Without wishing to spoil anyone’s anticipation of the upcoming publication of Iain Dale’s latest guide to political blogging, I’m one of forty bloggers who has a self-penned entry in the book’s ‘Who’s Who’ section, in which I make the point that one of things that motivates my writing is a deep-seated sense of irritation with people who routinely demonstrate their inability to back up their opinions with reasoned argument, not to mention actual evidence to support their position.

People like… David Cameron, who is currently on the ‘Laura Norder’ trail and heavily pushing his ‘broken society’ canard to anyone who cares to listen, and especially to anyone who exhibits signs of my other pet hate - a congenital inability to think for themselves.

One of the running themes of Cameron’s current campaign is the much disputed suggestion that violent video games are in some unspecified manner a causal/contributory factor in violent behaviour amongst young people.

So it is that we find Cameron stating in speech given at Brize Norton, last Friday, that:

“But it’s not just about parents. It’s about our culture too…

…Movie and video game directors who push the boundaries of acceptable violence, and the regulators who meekly give in to them. You all have a responsibility. We can’t change our society unless you change your ways.

While, yesterday, the press was full of speculation that Cameron may announce some sort of ban on violent video games as part of a Tory ‘mini-manifesto’ on law and order,  following comments made on this morning’s BBC Breakfast news:

Speaking as he prepared to outline a Conservative “mini-manifesto” on law and order this afternoon, Mr Cameron criticised Labour’s “one-dimensional” approach to crime.

“We are never going to deal with crime unless we look at the broader context and say, ‘Yes, tough laws, strong action on the police, but also action to strengthen our society’.

“And that includes, I think, video games and things like that where we do need to think of the context in which people are growing up.”

In order to ‘think of the context in which people are growing up’ one needs to look at what we actually know about how video games may exert an influence on the behaviour, attitudes and values of young people and whether there is any conclusive evidence to support Cameron’s position.

So far as supporting the notion that violent video games exert a negative influence over young people, there are three main strands of argument that shape the public discourse on this subject. There is, first, the ‘common sense’ notion that ‘violence breeds violence’, simply cause and effect. Next there is the ‘evidence’ from violent incidents involving young people in which the perpetrator was found to have played violent video games. And then there is evidence from academic research in the field of adolescent development/psychology.

More astute readers will have already noted that two of these strands of ‘evidence’ are anything but rigorous or scientific in character, nevertheless it’s worth looking at all three strands, if only to dispose properly of two of them.

Starting with the idea that ‘violence breeds violence’, this what many - including Cameron one suspects - would see as the ‘common sense’ point of view, for all such a view relies on the logical fallacy of an appeal to the masses - argumentum ad populum - not to mention a modern variation on the old alchemical formulation of ‘like’ attracting, influencing or affecting ‘like’ that lies at the heart of all manner of unscientific ideas such as homoeopathy and astrology.

Common sense, in philosophy, is characteristic of epistemological particularism in which the core approach to any question is to ask, first, ‘What do we know?’ before asking ‘How do we know?’, in short its a matter of faith and belief and not evidence, logic and reason and therefore, to a rationalist like myself, an invalid basis on which to try and formulate public policy.

Arguments based on ‘evidence’ garnered from incident in which the perpetrator of a violent crime is later found to have played violent video games, for all its popularity with the press as a means of generating additional sales by way of stimulating a moral panic, are, similarly, founded on the use of a logical fallacy, specifically that of correlation implying causation in a form that leads inevitably to an infinite regress.

It’s a ‘chicken and egg’ problem. Did the perpetrator commit acts of violence because they were influenced by the content of the games they were playing? Or did their choice of violent games stem from their pre-existing capacity for and interest in violence? It’s a circular argument that cannot be definitively resolved in favour of only one of the two propositions and, therefore, again not one that can be validly advanced as a basis for formulating a rational policy in this area.

Neither argument stacks up when viewed rationally, nor do they provide anything that would approximate to ‘evidence’ at all, let alone anything that would legitimately support of Cameron’s stated position, and are, therefore, to be regarded as rhetorical arguments and discarded according.

This leaves us, naturally -and quite correctly - to consider the evidence as provided by academic research in the fields of adolescent development/psychology as the only valid basis against which Cameron’s position properly assessed - and at first glance the evidence appears fairly promising in terms of supporting his views.

Over the course of the 1980s and 90s, a string of media-fuelled moral panics around the suspected influence of, in the first instance, violence on television and film, which stemmed in the main from the growth of the market for VCRs and home videos, prompted a considerable amount of research into the possible effects that access to violent material in the home could be having on children and young people. And as the video game market developed during the mid to late 1990s and rapid technological developments in computers and games consoles enabled these games to become more and more immersive and interactive and to deliver increasingly realistic graphics and sound, researchers made the logical move from investigating the impact of a passive medium (film/TV/video) to that of this new interactive form of entertainment.

And so, by the early part of this current decade one began to see the appearance of a series of research studies into the effects of video games on young people, studies that appeared to provide evidence that supported the contention that violent video games could, and did, have a harmful impact on at least some young people to the extent that the accepted, and widely promoted, view of the American Psychological Association is that violent video games can have the following effects on children and young people:

1. They can cause young people to inappropriately resolve anxiety by externalising it in the form of violent actions rather than by talking about their feelings or expressing emotions by way of, for example, crying,

2. They fail to teach young people that actions have moral consequences and desensitise them to the real effects of violence behaviour,

3. They encourage and foster feeling of aggression and anger, and

4. They inhibit the development of effective communication and social skills.

That’s, broadly speaking, been the prevailing, if disputed, view since around 2000/2001, and the one most extensively promoted by the media, not least in the context of the growth and popularity of ‘pop psychology’ programmes and afternoon talk/discussion shows - think Oprah, Ricki Lake,Trisha, that kind of thing. Indeed, for a good example of how this particular perspective on violent video games is being pitched in the US, one needs look no further than this page on the website of Dr Phil McGraw, whose syndicated afternoon show ranks second in the industry in terms of viewing figure and, so his biography page tells us, ‘garnered the highest ratings of any new syndicated show since the launch of The Oprah Winfrey Show’.

This is all well and good, but for the fact that the research from which this evidence was taken is now getting on for 7-8 years old, and in some cases more than 10 years old when one allows for the time required to carry out the research and the time-lag between completion of a study and its publication in an appropriate journal.

