BBC says Tories 'shopped' on crime con...

Delighted to hear the Conservative con on violent crime figures exposed on BBC Radio 4's Today programme this morning.

As I posted last week HERE, David Cameron's 'Broken Britain' campaign relies heavily on them being able to prove violent crime is rising...when he knows that in fact the reverse is the truth.

This morning, the BBC put Mark Easton - their journalist who first publicised the Tory con - head to head with Cameron's spokesman on crime, Chris Grayling.

Grayling had sent out spurious statistics to local Conservative parties across the country encouraging them to claim violent crime had risen since 1997.

Mark Easton explained that the Tories had ignored official clear warnings that the figures they were sending out could not be compared due to major improvements in recording violent crime.

The Conservative spokesman tried to move the debate onto his promise to make collection of crime figures independent of Government.

Mark Easton point out that the British Crime Survey, which has been around for 30 years, IS independent of Government and shows that in recnet years violent crime has been halved - down a full 50 per cent.

The Today presented challenged Mr Grayling: "Now that you have been shopped, will you send out a note to local Conservative parties instructing them not to use these figures...?"

No, of course not.

If they did that, the entire 'Britain is Broken' scare-mongering would be shown for what it is - a Tory con.

People who own homes are 'neat and tidy...'

A couple of people phoned me over the past few days asking if I'd heard the astonishing attack on council tenants made by Tory front bencher Chris (not Tony as I called him earlier!) Grayling on BBC Radio4's Any Questions last Friday.

I hadn't and frankly couldn't be arsed to use the 'listen again' facility on the BBC's website to check it out...

But Tom Watson now has a transcript of the complete exchange with Jonathan Dimbleby - and LibDem Ed Davey which started with Chris Grayling saying:

...I walked down a street in Chesham in Amersham and I looked at one of half of the street that was privately owned and one half that was publicly owned and the side of the street that was privately owned was neat and tidy and looked after and I think owning your own home gives people a sense of pride.

Do Cameron's Tories believe that people in council houses can't have a sense of pride or be 'neat and tidy'...

I think we should be told!