By Gabe Trodd
The more you really think about what Chris Grayling is trying to achieve in deceiving the British public about the reality of crime rates in Britain, the more despicable it becomes. Exposed by the BBC, rebuked by the Chairman of the independent UK Statistics Authority for "damaging public trust", debunked by this week’s Economist in a front page special feature, condemned by local police commanders and denounced by more honourable Conservative colleagues, Grayling has vowed to maintain his crumbling stance on this issue until the general election, which is a decision that more than consolidates his reputation as the weak-link in the Tories’ line-up.
Last Friday, it was left to the Director of Reform, the right-wing think tank, to set the record straight at ConservativeHome with a decent intervention, after Tory activists and bloggers had wearily attempted to defend the indefensible on the site earlier on in the day.
The truth is that this problem is not isolated to crime figures. For example, today only half as many girls between 15 and 19 years old bear a child in their teens than when their grandmothers were that age. Smoking is falling among adults and children and is now at one of the developed world’s lowest rates. And it has just been revealed that the number of divorces in England and Wales has fallen for a fifth successive year to the lowest rate for 29 years. These are just a few of the cold, hard facts that Cameron whimsically airbrushes out of his somewhat hallucinatory narrative on what he calls "Broken Britain".
There are urgent questions that need to be asked, particularly in light of Grayling’s defamatory press releases, which have been sent out under the radar to every constituency in England and Wales, purporting to show that violent crime had risen sharply under Labour; these press releases have the sickening aim of terrifying decent British people into what would be a mistaken Tory vote.
Firstly, why exactly do the Tories find it so difficult to accept that violent crime has fallen? The issue is that when your reality is constructed around long-term hysteria, prejudice and episodes of The Wire, having to honourably front up to the fact that crime has fallen 41% since 1997 becomes difficult. Everything you thought you knew about the world, and how it works, is shaken up by it. Violent crime is now almost half of what it was in 1995, and is no higher than in 1981, for example. Police figures indicate a 10-year low for murder rates, and the number of people worried about antisocial behaviour has fallen to 15% — the lowest on record.
Secondly, what are the potential dangers of Grayling’s deceit and cowardice? Well, the negative and imbalanced portrayal of disadvantaged British communities and youngsters by the Tories does nothing but whip up insecurity, resentment and division around individual acts of crime, when they do happen. The result is a culture of fear and alienation, which trickles down to vulnerable youngsters, who seek status and protection through arming themselves. All knife-related violence has just fallen by 12% in the latest figures - however the 85% of that small minority of 10-19 year olds who previously reported carrying a knife cited the need for protection as their reason for carrying a knife. The damage done to real British youngsters and real British communities by Grayling’s misleading campaign could be potentially devastating.
Finally, what can Westminster and the media do in response to all of this? For a start, Grayling and Cameron could front up to the truth, stop pushing their fiddled statistics and apologise to the British public, as well as the hardworking British police forces, who are much more often than not doing a great job. In the longer-term, Cameron could stop talking Britain down and have the bravery to produce some firm, detailed, substantive policies, if he sees issues he wants to address. However, I suspect that, in the striking absence of any substance, honesty or real intellect on issues around crime, law and order from the Tories, it will be left to Labour to tackle the Tories’ duplicity head-on, at every turn.
Labour needs to keep on getting the message out, nationally and locally, because people are really listening to us about this, and in the end, there is nothing more powerful than the truth.
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Sorry only just spotted your commentry.
I cannot, and neither can anyone else affect the quality of Mp's. That is decided by partys, and incresingly, selectively, by leaderships. As David cameron and Gordon Brown have been placing loyalists in, the needs for debate and democracy increase.
All I can do is TRY and reform the Party via the NEC, I tired to become an MP to do it (as a sort of less white, Labour Martin Bell inspired type) and failed.
I have to try whatever avenue there is available to create the rules that ought to protect Labour Reps from causing themselves and their families harm where they are exposed to positions of responsibility and money withour prior experience to cope with it.
Form what I have read so far on Labourlist, I have been accused of being a "crusader" and a "puritan" additionally people have said the NEC is a big fix and that change cannot occur.
That is just Labourlist. After the elections I will (if not successful as a councillor) write a letter to the NEC requesting they address the potential corruptions in the Party, depending on the response I will decide whether or not to remain in the Party.
If elected I cannot make such an exaction because I would owe a duty of service to the Party and the electorate but have always said that I would either take nothing or a massively reduced amount (depending on appointment) if elected. It is not saintly behaviour as people only ten years or so ago got very little for elected office. I am just not changing my old habits ;)
Like I said my friends are in the forces and I have to look them in the eye. You are good people out there. Hope this helps.
Yes. I am a great believer in working from something tangible outwards. I think that often if you start with a clear question of how do we make this xxx work better, then there is room for a large measure of agreement! - and civility is all!
Realistically I do not suppose that anyone will be given to listening on the kind of things we are saying here this side of an election. - Afterwards it could be come important.
I have probly mentioned before that there was a committee I watched some time back which looked at the role of the backbencher - They were interviewing a couple of new girls. Kitty usher was one I remember, and it was clear that the early stages for them were impossibly difficult.