Things have moved on, both technologically in terms of the capabilities of computers/game consoles and the scope and breadth of video games, particularly in terms of increasing levels of visual and auditory realism and interactivity, not just with the game but increasing, via the internet, with other players; and also in terms of our understanding of how young people respond to them.

The litany of negative effects ascribed to violent video games given above has long been subject to dispute. This paper (abstract only), from ‘American Family Physician, and published as early as 2002, concludes from a meta-analysis of 29 published studies that:

…contrary to popular impressions, little evidence supports concerns that violent video games are linked to aggressive or antisocial behavior. They caution that this topic is quite complex and not easily studied. The effect may depend on individual characteristics, including age and mood before playing the game, as well as the characteristics and complexity of the game itself. Modern, more realistic games may have very different effects than earlier versions. The authors do not regard violent video games as a significant public health concern.

Which prompted this, in many ways, remarkable ‘Editor’s note’ to be appended to the abstract:

EDITOR’S NOTE: While this article is somewhat reassuring, the pervasive nature of violent video games continues to be disturbing. Besides the direct effects on behavior, what effects do these games have on developing understandings of reality or “normality”? These questions have been raised by every generation about the recreational pastimes of young persons. Novels, films, radio, and television have all been accused of leading young people astray and inducing violent or antisocial behavior. The fuss about video games may be just another case of curmudgeons complaining–but they do differ from earlier pastimes in their reality and scope for direct participation. It will be good news if the link to violent behavior turns out to be a false alarm, but we still have to deal with the consequences of the time diverted to these games. In addition to time lost from studies and other activities, the passive nature of the games plus the link to snacking makes them prime contributors to the epidemic of obesity in young persons.–a.d.w.

It is unusual in professional journals, in the first instance, for an editor to append openly sceptical remarks to a piece of published research but even more so ones in which the editor’s commentary persists in asserting, as a matter of fact, an assumption that the paper, itself, quite clearly rebuts, i.e. the editor’s reference to ‘the direct effects on behaviour’ against the paper’s conclusion that ‘little evidence supports concerns that violent video games are linked to aggressive or antisocial behavior’.

Noticeably, the editor then seeks to ‘move the goalposts of the debate’ with the following remarks:

…what effects do these games have on developing understandings of reality or “normality”? These questions have been raised by every generation about the recreational pastimes of young persons. Novels, films, radio, and television have all been accused of leading young people astray and inducing violent or antisocial behavior.

It is palpably the case that no one has ever successfully established a clear, and generic, causal link between any of the listed recreational pastimes (novels, etc.) and violent/anti-social behaviour:

The research paper also notes clear methodological deficiencies in the published researched reviewed in the course of this study:

An extensive search of literature databases, personal contacts, and other sources identified 29 studies of this topic. The studies varied greatly in design and quality, leading the authors to conclude that a major deficiency in randomized, well-controlled studies prevents firm determinations from being reached.

Nevertheless, by the time of publication, the doubtful notion that a causal link between playing violent video games and anti-social behaviour had been established had not only passed in the public domain but had also been accepted as ‘conventional wisdom’ within psychology/psychiatry and amongst medical practitioners.

There are two other reasons for picking out this particular study from a number that have been conducted over the past 8-10 years that directly challenged the notion that there is an established causal link between violent video games and violent behaviour.

First, as the abstract points out, in the United States:

rates of adolescent violence, homicide, weapon-carrying, and other markers of antisocial behavior fell consistently during the period when violent video games became ubiquitous, more graphic, and more realistic.

Such a trend, although a matter of correlation and not an established proof, quite obviously, militates against the suggestion that violent video games cause or create a tendency towards violent behaviour in young people, which if it were true would see youth violence increasing as such games became more widely available and more realistic/immersive.

The overall trend in youth crime in the UK over the last ten years is, admittedly, a little different to that found in the US at the time of this study.

Over the last 3-5 years both the overall levels of youth crime and the numbers of offenders have remained pretty much stable, for all that both press and politicians would appear to want us to think otherwise when it suits their agendas; and for the four to five years before that, while the level of crime remain broadly static, the number of offenders actually fell (by 14% between 1998 and 2001). Recorded figures for certain types of offences, particularly offences involving violence against the person and sexual offences do show marked statistical increases over recent years, but much of this stems from changes in both the recording of data on criminal offences and, particularly in relation to sexual offences, from changes to the law introduced by the Sexual Offences Act 2003, which have put many more offences on to ‘the books’.

The relevant data, in this case, comes in part from the 2005 Offending Crime and Justice Survey which, like the British Crime Survey, tend to present a more even and balanced picture of trends in criminal activity than does data taken from the recording of reported offences by the Police.

The overall trend in youth crime in the UK over the last ten years or so has, therefore, been one in which the level of criminal activity has been broadly stable but increasingly concentrated within a core group of serious, persistent and frequent offenders who make up 30% of those young people who carry out criminal acts but account for 82% of all criminal conduct.

Again, this is not really a pattern of activity that supports the contention that a causal link exists between violent video games and violent behaviour - the most one can say is that the data here is inconclusive.

The second reason for picking out this study lies in this set of observations:

In children of middle-school age and younger, no association was found between video games and aggression in girls. In boys, studies report both increased and decreased aggression. Studies of middle- and high-school students predominately studied boys and often used self-report. Again, both calming and arousal effects were reported, and no consistent relationship was demonstrated between violent games and actual behavior. In college students and young adults, results were again mixed, but studies reporting calming effects were more common, particularly if the prior mood was hostile, angry, or aggressive.

This provides a neat bridge to a recent study, published in the Journal of Adolescent Psychology, by researchers from the Massachusetts General Hospital’s Centre for Mental Health and Media - which, in addition, is part of the Harvard University Medical School - which investigates in detail the use of video games, including M-rated games (those classified for over 17s due to their violent content) amongst Middle School children (12-14 age group), and in particular, asks those young people why they play these games and what they get out of the experience.

The findings of this study are, to say the least, interesting not least in noting how widespread access to M-rated games is amongst this age group - it reports that two-third of the boys and and a quarter of the girls included in the study had played at least on M-rated game in the preceding six month period, with ‘Grand Theft Auto’ being the most popular game amongst boys, and second most popular amongst girls behind ‘The Sims’ - GTA is, of course, based on the premise that the gamer plays out, in the first person, the role of a member of violent criminal/street gang. And yet, despite this evidence of the young people in this group having such extensive access to games of this kind, the trend in youth crime in the US continues to head downwards.

