Are Lib Dems crime-busters?
Updated on 20 September 2006
According to Nick Clegg, life has got a whole lot better since the Lib Dems got in the driving seat.
The Claim
"Look at Newcastle, where between 2002 and 2004, when Labour were in control, violent crime rose by 54 per cent, but since Lib Dems have run the Council, violent crime has fallen by 12 per cent."
Nick Clegg's speech to conference September 18, 2006.
Background
The claim was made by Liberal Democrat shadow home secretary Nick Clegg during his keynote speech to conference.
Summing up the Liberal Democrats' reputation as liberal crime-busters, he listed the practical solutions put in place by the Liberal Democrats across the country. This includes Newcastle, where, he says, a violent crime wave has been radically reversed since the Lib Dems took control.
Analysis
Crime figures are notoriously difficult to pin down; locating the source of Nick Clegg's figures proved to be challenging to say the least.
The Home Office
The Home Office collects official data on crime and the Labour government relies on the British Crime Survey (BCS) for its statistics. This surveys 38,000 people across the country on their experience of crime and is considered to be more reliable than police reports, which are subject to changes in reporting methods.
The police, on the other hand, collect their own recorded crime statistics, which can vary radically from 'official' government data.
The overall pattern of violent crime across the UK is one of decline. Between 1995 and 2004/5 violent crime fell by 43 per cent, according to the British Crime Survey.
But the British Crime Survey does not break down its statistics on crime for the city of Newcastle itself, only for the North of England. The Home Office suggests that police recorded crime is a more accurate means of undertaking a local crime analysis.
The police
Newcastle comes under the remit of Northumbria Police who have recorded a decline in violent crime across city since 2002.
According to its data for the 2002 to 2004 period -when Newcastle was under Labour control - there were 6,888 violent crime incidents and during this period violent crime fell slightly, by 1 per cent.
Where is this 54 per cent rise that Clegg refers to?
When the Liberal Democrats took over the council in 2004, violent crime declined more rapidly - dipping by 6 per cent in 2004-5 and by a further 6 per cent in 2005-6.
Police data shows that the Liberal Democrats have presided over Newcastle at a time when violent crime has begun to decline more rapidly than under the previous Labour administration - but not to the extent that Nick Clegg refers to in his speech.
The party
A spokesperson for the Liberal Democrats says that the figures Nick Clegg refers to relate to a pocket in the "worst part of the city centre" where violent crime underwent an about turn once the Liberal Democrats came into power.
Nick Clegg's researcher emails over data from Newcastle Council itself, which shows that violent crime in the city fell by 6.4 per cent between 2004-06 but the East End of Newcastle - a notorious crime hot spot - showed a 12 per cent drop.
But still no sign of the 54 per cent rise that Clegg referred to.
No light
A phone call to Newcastle Council sheds no light on the situation; the person who would know the answer is away this week.
A few hours later and another email from another Liberal Democrat policy advisor which - again - claims to provide the source for the claim. This time it comes from official government statistics on neighbourhood crime, collated - no one is sure how - through the Crime Reduction Partnership.
This data shows a 12 per cent drop in violent crime in Newcastle between March 2004 and March 2006, but between 2001 and 2003 it records a rise of, not 54 per cent, but 62 per cent.
"We got it wrong. It must have been a slip of the pen," says a Liberal Democrat researcher.
The second Liberal Democrat researcher blames the education policy of Labour for the maths mistake, and uses the confusion around Newcastle's crime figures as an opportunity for her party to bring some order.
"Crime figures have been condemned as the most confusing and we are involved in a review of crime statistics," she says. "It's easy to prove almost anything you want with the current figures."
Anything, that is, except the 54 per cent rise in crime in Newcastle to which Nick Clegg referred.
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Verdict
A highly selective use of statistics, something that has long characterised the crime debate on all sides.
The Lib Dems have used the confusion around their own claim to take aim at their rivals and vow to sort the situation out.
Sources
Nick Clegg's speech to conference, 18 September 2006
One of the sources of the claim
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