I think that computing and information managagement has moved on in leaps and bounds over the last 5 years, and that things are ripe for a shake up now.
Difficult perhaps with some of the older members that we have now, but the new intake with hopefully a good range of the best of the old may be ready to make the changes that are needed.
Thanks for the comment.
Dave, I cannot help but look at the crude numbers for live births outside of marriage - a veritable explosion between 1979 and 1990, and more to come going on to 1997 (and more since then) without feeling almost contempt for Mr Cameron as he plays both the "family card" and the "broken society" card.
You are right there was a rising trend in place leading up to 1981, but (crude numbers again), it was nothing like what followed for live births outside marriage in the period 1981-1990(UK) :
1961 - 54,000 ; 1971 - 74,000 : increase 3.2 per cent per annum
1971 - 74,000 ; 1981 - 91,000 : increase 2.1 per cent per annum
1981 - 91,000 ; 1990 - 223,000 : increase 10.5 per cent per annum
1990 - 223,000 ; 1997 - 267,000 : increase 2.6 per cent per annum
2007 - 343,000 : 1997 - 267,000 : increase 2.5 per cent pear annum
Crude numbers, I accept - but there has to be an impossible change in the demographic mix to jump from 2.1 per cent per annum growth in the ten years prior to 1981, compared to 10.5 per cent per annum afterwards. Indeed, if the 2.1 per cent per annum rate had been continued, the number would have been just 110,000 instead of 223,000 in 1990.
With the greatest respect, I think your irony gland may have swelled up somewhat: in a thread relating to the (mis)use of statistics, your have selectively presented some perfectly valid statistics, and used them to "show" that the Tories were responsible both for rising births outside marriage and increased crime by establishing a "social pattern...between 1979 and 1997 that has proved very difficult to eradicate".
Now I am not going to defend the Tories or their policies either during the Thatcher years, nor their proposed policies now, but merely suggest that your statement that statistics which showed an increase in the birth rate outside marriage from 1971 to 1976, and continued the trend in a fairly linear manner through 1981 up to the present, show that "the Tories started it" is, at the absolute very best a gross simplification, and at worst an example of the very thing which you are complaining about... and that's before I point out that the "missing" stats between 1997 and 2009 Sept for <16 conceptions suggest that the start and end points don't necessarily paint the trend you demonstrate but instead display a natural variation that appears to have been stubbornly constant since 1991 around an average of something like 8.3 to within a degree which cannot easily be ascribed to any political parties' policies.
@ the article: I believe that the deliberate use of scientifically imprecise comments by politicians (and even some scientists - e.g. the IPCC) and a lazy media when double-checking these stories and has allowed far too many in the public eye to get away with making claims which have no real, verifiable basis. This affects all political parties: Grayling is merely the latest in a long line. I am in favour of stamping it out, from whichever party it comes, and will continue to do so at every opportunity.
I cannot be but honest, Ralph. I am so heartily sick of lies, stupid policy initiatives and corruption in all of the parties. I so much want to see principled, committed and honourable men and women, who enter politics to serve the best interests of ALL of their of their countrymen as the majority of members in the House of Commons later this year. Our political institutions have been badly polluted and soiled; although this happened under a Labour administration the blame must be shared by all concerned. Everyone knew what was going on and yet nobody had the courage to do anything about it until it was brought out into the light of day and exposed. Our nation needs better politicians, better political institutions and a better politics overall.
Earlier this week I heard dear little Nadine Dorries the rather eccentric and silly Conservative MP for Mid Bedfordshire, state publicly that the decision of the Speaker of House, John Bercow, to wear a plain black gown over his business suit rather than a wig, knee breeches, silk stockings and buckled shoes was harmful to the tourism industry and could lose the country millions of pounds of income t as foreign visitor numbers dwindled as a direct result of Speaker Bercow's fashion statement!
Oh, come on Nadine. Americans don't fly all the way across the Atlantic ocean specifically to scrutinise Speaker Bercow's shapely calves clad in breeches or to view how fashionably shiny his shoe buckles might be! We all know that you don't like John Bercow, but, for goodness sake, attack the man based on his poor performance as Speaker, or otherwise, and leave the girlish bitchiness and spitefulness at home.
See what I mean?
All political parties desperately need and deserve better representatives. At the moment we've all got a surfeit of idiots like Chris Grayling and Nadine Dorries and a dearth of the kind of upright, moral and talented men and women who could make a difference to and improvement in the lives of all.
Many thanks for your comments. It is good to see that people with different perspectives and (probably!) from slightly different political viewpoints can still discuss issues civilly.
I don't think what I'm proposing would be an EDM, but supplemental to that process. I'd have to sit down and give it another few braincells and plot a few diagrams...
Where I think this sort of thing would be invaluable are those low-level, slow-burner issues that never get attention, like the Turing apology. If the media aren't interested, then the public needs another mechanism to make their voices' heard. We cannot trust the media to do it. Remember, the Gurkhas only had the rules changed because a celebrity got involved. That was a good outcome from a bad process.
A tag cloud would be nice, but the MPs might be able to filter out things they do not like. What I would like to see is *everything* going on (as privacy rules allow, obviously). Pushing it to extremes, what we would end up with is real-time data on what the public currently think on issues. Much would be noise, but there would be some real gems in it.