Moreover, this study reports that:

Many children are playing video games to manage their feelings, including anger and stress. Children who play violent games are more likely to play to get their anger out.

Dr Phil would probably contend that this is no real substitute for a good cry and a trip to see a therapist, but what this does appear to show is that far from stimulating the kind of externalised aggressive behaviour previously reported as evidence for violent games having a harmful impact on young people, teenagers are actually using these kind of games to manage and ameliorate feeling of stress, anger and aggression by taking out their frustrations on pixels instead of people. And to explode yet another negative characteristic previously attributed to video games, the report also notes that:

“Contrary to the stereotype of the solitary gamer with no social skills, we found that children who play M-rated games are actually more likely to play in groups - in the same room, or over the Internet,” says Cheryl K. Olson, ScD, co-director of the Center for Mental Health and Media and lead author of the study. “Boys’ friendships in particular often center around video games.”

What was once widely regarded as a solitary and anti-social activity has, with the development on online, multi-player gaming, become an important social activity amongst boys in this age group and one in which the greatest degree of social engagement is focussed on M-rated games, many of which support both competitive and team-based play.

Olsen goes on to make the point that:

“…violent game play is so common, and youth crime has actually declined, so most kids who play these games occasionally are probably doing fine,”

“We hope that this study is a first step toward reframing the debate from ‘violent games are terrible and destroying society’ to ‘what types of game content might be harmful to what types of kids, in what situations?’ We need to take a fresh look at what types of rules or policies make sense.”

In simple, and eminently sensible terms, she suggests that for the vast majority of young people, exposure to fictional violence through the medium of video games has no appreciable impact on behaviour in the real world. If anything, the evidence that shows these young people actively using such games as a means of safely releasing pent-up frustrations suggest that they may even be making some small contribution to the ongoing trend in which youth crime is falling in the US.

What see, quite correctly, notes is that such games can, in very specific circumstances, prove harmful, but that this is function of the individual circumstances of the young people who do experience such effects. Of themselves, video games do not, globally, cause violent behaviour but in some individuals they may serve to trigger a pre-existing disposition towards violent conduct or other relevant psychological condition that can produce a harmful outcome.

As evidence goes, that’s a damn good argument for parental vigilance when it comes to knowing what kind of games your child is playing and what they might be getting up to online, but not a basis for imposing a ban on the sale of violent games or for making public policy.

As it turns out, what Cameron appears to be proposing is something less than the ban on violent video games about which the press have been speculating, as is apparent from the relevant section of the Tory’s mini-manifesto:

The second aspect of popular culture which causes concern is the content of films and video games which are marketed at children and young people, or accessible to them. Extreme, casual and callous violence in a context of social indifference and moral ambiguity and in the absence of positive, counterbalancing influences from family, community and the wider culture has a coarsening effect on the ethical sensibility of young people.

We all have a responsibility to ensure a healthy culture for our children to grow up in. This includes not just the producers of films and video games, but the manufacturers of relevant hardware, and the regulators who determine age-related classifications.

A Conservative Government will review the regulatory framework relating to films and video games to ensure that violence and misogyny are not directly promoted to young people.

This should include the role of the British Board of Film Classification. Regulatory authorities must be on the side of parents, building classifications that are trustworthy. Our review will consider what regulation is practical given the wide availability of content through a variety of modern media.

Which is some considerable way short of the ban that the press have been speculating about and likely only to result in a bit of tinkering with the current classification regime and, possibly, a few curbs on the advertising of some games in publications that are aimed at, or likely to reach, a youth audience.

The key phrase in all this is that this review ‘will consider what regulation is practical’, which in the internet age amounts to ‘next to none’ unless they intend to introduce Chinese-style monitoring and fire-walling of internet usage. Tightening the classification regime could result in a small number of films/games being refused a classification certificate, prohibiting their sale in the UK, but only at the cost of adding a bit more download traffic to the torrent networks, and while the publishers of gaming magazines might wonder whether restrictions on advertising could hit their revenues, such restrictions will have no effect whatsoever on gaming websites that operate from outside the UK and, therefore, outside the reach of the UK government.

One might easily write the whole thing off as no more than a typically Cameroonian exercise in empty, gestural politics, were it not for the reference to ‘the manufacturers of relevant hardware’, who are almost certain to view this as yet another opportunity to push for the wholesale adoption of their desperately unpopular digital rights management system; which, of course, have nothing whatsoever to do with limiting young people’s access to ‘inappropriate’ material and everything to do with controlling the distribution chain in order to screw as much money out of punters as humanly possible.

That aside, this looks to be nothing more than an exercise in empty-headed, cheap moralising, as does most of this ‘mini-manifesto’, which I’ll be getting on to over the next few days.

The Times has published an intriguing allegation regarding the background to the pedal-by shooting of Rhys Jones that, perhaps better than anything else I’ve read in the last few days, explains why its important that we crack down on teenage street gangs in the UK:

Detectives believe that Rhys, 11, was accidentally hit by a stray bullet as he walked through a pub car park on the private Croxteth Park housing estate.

The intended victim is believed to have been a senior member of the Strand gang — known as the Nogga Dogs — who had started a relationship with a girl from Croxteth Park. The gun boy was allegedly ordered to carry out the attack by an older member of the Croxteth Crew gang. The Croxteth Crew is based on a nearby social-housing estate.

Nogga Dogs? Croxteth Crew?

Fuck me, Britain’s teenagers really should be staying away from this whole street gang thing…

… because they’re shit at it.

‘Nogga Dogs’, for fuck’s sake!

What the fuck is a ‘Nogga Dog’ if its not a character from a pre-school TV show on CBeebies?

One of the recurring themes of late over at Tom Watson’s blog has been a new CBeebies show called ‘In The Night Garden‘, which features characters called ‘Igglepiggle’, ‘Makka Pakka’, ‘Upsy Daisy’ and ‘The Haahoos’. ‘Nogga Dog’ sounds a perfect name for a new character in the show, and if not there then it certainly wouldn’t be out of place in the revival of ‘Bill and Ben The Flowerpot Men’:

‘Flobbadobba-dobba-dobba-dobba Nogga Dog’

‘Flobbadobba-dob-dob Little Weeeeeeed’

And when this particular bunch of juvenile twats are not calling themselves the Nogga Dogs they are apparently known as the ‘Strand Gang’???

