disinformation’:
“I have written about this specific example and its role in creating a broader malaise. This is something they’ve been doing for years and years now. This normalisation of their actions is ultimately even more dispiriting than the actual disinformation itself.” | James O’Brien