IMHO this is just part of what the political process needs - a root-and-branch tidy-up from first principles. Go back to basics, decide what we want from our political system in this modern age, and do it. Forget FPTP, AV and PR for the moment; they are details. I think the things that need changing are much more fundamental.
Mould some of the traditions and history to it (e.g. Black Rod, the Speaker and funny wigs) - they are not the problem. The underlying process is.
And I am someone people around here would probably call a conservative (small 'c')...
Years ago I thought about this in respect to the NHS. It's too involved to go into here, but basically get all the trusts to split the work they do into sections and price the work up (e.g. an IVF round costs x pounds, a hip replacement y pounds). They then say the capacity they have at those prices (e.g. we can do 100 hip replacements a month at x pounds, 200 at y pounds).
This data is then collated and given to the parties, who decide what they will fund. One party may decide to being waiting list for hip operations down to 10 weeks, yet only allow 1 IVF round per couple. Another may decide 12 weeks and 2. These will have been costed up by the trusts, and the parties will commit to them for the period of the next Parliament. It is then up to the hospital to meet the targets with the money they said they would need for the package. Failure to do so (outside exceptional circumstances) will lead to Chief Exec's being fired.
This would have many advantages; the NHS is still public; the public have a say in what they are paying for, and politicians will not constantly tinker with it. My entire non-thinking is much more complex than that, but that's the basics. Ho hum.
I agree this isn't really the place to discuss blue-sky thinking, but where is?
Just going through your long post. bit by bit.
With power2010 the questions you saw were I believe wittled down from around 6000 submitted by different individuals. There was some initial screening into clusters, followed by a selection process involving a panel of carefully selected people.
I think there ars some references on my post which explain the process.
I agree we want to stop politicians being so reliant on the front page of the newspapers.
Case 1 EDMs are also a problem for some MPs. Ministers and PPS's cannot sign EDMs - I know that because it effects mine.
EDMs at present have a fairly limited effect. as you rightly say.
Case 3 You are right that there needs to be safegaurds against collective action skewing the system.
"In a way, what we might be heading towards is almost a contently-varying, multi-issue polling situation. One where people got give their opinion on issues regularly and in real-time. A difficult problem would be discerning the signal from the noise. Indeed, this might be the killer issue. However, neither do the current systems work in the modern age."
yes I think this is the nub of it.
"So we will start to head towards politics where the *issue* to be solved is known, but the solution can vary. This may make it easier for voters to decide on the solution of important issues."
That would be pretty good!
One thing I would add at this point. Not entirely sure that the EDM thing would work, because given the nature of the job the focus of attention does tend to stay on the hot topic of the moment. Sometimes that would work- because it is an issue of the moment. Sometimes it would not because it is a low level issue that is there all the time - just rumbling away.
The particular issue that brought me in to all of this was elderly care and care funding. It is something that the press picked up and put down again on a regular basis for years, but it never held their attention for long enough to trigger action.
It was one of these things which just stayed in the too difficult pile until the last couple of years - when - thanks partly to a huge amount of effort from my MP real solutions have been brought forward.
To pick up this sort of low level but constant issue I think you would need to be tagging every piece of casework that comes through the door. with an issue code, and perhaps also with a "seriousness" code.
It occurs to me that there is probably a huge variation in the level of casework undertaken by different MPs. Mine makes himself very available, and he actually does something pretty constructive with most of it, so the result is people keep coming. He generates an almost impossibly large caseload. I suspect others don't.
I don't know how much resistance there would be to it, but it would be really interesting to be able to know what the volumne was.
I also do not know how much resistance there would be to the idea of MPs feeding collectively into a "tag cloud". This would be the simplest visual way to bring this into focus - could do monthly snap shots which would change over time.
One of the things I am convinced one would find if this sort of exercise was being done, is that a large amount of casework would be being generated by the failure of different public services to work together to solve the complex problems of individuals.
We must stop doing long posts like this - but it is interesting!
"That'll be all those dead young men from the Great War."
I can't find the paper with the historical statistics, but it wasn't just that : crime had "peaked" in the 19C around 1870, and it then went into steady decline to the early 1920s.
In other words, a fifty-year trend was already in place and it bottomed out in the early 1920s.
That'll be all those dead young men from the Great War.
"Must be a variant of Moore's law!"
Or something ....
A bit off topic, but in an ancient (well, published in 1947) book I have, "The Character of England," Lady Violet Bonham Carter addresses the issue "spare the rod, spoil the child" and concludes :
"There are those who maintain that we have exchanged Sparta for Capua ; that tolerance and indulgence have led to a general lowering of standards ; that if there is to-day (sic) less brutality, sentimentality, and bigotry than there used to be, there is also more irresponsibility, more cynicism, and less faith."
There's nothing new under the sun ....
Must be a variant of Moore's law!
Another thoughtful comment.
MPs of all parties (as do us bloggers) have access to the excellent Research Papers produced by the House of Commons Library Staff. These are produced with no intended bias.
One of the problems - and this is common to all parties, all politicians and just about all in the media - is that numbers (ok statistics) are not placed in historical context.