Sorry but that’s not a gang name either, it’s an old-time musical hall act, a bunch of ageing thesps scratching out a living on the Saga circuit by telling old jokes and singing medleys of traditional Cock-er-ney songs while wearing demob suits covered in cheap buttons.

And as for the ‘Croxteth Crew’, not only do they get zero for originality, but is that really a street gang, or is it a local rowing club?

The simple fact is that British teenagers are basically shit when it comes to trying to imitate American gang culture - they can’t even manage to come up with a halfway decent gang name.

Think about it.

Probably the most famous gang of all are the Hells Angels, and the name alone conjures evocative images of big fuck-off bikers cruising American highways on ornately decorated custom Harleys.

As gangs go, the Hells Angels have got it all; the seriously cool name, the logo, the bikes, the image, the reputation… mention the Hells Angels and you can’t help but think of Easy Rider; PeterFonda and Denis Hopper out on the open road on a pair of bad boy choppers with Steppenwolf blaring away on the soundtrack.

Whatever you might think of the lifestyle, when it comes to the ‘look’ the Hells Angels are just fucking cool.

Then you’ve got the two best-known and most notorious LA street gangs; The Bloods and The Crips.

Even if you’ve absolutely no fucking idea what either gang is about, just on the names alone you know damn well that you want to keep as far away from them, and their territory, as humanly possible.

Having a gang name like ‘Bloods’ or ‘Crips’ automatically sends a simple and extremely compelling message - we’re a bunch of scary-ass motherfuckers and you really, seriously, don’t want to mess with us.

What kind of message does a name like ‘Nogga Dogs’ send out?

We’re a bunch of spotty-faced chavscum wannabes.

And when it comes to coming up with a good gang name in the US, its doesn’t stop with just the Bloods and the Crips. Other well-known (i.e. notorious) gangs in the US include the ‘Black Disciples’, the ‘Gangster Disciples’, the ‘Latin Kings’ and the ‘Vice Lords’. Now those are what you call proper gang names, names that have real style and sound genuinely intimidating.

That’s the real life stuff, but even in works of fiction the Americans have got us beaten.

When Arthur Laurents, Stephen Sondheim and Leonard Bernstein needed fictional gang names for ‘West Side Story’ they managed to come up ‘The Sharks’ and ‘The Jets’, while the in film version of Grease the gang names used were ‘The T-Birds’ and ‘Scorpions’.

Now admittedly, even the Americans don’t get it right all the time - in the original stage version of Grease, the main gang were called the ‘Burger Palace Boys’ and not the ‘T-Birds’, but Hollywood soon managed to sort that one out and it still means that they have better gang names in fucking musical theatre in the US than anything our homegrown idiot scumbags can manage to come up with.

The whole idea of giving a street gang a name is to create an image, and just what the fuck kind of image does a name like the ‘Nogga Dogs’ conjure?

A bunch of shiftless halfwits slouching down the street with their hands in their pockets mumbling their special gang song…

Here come the Nogga Doggas. Splish-Splash. Splish-Splash.

Here come the Nogga Doggas. Splish-Splash-Splosh.

Take away their guns and more people would die laughing at the sight of them than anything else.

We have to get the message over to Britain’s teenagers that there really is nothing big or clever about trying to imitate American gang culture…

…because they’re shit at it. Just embarrassingly, humiliatingly, crap.

British teenagers just don’t have the sense of style necessary to carry off this whole gang business without looking like a bunch of cunts.

American gang members have custom Harleys, big fuck-off Cadillacs and Chevys with expensive hydraulic suspension systems, they sell crack, coke and crystal meth, wear shitloads of expensive bling and had NWA coming ‘Straight Outta Compton’.

British teenagers have a communal 15 year old Mini Metro ‘customised’ with a cheap Halfords body kit and hole drilled in the exhaust, wear £6.99 hoodies bought at the local market and a knock-off, ‘Burberry’ cap, hang around outside the local corner shop begging for a punter to go in an buy them 10 Silk Cut and a 2 litre bottle of Woodpecker and have Lily Allen coming straight out of an expensive private school.

Fuck all this banal wittering about to ‘fixing’ a society that isn’t broken in the first place, the message we really need to get across to these young people is that its really not cool to be a member of a street gang because you’ve got absolutely no sense of style and you look like a complete cunt.

And if any self-styled ’street gang members’ do happen to read this, then to crib a classic line from Baddiel and Newman, just watch this video…

…that’s you, that is.

As we’re on the subject of gun crime at the moment, its worth pointing out that Scotland has its own moral panic, unseemly bout of political opportunism and proposal for a bit of McBansturbation playing out by the numbers at the moment, albeit one in which its airguns and not handguns in the role of pantomime villain.

The story actually begins in March 2005 with the murder of two year old Andrew Morton of Easterhouse, Glasgow, who was shot in the head by a 27 year old drug addict, Mark Bonini. The weapon used, in what appears to have been a random shooting - Bonini claimed in court that it was an accident but pleaded guilty to ‘culpable homicide’, an offence that exists only under Scottish law - was an airgun.

The aftermath of this shooting is instantly recognisable as a ‘by the numbers’ moral panic.

The Scottish press decided, as newspapers always do that ’something must be’ done.

The child’s parents appear to have decided that nothing but a total ban on airguns will suffice as legislative weregild for the loss of dead son, even if a headstone and bench in the local park would be more traditional and much less hassle.

And the politicians in the Scottish Parliament started falling over themselves in their efforts to suck up to press and the dead kid’s family.

Oh, and Bonini got sent down for life with a minimum tariff of 13 years - the dead boy’s mother thought he should have got 25 years minimum.

Two years on and proposals for a complete ban on airguns, except for some that would be licensed for competition shooting and pest control, is still waiting in the wings, while the politicians North of the Border wait to see if legislation which comes into force next October to tighten controls on the sale of airguns has any measurable impact.

The dead kid’s family still want a total ban. The Scottish press, in the form of the Scotsman were reporting, last March, that:

Airgun crime in Scotland is at a seven-year high, with three fatalities in the last two years, including the death of Andrew Morton, the two-year-old Glasgow toddler who was shot in the head by Mark Bonini.

And last week, a 72 year old man was shot and killed by a 17 year old dickhead, using an airgun, after unfounded rumours that he’d molested a teenage girl were spread around his local area - paedogeddon and gun crime, it’s an unmissable combination.

