Samizdata

Not only has monitoring the real level of crime in the UK failed but the deterrence value of the law grows weaker by the day.

The main reason that a burglar has a one in five hundred chance of spending three months or more in prison is the “efforts” of the Crown Prosecution Service. I have often thought that if one were to burn all the graduates of the Ecole Normale de l’Administration, that the Gross National Product of France would rocket. In the case of the Crown Prosecution Service, its staff are too soggy to serve as fuel. However, the removal of that bunch of hopeless failed lawyers (think about it) from the gene pool would doubtless lead to a drop in crime.

The bungling over the prosecution of Paul Burrell last week is a case in point. Let’s not forget either that these are the people who prosecute shopkeepers for selling a pound of bananas to someone who asks for them and who decide that Tony Martin is a criminal.

I didn’t think it would happen quite this quickly but it does appear as if the much-predicted disintegration of the British Conservative Party is now well and truly underway.

It has been brewing for a while. The party is riven with squabbling factions such as traditionalists versus modernisers, pro and anti-EU, liberal versus authoritarian and mercantilist versus free marketeers. No party can long survive, let alone thrive, the eruption of that many running sores. Had they had the benefit of a leader strong enough to unite them (in the way that Tony Blair has managed to stamp his authority on the equally fractious Labour Party) then they may have pulled off a revival-trick but I was not alone in believing that Iain Duncan Smith was not that leader. And so it has proved.

On the face of it, the crisis issue (whether to allow non-married couples to adopt) hardly qualifies as the kind of major rock on which political ships could be expected to flounder. More likely, it has been siezed upon by a posse of the discontented as the means of launching an ‘intifada’.

It is always possible that the Tories will pull off some sort of miracle and survive as a major political party of state but I am doubtful for they are not just batting against an unassailable Blair or their own brittle consensus; they are also the first high-profile victims of the radically changing political fabric of Britain and the increasing disconnect between the public and established politics.

So, I think the end is near for the Tories as we have known them and that leaves New Labour in the role of ‘the establishment’ to be challenged.

But, by who or what? That’s the real question.

I don’t often base my postings on comments but this one in conjuction with yesterday news was asking for it. A comment on the famous ‘1984 Poster’ article left by lawyer Martin Pratt goaded us:

Oh, and street crime in London is down 30% from last year. Don’t see you rushing to post anything about that.

One reason for responding to Mr Pratt’s otherwise unremarkable comments is that he claims to have worked for the Crown Prosecution Service (the UK equivalent of Office of the District Attorney). I suppose that was to give him an air of authority or at least credibility when venting his frustration with Samizdata and the posting. It didn’t work then and certainly not after reading about a report that confirmed what everyone in Britain apart from former CPS lawyers has known for quite some time – the crime is rising and the massaged official statistics are plainly wrong!

The report, compiled by the think-tank Civitas and based on Home Office research, much of which is unpublished, discloses that the official total severely underestimates the real level of crime. The last survey showed about 13 million offences a year. The true level of crime is four times higher than official figures have previously shown with more than 60 million offences committed each year in Britain.

David Green, the author of the report, identifies the underlying problem:

…many, if not all, statistical reports are still being submitted to ministers for approval of their content and the timing of their release. In an open society, there is no justification for the involvement of party politicians in regulating public access to information. Inevitably they use their control of the flow of facts to gain advantage over their opponents.

The intriguing bit about it is the note at the end of the report: Civitas wishes to record its thanks to the Home Office for checking and confirming the accuracy of the comparisons between the BCS and recorded crime. This is because the head of the Home Office crime statistics unit, has seen the figures used by Civitas and has confirmed that they are accurate, saying that he is “content” with the report’s findings.

Watching them lie to us