The most blatant and current living example of this is this year's (and next year's) fiscal deficit. Yep, big numbers. However, when the historical record is examined, even in 2014/15 the amount of money owed by government will be nothing unusual compared to the historical record since 1815. So, what's the problem?
Blimey, we owed more money relative to ability to pay before the start of the Second World War, in 1938, never mind afterwards ....
I don't see Mr Grayling using the "recorded crime figures" in the context of what happened between 1979 and 1994 : violence against the person (England and & Wales) - 95,000 offences in 1979 and 218,000 in 1994 (Annual Abstracts 1989 and 1997).
Neither do I hear Mr Grayling comparing total "Notifiable offences recorded by the police" for the (roughly) same period : 2.54 million in 1979 and 5.59 million in 1992 - doubled (same source).
Nice record, Chris ....
One almost unknown "statistic" is that crime reached a very, very low point in the UK in the early 1920s and every dozen or so years afterwards, it more or less doubled - all the way up to the early 1990s. Nobody - government included - seemed to be able to do anything about it.
The "Disgusteds of Tunbridge Wells", wearing their nostalgia-tinted spectacles, will tell you that juvenile misbehaviour was arrested by "a clip behind the ear" from a local policeman.
Apart from the fact that I have no idea what a "clip behind the ear" was in practice, it patently did not work : crime doubled every twelve years or so after the early 1920s ....
In this case, I would define one of the problems as:
"Politicians reacting to issues that appear on the front page of the newspapers far more than they do those raised by constituents."
If I may be allowed to continue my train of thought, perhaps it may be useful to generate some use-case scenarios:
I will base the first of these on our recent interaction with our MP.
1) There is a subject the user feels strongly about (e.g., the Ugandan homosexuality bill)
2) The user checks online. There is an EDM about the motion.
3) The user writes an email to the MP asking for him/her to sign the EDM.
4) The user receives an email stating that the emails has been received.
5) The user receive a letter (on parliamentary stationary - cool) stating that the MP has signed the EDM.
Hopefully we might all agree that the system worked in this real-life case. But there are downsides:
1) There had to be an EDM to trigger the user's side of the process.
2) If the MP hadn't agreed, the request might have disappeared down a black hole.
3) It favours the incumbent (PPCs cannot sign EDMs).
The user had an issue that they cared about enough to write to their MP for the first time. In this case it worked, but it would be easy for it to disappear down a black hole. What we need is a way for this opinion to be weighted and logged. (of course, the chances are an EDM would be ignored as well).
Use case 2:
1) The user believes cause A is worthy, and asks their MP to support bill B.
2) The MP does not agree. The user's request gets ignored or filed.
The problem here is obvious.
Use case 3:
1) A newspaper writes a shock-horror article.
2) 3,000 people write into various MPs, all using similar wording and commenting on the same articles.
3) It is discerned as an obvious campaign, and weighted accordingly. This does not mean it is ognored, but 3,000 independent letters would be considered more important.
If I may give another example: the truly excellent John Graham-Cumming started a Number 10 petition for Alan Turing to receive an apology from the Government. He publicised this, it developed a head of steam, and an apology was given. Again, someone used the system and it worked. (as it happens I would have preferred everyone who was treated like Turing to be apologised to, but that didn't happen).
In a way, what we might be heading towards is almost a contently-varying, multi-issue polling situation. One where people got give their opinion on issues regularly and in real-time. A difficult problem would be discerning the signal from the noise. Indeed, this might be the killer issue. However, neither do the current systems work in the modern age.
It would be easy for politicians to react to the relatively small issues, such as the ones mentioned above. But what about the bigger ones. What would happen, say, if MPs received a million requests about nationalising the railways?
In this case, the parties would decide their line and explain it to the public (currently, of course, all three parties would be against it). This system would not be a way of *demanding* action, just a way to let the politicians know that you think something *should* be done.
Of course, if all the data is collated it could end up in all parties having the same policies. But that probably would not happen. For instance, in the case of the Ugandan bill, all parties may agree something needs to be done, but their policies may vary:
1) Party A may do nothing.
2) Party B may threaten to throw them out of the Commonwealth
3) Party C may threaten sanctions
4) Party D may go to war.
So we will start to head towards politics where the *issue* to be solved is known, but the solution can vary. This may make it easier for voters to decide on the solution of important issues.
There is another point: this does not have to be a cross-party, consensus thing. A party could choose to implement such a system independently. Ideally the results would be open.
This is very OT, but makes for an interesting mind-game. I apologise if I have bored/annoyed anyone
(Note, the things above are not real use-cases, but it's a good name...)
Thanks for the comment.
Now, Mark, grit your teeth and accept that the rate of births "outside of marriage" for the under 20s went up (rounded) from 26 per cent in 1979 to 47 per cent in 1981, and on to 89 per cent in 1997, since when it has increased further to 94 per cent (June, 2009).
Combined with the total live birth rate for mothers under 20, this gives a rate per 1,000 for live births outside of marriage for the under 20s as follows :
1971 - 132 ; 1981 - 131 ; 1997 - 268 ; June, 2009 - 230
In other words - doubled between 1981 and 1997, and has fallen back by 14 per cent since 1997.