All of which brings us up to date, and to today’s addition to the catalogue of squalid opportunism in which:

Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill told Radio Scotland it was vital airguns were removed from general circulation.
The executive want to bring in a licensing system for all new sales of airguns and restrict their use to sporting or gun clubs or for those working in areas like pest control.

Although new rules governing the ownership of airguns will take effect across the UK in October, the executive believe Scotland has a distinct problem with the weapons.

Mr MacAskill is arguing that Holyrood needs more powers to tackle the issue head on.

He said: “There is a distinct problem in Scotland with regard to air weapons in particular.

“We believe that we need to update an act that’s predicated to some extent on an act back in 1968 with many amendments since then, to have an act that’s fit for purpose in the 21st century.”

Scotland does, indeed, have a ‘distinct problem with airguns’ - actuall;y it has two distinct problems, the first being that that both Scottish politicians and the Scottish press have been bullshitting the Scottish public like crazy when it comes to the facts about airgun-related offences North of the Border.

The facts are that between 1995 and 2004/5, the number of recorded firearms offences in Scotland involving airguns fell from 1139 in 1995 to 486 in 2004/5 - the figures actually bottomed out in 2002/3, in which year there were only  329 such offences.

So far as injuries arising from airgun offences are concerned, one finds much the same trend - these fell from 355 in 1995 to a mere 94 in 2004/5.

As for homicides involving airguns, figures are available only from 2002 onward, during which period Scotland has averaged one such homicide a year. 2004/5 was, in fact, the peak year for airgun homicides - there were two.

To put this into context, the estimated total population of Scotland in mid 2006 was 5,116,900, of whom around 4 million are over the age of 18.

The ’seven year high’ figure cited by the Scotsman is for 2005/6, the year immediately following the death of Andrew Morton, during which there were 618 recorded offences, 120 injuries and just the one homicide, this being the death of 32 year old Graham Baxter, who was shot by his friend, Michael Loran, who was subsequently convicted on a charge of culpable homicide.

Everything you need to know about this case can be summed up in the following two paragraphs, taken from the BBC’s report of Loren’s conviction:

At the time, both men had a blood alcohol level three-and-a-half times the legal limit for drivers.

Police found the walls and woodwork of Loran’s house peppered with pellets.

So Loren shot his pissed-up friend - who has a learning difficulty as well - while in the process of drunkenly shooting up his own home with an airgun. This may have gone down, legally, as culpable homicide but there can be little doubt that the actual cause of Baxter’s death in the this case was that he was friends with a complete and utter dumbass twat.

Given that this ’seven year high’ was recorded in the year after Morton’s death, a year in which both the media and politicians were crawling over the whole airgun thing, would be unreasonable to suggest that much, if not most of the increase in this year was the result of somewhat more zealous policing by officers keen to be seen to be responding to demands that ’something must be done’ rather than, as is being claimed, that Scotland has a ‘distinct problem with airguns.’

The second ‘distinct problem’ in all this is, simply and obviously, that factual evidence doesn’t support the SNP’s contention that Scotland has a distinct airgun problem at all, in fact so far as the SNPs motivation in all this is concerned, aside from the obvious dick-swinging that is, these days, a mandatory requirement for all politicians talking about law and order, the key to understanding why they’re so keen on banning airguns is likely to be found in this statement:

Mr MacAskill is arguing that Holyrood needs more powers to tackle the issue head on.

In other words, the particular bandwagon that the SNP are climbing on here is the one in which this proposed, and unnecessary, blanket ban on airguns provides a plausible sounding, but factually spurious, justification for efforts to try and wheedle a bit more power and authority out of Westminster.

Once upon a time, the Scots went into battle with the English, for the prize of independence, wielding a claymore - these days its a dead kid’s coffin - my, how times have changed.

At the risk of getting right up Dizzy’s nose (yet again) it’s worth pointing out that unlike some bloggers I personally make a point of never taking statistical information provided by politicians, the media (or in some cases, other bloggers) at face value without first checking the original source information.

Call me Mr Picky, but I prefer to deal in the facts and not in conjecture, misinterpretation and propaganda, and if I’ve learned one this over the years it’s that the reporting of statistical information is rather akin to a game of ‘Chinese Whispers’ – the more people it’s been through before it gets to you, the more likely it is to have been overlaid with bullshit before it arrives.

So, on those occasions where Iain Dale starts ‘bigging up’ Dizzy with words to the effect of:

THIS post demonstrates why Dizzy is a must read blog.

And one follows the link to find that the starting point for Dizzy’s commentary is a graph lifted off the BBC’s website and third-hand report in the Times about the second-hand use of statistical information by a politician; ‘Basher’ Davis in this case…

Given that the BBC’s own graph showed the reality of firearms crimes (excluding airguns) whilst maintaining that gun crime “overall” is down, it really doesn’t surprise me that David Davis has written to Jacqui Smith pointing out that the Government is basically lying about the state of firearms crimes, and in particular firearms homicide.

The Home Office’s own statistics show that gun-related killings and injuries (excluding airguns) has increased for a factor of four since 1998. David Davis letter to Jacqui Smith quite rightly points out that to therefore say that gun crime is down (simply based on a reduction between this year and last, is both “inaccurate and misleading”.

…then one knows immediately that only sensible thing to do is check the facts before going any further.

The figures at issue here are those specifically relating to, as Dizzy notes, ‘gun-related killings and injuries (excluding air guns), which appear to show a fourfold increase since the total number of injuries since 1998/9:

THE government was accused yesterday of covering up the full extent of the gun crime epidemic sweeping Britain, after official figures showed that gun-related killings and injuries had risen more than fourfold since 1998.

The Home Office figures - which exclude crimes involving air weapons - show the number of deaths and injuries caused by gun attacks in England and Wales soared from 864 in 1998-99 to 3,821 in 2005-06. That means that more than 10 people are injured or killed in a gun attack every day.

The Times has obtained its statistics from ‘Homicides, Firearms Offences and Intimate Violence 2005/6’, a Home Office statistical bulletin published as a supplementary volume to the main crime statistics for England and Wales, and are derived specifically from ‘Table 2b Crimes recorded by the police in England and Wales in which firearms were used by degree of injury’ (pp 36), which is given below (excluding data on injuries from air-guns).