I accept that Labour hasn't made the inroads into "births outside of marriage" that it may have wanted but I cannot accept Conservatives looking the other way when the period 1979 - 1997 is mentioned in the context of "single mothers."
As I remarked earlier, the "social pattern" established between 1979 and 1997 has been very difficult to eradicate, and it wasn't Labour that established that pattern.
Or Jacqui Smith talking about a knife crime epidemic when what had actually been seen was a return to the mean after an unusually low amount of knife crime the previous year?
Wow!
Thanks for your sincere comment. Respect.
I wish David Cameron could jettison Chris Grayling but don't realistically suppose that he can so near to the election. There are much better people with much more political savvy and talent in their little finger than Grayling has in his whole body.
As for statistics, well they are just a form of mathematics they do not in themselves tell us anything, however, the hands of politicians they are used to confirm that the price of beer in Covent Garden is totally dependent on the rainfall in Grimsby. Beware of idiot politicians, of all political persuasions, mouthing statistics. Labour also do not have a good track record here.
You did a lot of wwork on that response. and i think there are some really interesing things there.
I think we both feel that it is really important to try and use the huge power that an opposition has - through PMQs and other means - to raise issues in a responsible manner.
I will need to think about some of the methods you are suggesting.
It is interesting that it chimes with a paper I wrote for my MP a couple of years back on using the new media in a very structured way to try and filter issues.
There is a blog I wrote on here a couple of weeks ago on power2010, I think it is called deliberative democracy - which does cover some of the techniques which might make this possible.
PMQs at present almost forces the opposition leader into topicality - because that is what newspapers and the BBC will choose as their sound bite. I am not sure that it is ever going to be possible to cut that off. people expect it. so maybe all of this goes even deeper than we are saying - maybe it also implies a need for papers to check their sources more thoroughly.
I remember going on about this in an earlier blog, there is a vicious circle of poorly researched news and poorly understood statistics, feeding agressive questioning, and leading to greater distrust in stats.
Answers include better ways of picking up recurrant problems (I'd like to see more data sharing between MPs. I think this would give them more power to identify the key issues, and deal with them in a much calmer way before they get to the deadly soundbite stage!)
I will take another look at you post later. I think there are things there that might help.
The NHS is central to all of this. It is where measurement matters most, and also where it is most difficult to do. It is the issues which brought me in on all of this.
One of the major reasons why there are these repeated controversies about Statistics is linked to the fact that Margaret Thatcher did not like them much. They weren't telling her what she wanted to hear. and it meant that the statistical base was run down.
The fact that Labour had in many cases to create new systems which would actually allow them to see what was happening was naturally treated with suspicion by anyone who wanted to suspect them!
Statistical systems do not always emerge perfect at the first attempt. I have had a go at this myself in the past, sometimes it does not give you what you expect, and sometimes you need to go through a period of adjusting and rethinking.
I think that with most of the systems that labour have put in place they are telling us a lot more that we knew before, but they are not necessarily as good or as easy to operate as they need to be.
This grayling business bothers me, because it makes people think that statistics in themselves are not to be trusted. That is very damaging.
If we want evidence based politics, then we have to have the evidence. If we don't measure then we don't see, and the public services are left to invisibly run down as they did under thatcher.
Like you I have major concerns about the NHS I expect to bring out some new information on this once the Stafford Hospital Inquiry has been published. The behaviour of the shadow front bench on this issue has been a disgrace.
Thanks for the link.
The worrying fact that the "hysteria" over the deficit could cause "Obama" to take the wrong direction & delay the recovery.
cheers
Just read that article, which I agree is really relevant. We have the same techniques being applies in slightly different ways on a whole range of issues.
The thinking on the deficit of course does underpin so much of the thinking on everything else too. the article I posted a couple of weeks back on what the Conservative PPCs rank as their priority is the deficit, and whilst they believe this it will have a knock on effect on everything else they do and do not do.
Jim Callaghan, A man of wisdom, & integrity & a good socialist.
Another of his sayings I think is appropriate for LL on the achievements of present Labour Government
You can never reach the promised land. "You can march towards it".
cheers
What these comments fail to take into consideration is Labours attempts to do exactly the same thing!
I'm not going to give any examples because these sort of things bore me rigid. Besides I would only be inundated by justification as to why it is OK for labour to adopt these tactics but not the toreeeeez. Another case of 'do as I say, not as I do...'.
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/02/05/opinion/05krugman.html
"....once the distortion is in the public domain "the truth is always the casualty"
Or, as Jim Callaghan remarked, "A lie can be halfway around the world before Truth gets its boots on."
But Cameron's crass statement that the NHS is safe in his hands because of the death of his child has meant that the meme exists that Cameron will protect the NHS. The opposite is the case.
1) Sound bites. As long as the sound bite gets out, and they ignore the rebuffs that they are wrong, then the stats become "true". That is, the public believe the noise coming from CCHQ and ignore the real stats. Stop a person at random in the street and ask about the violent crime stats and I bet you'll not find a single person who will tell you about the response of Sir Michael Scholar. As far as CCHQ is concerned: job done!
2) This is a presidential election and they are throwing everything at selling the Cameron brand. Consequently, there is not the manpower or talent to spare for the rest of the Shadow Cabinet to get their dodgy stats checked out.
Personally, I think it is a combination of the two. Presidential campaign, can't find real stats to back up their policies, make a press release based on made up stats, and make so much noise that everyone assumes that the dodgy stats are "true".
It is a disgrace.
Of course, it doesn't follow that Mr Trodd was not being highly selective when he said that "today only half as many girls between 15 and 19 years old bear a child in their teens than when their grandmothers were that age". He seems to have decided that today's grandmothers should be judged on the basis of the figure for live births for 1971 in Table 3.1, i.e 50.6 per thousand and to compared that figure with the most recent figure, i.e.24.8 per thousand for 2008. That gets you a 50% reduction, but you have to choose your figures with care to do so.
I note that most of the teenage mothers in 1971 were married: only 26.1% were not. Nowadays over 90% are not married.
So the proportion of single teenage mothers has risen from about 12.5 per thousand to about 22.5 per thousand since 1971, an increase of about 80%.
I'll leave the points we agree on to one side. ;-)
As for the main point: I was indeed referring to the quoted text. There are many questions that the rest of your text raises. For instance: You claim that, by reading the media, you can often guess what questions Cameron will ask at PMQs. In which case, have you not considered applying for Nick Robinson's job, as he tends to get it wrong... ;-)
Firstly, think of when Blair faced Major. Were not the questions Blair asked often topical?
Secondly, that is exactly what the leaders of opposing parties should be doing! Often the stories in the media *are exactly* the stories that matter to the public (although whether by push or pull is a different matter). Therefore it is natural that the Prime Minister be asked questions about them. As I said, Blair did exactly the same.
I mean, who would have though it? Politicians addressing issues that matter to people! Well I never!
Thinking off the top of my head (and maybe talking out of another part of my anatomy), perhaps the way it should work is:
1) MPs collect issues raised from constituents.
2) These are classified and collated by the party. Analysis is done to detect organised campaigns.
3) The 'hot topics' are analysed. What is the party's current position on this topic? Does it require changing and clarifying?
4) Policy is changed, clarified and/or reiterated to reflect public opinion.
5) This process is open (with private details kept private). Parties can see what matters to constituents in other areas.
Additionally, much more on the reasoning behind policies will be given. I want to see policies based on fact, not on some political philosophy.
This should reduce the direct influence of the media. It is also something that is easier than ever to do in the wonderful world of Web 2.0. Unfortunately none of the parties do this currently, although it looks as though the Conservatives are moving towards it. I'm not sure that there's is quite the right approach, though.
Some immediate disadvantages come to mind:
1) Campaigns could be formed to adversely influence opinion.
2) The media could try and lead this. Take some of the petitions on the Number 10 site. However, it would be *indirectly* leading it.
3) A long-view and non-reactionary viewpoint would be needed.
4) Silent minorities might be adversely effected (than again, they already often are, and this might give them a stronger voice).
5) The parties may not like what they hear.
Point 5) may be the killer...
My wife recently wrote to our local MP, Sandra Gidley, about an issue that matters deeply to her (signing an EDM about Uganda). I am not a Lib Dem supporter, but Sandra's reply was courteous and, more importantly, she did something about it. It has certainly made me strongly consider voting for her. This is the way politics should work.
This is getting very OT. Apologies. Also, feel free to think I'm talking rubbish. It is a habit I have ;-)
"Excellent article" Yeah! When it enters the public phsyche it's the old addage "There's no smoke without fire" & I agree wholeheartedly,the fact,once the distortion is in the public domain "the truth is always the casualty"
cheers
This was fraudulent propaganda with the objective of damaging public perception of our Labour Government's performance. He seems to have been caught out this time, but what he does devalues his office.
It is tempting to misrepresent statistics, and our Government has been guilty in the past. However, Grayling (or his researchers) are fabricating, comparing non-comparable data, sexing up the dossier, acting in a completely cynical way. They must be desperate.
I quite agree with you on these points, and I think that is exactly why the misuse of statistics is both cynical and dangerous.
"Part of the problem is that so many people - both in politics, the public and the media - do not understand the fundamental concepts of statistics. And to a certain extent I count myself amongst them. For instance, try asking the average person on the street the difference between median and mean."
"This means that it is very hard for the average person to interpret the raw or collated data even if they wanted, and they have to go on what is released in the media. Also, the media tend to 'dumb-down' the data - I cannot remember the last time I saw a graph in the media with error bars or even mention standard deviations. Yet often this information is vital to know."
You also pick up assumptions of how the Conservative party works
"Your assumption about the way the Conservative party works is exactly that: an assumption. I have no idea whether it is true or not. It is a very convenient assumption for you, though, isn't it? Could you not come up with any other scenarios?"
I am not sure if you are referring here to this? which was in my earlier post.
"Lets look at the way it happens!
You have here a complete package.
They start with a slogan - broken britain.
They look for evidence to back that - eye witness stories -
or Statistics which look on a superficial level to prove their point.
You get the press on to it
You get the PMQ soundbite- which means the BBC cover it prominently.
Then the quality press pick up on it, to explain why it is that the story is actually not entirely what it seems.
By the end of that process a few more people every time know that the use that the Conservatives are making of statistics may not stand up to closer inspection, but more people have accepted the subliminal message and harm has been done in many minds."