And as is obvious, what the Times is quoting as its ‘more than fourfold’ increase in gun related killings and injuries is derived from the total figures for all ‘injuries’ (342%), which does indeed show a more than fourfold rise in the total number of recorded injuries. However, as is also apparent, there is marked disparity in the degree to which this increase is spread across the three different categories of injury – due to a fall in recorded fatalities since 2001/2 there is no actual percentage change between the figures for 1998/9 and those for 2005/6. Serious injuries are up significantly (194% or almost threefold) over the period, while the biggest increase has been in ‘slight’ injuries, which are up by 405%.

To make sense of this data, one needs more than just the numbers – one also needs to understand how injuries are classified into the three given categories.

‘Fatalities’ is, of course, self-explanatory.

‘Serious’ injuries are defined by the Home Office as ones which necessitate detention in hospital, or which involve fractures, concussion, severe general shock, penetration by a bullet or multiple gunshot wounds.

And if you’ve been paying attention then you may have realized, from the inclusion of fractures, concussion and severe general shock in the list of serious injuries, that there’s a little more to firearms injuries than just getting shot; the definition of injury in use by the Home Office also includes injuries stemming from the use of a firearm as a blunt instrument and, in the category of ‘slight’ injuries, instances where a victim has simply been threatened with a firearm (or what appears to them, at the time, to be a firearm) even where they otherwise suffer no physical injury; and it is in the ‘slight injury’ category that there has been the greatest increase since 1998. It’s also the case, as we’ll see in a moment, that a firearm is not necessarily a gun.

If one looks at how the proportion of injuries falling into each of the three categories has altered over time, and as the overall number of recorded injuries has increased, one finds that in 1998/9, fatalities accounted for 6% of all firearms-related injuries, serious injuries came in at 19% and slight injuries at 75%. By 2005/6, fatalities had fallen as a proportion of all firearms-related injuries to a mere 1%, serious injuries had fallen to 12% and slight injuries had increased to 86%. Statistically speaking, there may be four times more recorded firearms-related crimes resulting in an ‘injury’ today then there were eight years ago, but if you are caught up in such an incident, you’re now six times less likely to be killed and around a third less likely to be seriously injured than you were in 1998/9.

To understand why this is the case, you need to look not only at the statistics for injuries in gun-related crimes but also at how the types of weapon used in firearms offences have altered over this same period:

These figures cover all firearms offences, including possession, supply, theft and criminal damage to property, not just those in which a recordable injury occurs, but provide a useful guide to trends in firearms availability/usage that can be read in conjunction with the data on injuries to build a fair picture the overall situation.

So, from the weapons data we can see that, overall, the number of recorded firearms offences has a little more than doubled since 1998, with the number of offences increasing in all weapons categories other than for shotguns.

Handgun are the type of weapon most often used featuring in firearms offences in 2005/6, as they were in 1998/9, although as a percentage of all offences the incidence of handgun-related offences has fallen from 52% to 42% over that time. So far as other classes of weapon are concern, the percentage incidence of shotgun-related offences has fallen by half over this time, from 12% to 6% and other categories are pretty much static, but for offences involving imitation firearms, which now make up 30% of all offences, up from 11% in 1998/9.

To provide a little additional clarity, it should be noted that the vast majority of offences involving imitation firearms (85%) relate to BB guns and ‘soft’ air guns, which are not powerful enough to fall within the regulations covering traditional air-guns but which, since 2003, cannot legally be carried in a public place if they resemble a real firearm. Other ‘weapons’ included in this category are, as might be expected, conventional replica firearms and deactivated weapons. The ‘Other’ category is made up of a rather more eclectic mix of weapons ranging from the relatively harmless (unconverted starting pistols) through weapons with some damage potential (CS gas and pepper sprays, tasers) right up to, thankfully, a very small number of offences involving genuinely lethal kit – there were 133 recorded offences in 2005/6 involving machine guns, which fall into this category.

One must also take into account the fact that the manner in which these statistics were compiled has altered over the period covered by the data, due to introduction, between 2001 and 2003, of the National Crime Recording Standard, which came into force in 2002 but which some forces began to work to from 2001. Under this new standard, the police began to record all reported crimes, irrespective of whether there was any evidence to support the substance of a report – before 2001, a reported crime for which the police could find no supporting evidence, as might happen if someone phoned the police to say that they’d seen an unidentified youth with what looked, to them, like a handgun, would not be recorded in the crime figures if the police could find no evidence to confirm that the reported incident took place. This new standard required the police to record all reported offences, even if no supporting evidence was forthcoming, and resulted in a significant jump in the statistics across all recorded crime as reported offences that would not have previously been included found their way into the dataset.

To illustrate how this will have impacted on these figures, the statistical impact of the new recording standard on offences against the person, one of the categories most relevant to the statistics on firearms-related offences,  has been calculated by the Home Office to have accounted for an apparent increase in recorded offences of 23%. For 2001/2, the year in which this adjustment impacted on the figures for injuries in firearms related offences, this still left the government with an effective increase of 7-9% for fatalities and slight injuries and a worrying 38% increase in serious injuries – not good, but not as bad as the raw figures of 32% (fatalities), 61% (serious injuries) and 30% (slight injuries).

Overall, what the data actually provides is a mixed picture. The trend has been downwards in some areas since 2001/2 – fatalities (i.e. homicides) are down as are offences involving shotguns (and especially sawn-off shotguns) and, perhaps surprisingly, handgun offences, when one looks at all offences. Against that the picture in terms of serious injuries arising from firearms offences is, at best, mixed since the big increase that came with the new recording standards in 2001, and what is certainly increasing is the number of reported incidents in which someone is threatened with what appears to be a firearm, even if the massive increase in offences involving imitation weapons does tend to suggest that in many, if not most, cases, the weapon used is likely to be an imitation. Not that that is, of course, any consolation if one is on the receiving end of such a threat – it’s not as if the assailant is going to hand over their ‘gun’ to allow you to check to whether it’s a fake or not.

So what we have here, in essence, is a situation in which both the government and the opposition can point to some statistical evidence which supports their chosen position, and equally there is other statistical evidence that doesn’t back their arguments up and which they will be keen to downplay. For example, the Times article includes the text of David Davis’s letter to the Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith, in which he states:

According to Home Office figures, gun crime (excluding air weapons) has almost doubled since Labour took office. The annual crime figures, released by the Home Office in July, suggest a 13% decrease on the previous year, which neglects the 18% increase in firearm homicides.