Clearly I do not have access to the offices in Conservative HQ.
I have however been following what goes on with rather more than the average level of attention for the last three years. I routinely watch PMQs right the way through, I also follow all the normal things like Radio4 Today, Newsnight, the papers, and I am also on twitter, which is I find a very useful source of information from a range of different sources.
I find that as a result of practice I am now extremely accurate in predicting the stories that David Cameron will pick up on for PMQs and for all of his big keynote speeches.
I have been reading the conservative manifestos and know how he uses language there.
I also spent an interesting couple of hours watching his head of PR Andy Coulson in front of the Press standards committee. so I think I have a reasonable grasp of how he thinks.
The statement he made there which made a lot of this click into place was this.
He was asked about the underhand ways in which the News of the world gathers information, and the fact that some of it was done by subterfuge. His response was "subterfuge is not illegal".
there was an interesting and pertinent thought for the day this morning which looked at the difference between working to the letter of the law, and working to moral principles.
Misleading people by the misuse of statistics may not always be illegal - though sometimes it might be. - but personally I do not feel it is moral.
"According to the Guardian last year the conception rate for those under 18 rose by over 80% bewteen 1990 and 2007"
Well, according to Table 4.1 of Population Trends Winter 2009 (Table 4.1), the conception rate for under 18s was 44.6 per thousand women under 18 in 1991 and in 2007 it was 41.9 - down 6 per cent.
Since 2007 (to September 2008) it has further declined to 38.7 per thousand women : down 11 per cent since 1996
I cannot imagine that the rate in 1990 was a lot different to the rate in 1991 so, yes indeed, the "Grauniad" may well have got it wrong.
Table 3.2 : Live births outside marriage for under 20s as a percentage of all live births for under 20s
1971 : 26.1
1976 : 34.2
1981 : 46.7
1997 : 88.7
2009 (June) : 94.4 (provisional)
Comment : almost doubled between 1979 and 1997, since when it has increased by 6.4 per cent
Table 2.1 : Live births outside marriage as a percentage of all live births :
1976 : 9.0
1981 : 12.5
1996 : 35.5
2009 (June) : 45.5 (provisional)
Comment : multiplied by a factor of around 3.5 between 1979 and 1996, since when the increase has been 28 per cent
Table 4.1 : Conceptions for under 20s, per thousand women under 20 :
1996 : 63.2
2008 (September) : 57.1 (provisional)
Down 9.7 per cent
Conceptions for the under 16s, per thousand women under 16 :
1996 : 9.5
2008 (Sept) : 7.7 (provisional)
Down 19 per cent
Also refer to Population Trends 1998 Spring 1998 : there's an illuminating article in there on the rise of the single mother.
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/downloads/theme_population/Pop_Trends_91_V3.pdf
Conservatives espouse "the family" and "children born to, and brought up by two parents in marriage." The record between 1979 and 1997 tells us something different.
A "social pattern" was established between 1979 and 1997 that has proved very difficult to eradicate.
Yes, agree entirely.
Teenage pregnancy rates
Reactionary laws can end up being very, very poor.
Part of the problem is the media shouting: "Something must be done! Why aren't you doing something?". It is a politician's job to resist this to a certain extent.
Well, yes, I agree with that to some extent. It has been a perpetual issue in politics with parties in government. It was a problem of Blair's ministries - constantly trying to scramble for more policies for change, inevitably leading to bum decisions. It was also, however, a problem of the Thatcher and Major governments - resulting in actions too far.
And the percentage of mothers who were aged between 12 and 18 in 2007 was 4% (twice the percentage in Eire, more than twice the percentage in France, Spain and Germany and more than 4 times the perecentage in the Netherlands and Italy).
If Mr Trodd is right either he is being highly selective in his choice of figure, or there was a massive drop in teenage pregnancies in the years up to 1990 followed by a steady rise which has yet to reach the levels of the uncertain period when the grandmothers of today's teenagers were themselves teenagers. Or, I suppose, the Guardian could have got it wrong.
It has been explained before on this site that the British Crime Survey is exactly about experiences of crime. The figure of 48% decrease is repeated in _Britain in 2010. Annual Magazine of the Economic and Social Research Council_, p. 63, and the ESRC is an independent research council.
I know it was a joke :)
All good here , Having laptop and internet problems , Hope you are well .
Danny
Your assumption about the way the Conservative party works is exactly that: an assumption. I have no idea whether it is true or not. It is a very convenient assumption for you, though, isn't it? Could you not come up with any other scenarios?
But how do you think the Labour party manages such things? After all, there's never a 'good day to bury bad news', is there?
This moralising is particularly galling as Labour itself has been guilty of misusing statistics. The case of the knife statistics was, if anything, far more serious. Yet you have conveniently forgotten that?
Part of the problem is that so many people - both in politics, the public and the media - do not understand the fundamental concepts of statistics. And to a certain extent I count myself amongst them. For instance, try asking the average person on the street the difference between median and mean.
This means that it is very hard for the average person to interpret the raw or collated data even if they wanted, and they have to go on what is released in the media. Also, the media tend to 'dumb-down' the data - I cannot remember the last time I saw a graph in the media with error bars or even mention standard deviations. Yet often this information is vital to know.