An 18% increase in firearms homicides over the 2005/6 figure of 49 amounts to an addition nine fatalities over the previous year – 58 homicides instead of 49, which is still the second lowest annual figure since 1999/2000 – and if ‘gun crime’ has ‘almost doubled’ since 1998/9 on the strength of this year’s (2006/7) figures, then it’s actually fallen over the last year as the percentage increase for 2005/6 over 1998/9 was actually 113%, more than double. It is also untrue, and deeply disingenuous of Davis, to suggest that the headline rate for the increase/decrease in all crime given in the annual crime figures (actually a 13% decrease last year) ‘neglects’ the 18% increase in firearm homicides. That figure undoubtedly includes the data for firearms homicides in its calculations but, with only 58 such offences over the year the number of such homicides, will have almost no effect whatsoever on the headline crime rate for all crimes – which should tell you everything you need to know about the actual extent to which you are at risk of being murdered with a gun of any description.

Davis goes on to make an allegation that simply doesn’t stand up when one looks at the data.

In light of this information, your claim that gun crime is down is both inaccurate and misleading. One clear fact on gun-related violence is that if you don’t count it, you won’t be able to tackle it. Your predecessors opted for spin over substance. I hope that is a path you will avoid and would be grateful for an explanation of what action you plan.

Firearms-related homicides are up by the cited 18% - nine deaths in total – but otherwise the provisional figures show that total number of firearm offences fell from just over 11,000 in 2005/6 to 9608 in 2006/7. Shotgun offences declined by another 5% over the previous year. Handgun offences fell by 11% and, having risen to 476 in 2005/6, the number of serious injuries resulting from firearms offences fell back to 413 last year.

As for biggest growth areas in recent years, ‘slight’ injuries and imitation weapons, especially BB guns and ‘soft’ air-guns, the news is, again, pretty good for the government. Slight injuries were down by 23% - and the report notes that 41% of these injuries were caused by pellets fired from BB guns, etc. Offences involving imitation weapons also fell by 24% over the previous year. (Source: Crime in England and Wales 2006/7, pp 63-64)

Overall, ‘gun crime’ is down this year on the basis of the statistical information given so far, but for the number of fatalities – and one cannot draw any inferences about those deaths without knowing the circumstances in which they occurred; nine additional homicides in gang-related

Homicides relating to to gang violence or that happen in the course of street robberies will have a very different perceptual impact on the public than firearms homicides that occurred in the course of domestic incidents. The dataset is, of course, incomplete, and may still, when published in full, provide further information about any shifting trends and patterns within the data, but if the government have been a little economical in their presentation it is only in failing to point out that the fall they’re referring to is derived from a comparison of only the most recent figure and not from long-term trend data.

Against that, Davis’s comment about ‘not counting’ gun crime appears to be a complete and utter nonsense, if not an outright lie, and a matter upon which Jacqui Smith should call him out and demand that he provide evidence of where firearms offences have not been counted in order to substantiate his allegation.

Davis’s apparent claim that the long-term trend data cited earlier is, and taken from the Home Office’s detailed report on homicides, firearms offences, etc. for 2005/6 is equally laughable.

Its published in the report in a section entitled ‘Injuries in crime involving firearms’ in a chapter entitled ‘Recorded crimes involving firearms’, the location of which is clearly indicated in the report’s table of contents. Not exactly difficult to find then.

So far as talk of ‘cover ups’ is concerned, the information in question could be said to ‘buried’ only in the sense that the majority of the general public don’t habitually read Home Office statistical reports; they rely, instead, on the press [and on opposition politicians, such as the Shadow Home Secretary] to inform them of anything of particular interest that might appear in such reports. As the 2005/6 report, about which Davis is now seemingly complaining, was published in January of this year and is freely available from the Home Office’s website – and was presumably also placed in the House of Commons library, that this information has received little or no publicity until now appears to be less a case of a cover-up or the deliberate burial of information by the government and much more a case of Davis and his research staff falling down on the job, by failing to make anything of this data until now, and crying foul to cover up their own failings, while his complaint, such as it is, amounts to little more than whinging about the government not elected to do his job for him.

Getting back to Dizzy, he advances two predictions cum arguments which he mistaken appears to think will automatically gainsay any lines of attack open to Labour bloggers, the first of which…

I can imagine what the Labour response to such an accusation will be. It will either be, as Chris Paul tried to imply in the comments here, that if you include airguns in the data set then it’s somehow not as bad (which is of course nonsense when you are being very specific about the type of crime - gun homicide has increased four fold).

…merely demonstrates that he either hasn’t read the Home Office report that Davis and the Times are referring to, or if he has, he simply hasn’t taken it in. For one thing, it is he data four all recorded injuries arising out of firearms offences that has risen fourfold since 1998/9 – give or take the caveats about how those ‘injuries’ are defined and categorised – and not firearms homicides, the actual number of which was the same in 2005/6 as it was in 1998/9.

And, of course, as I’ve shown throughout, one can advance a perfectly serviceable line of counterargument against Tory claims while excluding the data for air-guns entirely from consideration.

His second argument:

The other response, at some point, that I would expect, is for someone to say that David Davis is playing party politics with the tragic death of Rhys Jones. That it is shallow and naked opportunism. This is the stock response to anything the Tories say eventually. They’ll probably then roll out some 20 year-old statistics showing how it was much worse under the Tories, but that won’t of course be playing party politics.

…is nothing more than an obvious and poorly constructed straw man.

That opportunism is an obvious charge to level against Davis does not mean that such a charge in untrue.

He is, quite patently – and badly, when one looks at the actual evidence - seeking to exploit media interest in gun crime arising out of the aftermath of the killing of Rhys Jones to advance his party’s political agenda and mount an attack on the government’s record on gun crime. What else [sadly] should one expect from a senior opposition politician in this day and age – Davis would be perceived to be failing to do his job if he didn’t use the current media attention on gun crime to try and put one over on his opposite number in government. Shallow and naked opportunism is, I’m afraid, the order of the day when such incidents occur, whether one is dealing with a politician shilling for votes or a newspaper trying to boost circulation during the slowest sales period of the year.

And Davis is not alone is trying to exploit this whole situation for political advantage – members of the government will, in their own way, be doing much the same thing as things progress and, in that respect, neither side is any better than the other nor any more legitimate claim to automatically occupy the moral highground.