And another, admittedly silly, point on the 'change' agenda: when will there have been enough 'change' so that no more 'change' is needed and the Labour party will no longer change? Will this in itself be a change? Or is change constantly needed, and, if so, does this show that Labour is failing in the 'change' agenda?
Change for change's sake is pointless. Change should be focussed to fix problems. And implementing a law is change, so both parties have done this when in Government. Saying that Labour is the party of change is nonsensical.
He isint , I have only met one mp in my life and it was my local mp (labour) .
Danny
Didn't know that Eric Pickles was one of your mates, Danny.
Diana, what you're saying is that the tories are doing a poor imitation job of what Labour were doing in the mid-90s?
I'm having some difficulty following this because conception rates are different from birth rates. If conception rates are down, they are down - end of story, I would think.
"For example, today only half as many girls between 15 and 19 years old bear a child in their teens than when their grandmothers were that age."
Bearing children during teenage years is not in itself a sympton of "broken Britain" (as its the term you've used). For instance, it would be useful if you could show what percentage of our grandparent's generation who were teenage mothers were married, or at least in some demonstrable way able to bring up their children in a loving, safe and secure domestic environment.
"Smoking is falling among adults and children and is now at one of the developed world’s lowest rates."
You would hope so. But what has this got to do with "broken Britain" - sustained medical consensus on the risks of smoking for decades, bolsterd by the de facto banning of the passtime in the UK, has had the (in my view) positive effect of lowering the number of smokers. Its hardly the result of some social democratic revolution in social cohesion, is it...
Fortunately, we have had a Labour government for the last 13 years so it has not happened here.
Or has it? Those of us with memories longer than goldfish know it has: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/7780057.stm
And no minster has ever done this on our side? If i remeber rightly, The home sec misused knife crime stats before they had been checked by the stats office.
One of my friends said this will be the dirtyest election campaign ever , Cant we have a honest and positive campaign? and can we have a honest debate without name calling? dont voters deserve this?
Danny
There was at the time of the BBC interview quite a lot of talk of Chris Grayling being made to resign. I do not think that this even begins to get to the heart of the matter.
There is a fundamental difference in what the parties believe that statistics are for. This goes back to the ideological position on the parties.
If you beleive that the state should do as little as possible then you are not going to want to see statistics that prove that action is working, or even statistics that show that action is needed.
If you believe that the right action by the state can bring about change, then you are going to be very concerned about measuring what the needs are, what you are doing and what the effects of these actions are.
We are talking about the difference between evidence based action and evidence free inaction.
Sacking Chris Grayling would in many ways be the wrong action.
I believe that the Conservative party needs to take a long hard look at itself, and the way in which it has been campaigning and also at its antipathy towards statistical material.
If the evidence leads them to question their ideology, then that is called learning from experience!
Lets look at the way it happens!
You have here a complete package.
They start with a slogan - broken britain.
They look for evidence to back that - eye witness stories -
or Statistics which look on a superficial level to prove their point.
You get the press on to it
You get the PMQ soundbite- which means the BBC cover it prominently.
Then the quality press pick up on it, to explain why it is that the story is actually not entirely what it seems.
By the end of that process a few more people every time know that the use that the Conservatives are making of statistics may not stand up to closer inspection, but more people have accepted the subliminal message and harm has been done in many minds.
My feeling on all of this is that this is a pattern thay have fallen into. It has worked for them in the past. There is a fundamental disrespect for the voter's capabilities. The party seems to beleive that it is OK to manipualte material in this way- it will deliver the desired result of a political victory for the Conservatives, and then people will simply lose interest or forget, and if they complain, well ways can be found to deal with that!
If David Cameron has any respect for the voters, he needs to show this by beginning to respect the truth .
Sacking Chris Grayling is not enough. He needs to move away from theis PR based political and campaigning style. It might mean making a few changes in the backrooms, firing PR people and hiring statisticians. It certainly means taking a long hard look at his own conduct on PMQs.
What a stunning surprise that is. Of course, you're going to conveniently not define ``when their grandmothers were that age'' so we can't actually check your working, but given that contraception was not made available to unmarried women until the early seventies and wasn't made available on a routine, free basis until 1975, and abortion was difficult to obtain until the 1980s, I think you're using a false comparison. Let's look at
http://www.dcsf.gov.uk/everychildmatters/resources-and-practice/IG00200/
Conception rates amongst under 18s are down 11% since 1998, but abortion rates are up by about five percentage points, ie about ten percent (the rate is ~50%). As abortion rates would have been very low until the early eighties and have risen year on year, fewer teen births probably just reflects better access to abortion. A rate of 40 per 1000 aged 15--17 is nothing to be proud of.
Any chance of getting the percentages on that? Or a link plz?
"The result is a culture of fear and alienation, which trickles down to vulnerable youngsters, who seek status and protection through arming themselves"
Well we can't let that happen can we......oh wait....
Nobody I know buys into this 50% violent crime reduction that has been issued to you as a stock line. Not one. I'm not sure if it's because the figures don't match their day to day experiences or because they just don't trust any statistics this government comes out with any more.
Maybe it's a combination of the two.