None of this takes us any closer, of course, to actually understanding why incidents, such as the senseless killing of Rhys Jones, occur or how we can prevent them in future – and for the record, my money would be on this amounting to nothing more explicable than a random and entirely senseless act of reckless stupidity by a complete dickhead who mistakenly thought it would be somehow big and clever to scare a few kids with a handgun and wound up shooting one of them in the back of the head…

…and that is anywhere close to the mark then, on the evidence of the last few days, the collective understanding and knowledge of the political classes is likely to be about as much use as a chocolate teapot when it comes to understanding such an incident, let alone trying to prevent something similar happening in future.

In response to Jones’s untimely death, the government have [as usual] announced their usual raft of half-arsed and ill-thought out ‘initiatives’ including, most absurdly, the idea of having a telephone number where people can anonymously report people who they think may be in possession of an illegal firearm. Quite how and why no one, least of all the press, has yet cottoned on to the fact that this ‘new initiative’ consists of nothing more than a description of ‘Crimestoppers’, which has been running for years, tells you just about everything you need to know about public/media gullibility in the face of a compelling looking moral panic in full flow.

Meanwhile, Cameron’s trope about a ‘broken society’ rattles on, and on, and on like a broken record, for all that its perfectly apparent that he hasn’t got the first idea of what society is, or might be other than that ‘it’s different from the state’ – duh! – and that it has [in his uninformed opinion] something vaguely to do with charities and voluntary organizations doing some of the stuff currently undertaken by the public sector. Which tells us not only that he has no concept of the nature of society, not even to the point of an explicable hypothesis, but that he also cannot manage to distinguish between the generality of the concept of society and the considerably more limited concept of ‘civil society’ – which is what all the charity/community stuff is referring to – which is no more synonymous with society, as a whole, than is the state.

To clear this one up, the state and civil society, not to mention the individual and a range of other collective institutions – the law, religion (unfortunately), politics and political institutions, trade unions and other group structures - are all components of society, and what matters is not how these things differ from each other and from the generality of society but whether and how they relate to each other and how those relationships are organized, managed and balanced out.

What both Cameron’s ‘broken society’ canard and Davis’s tendentious and unsustainable allegations about the government’s limited use of current gun crime statistics over the last few days demonstrate is yet more evidence to support Hannah Arendt’s characterisation of the nature of totalitarian thinking…

“Before mass leaders seize the power to fit reality to their lies, their propaganda is marked by its extreme contempt for facts as such, for in their opinion fact depends entirely on the power of the man who can fabricate it.”

And what makes this observation all the more worrying is that, much as one tries, one cannot think of any statement on the subject of law and order made by a senior politician from either of the two main parties in at least the last 15 years or more – certainly not since the Bulger murder in 1993 - that would not also support Arendt’s statement.

There’s a rather interest piece of linguistic legerdemain on the Telegraph’s website:

One in four babies born in the UK now have a foreign mother or father, Government figures have revealed.

Office for National Statistics (ONS) data for the year to July 2006 showed the proportion of babies born to a foreign parent has risen to 25 per cent compared with 20 per cent in 2001.

I wonder if the ONS has ever thought of compiling statistics on stroke incidence rates in conservatives following the publication of stories like us? It’s a thought…

…however, if one looks a little further down the page - a matter of only a paragraph or so - one finds a rather important word has been omitted from the Telegraph’s opening gambit:

A number of trends have produced the rise, including an increase in births to both UK-born mothers and foreign-born women, an ONS spokesman said.

“We have figures for the contribution of mothers and fathers born abroad and that has risen slightly from under 20 per cent in 2001 to slightly over 25 per cent now,” he said.

“That reflects the cumulative effect of immigration over the last 40 years.”

So despite the obvious implications of the reference to ‘a foreign mother or father’ - i.e. that we’re dealing exclusively with people who are not British citizens - what the statistics actually deal with is people who were merely born in a foreign country, which will include those who are not British citizens, of course, but also those British citizens who were born overseas but whose families later returned to the UK and anyone who may have once been a foreign national but who has since naturalised as a British citizen either by choice or by way of marriage to a British citizen.

Before the obligatory ‘we’re being swamped by furriners’ nonsense kicks off, its well worth pointing out that ‘foreign born’ and ‘not British’ are by no means synonymous.

Planet Cameron is, by all accounts, a rather curious place…

Cameron stands by NHS cut claim

David Cameron is standing by claims 29 district hospitals are facing cuts to emergency and maternity services.

The Tory leader admitted one hospital, in north-west England, had been wrongly named by him as being under threat.

But he insisted all the others were facing potential cuts. The government says reviews are being carried out.

So you make a very basic error by incorrectly naming a hospital as facing cuts in services when it doesn’t and then stand by your claim? And to make matters even worse, the hospital in question is in the constituency of one of you own MPs…

It comes as Tory MP Henry Bellingham apologised to staff at his local hospital in King’s Lynn, which he said had been wrongly included on the list.

Mr Bellingham said the Queen Elizabeth hospital should have been consulted about the campaign.

“Obviously a mistake has been made and as a local MP I wasn’t consulted on this and I apologise unreservedly to the staff of the hospital,” the Norfolk North West MP told the BBC.

I do think there’s a lesson for all opposition parties, all parties actually and the government, if they are issuing a statement that affects an organisation, be it a hospital, the police, some school, they should always consult the chief executive or the headmaster or whoever it is.”

Seems fairly conclusive, although why it should be Bellingham making the apology and not Cameron is not exactly clear, especially as Bellingham states clearly that he wasn’t consulted about the hospital’s inclusion in Cameron’s propaganda - and while the underling apologises, Cameron is busy making excuses for his cock-up and trying to cover his arse…

However, Mr Cameron said that Queen Elizabeth hospital was under threat as it delivered under 3,000 live births per year - the level at which the strategic health authority decided a unit is not viable.

This is North West Norfolk we’re talking about here, a constituency that appears to amount to matter of Kings Lynn, the Queen’s Sandringham estate and a whole bunch of countryside - not a huge amount of scope for siting major hospital services, one might think, let alone for taking them away. The number of live births at the hospital may well be a factor in deliberations over the future development of maternity services in the area, but it will be one factor amongst many that come into play not least amongst which will be the available capacity at possible alternative sites and, especially in such an area, the matter of transport - to seek to reduce such decisions to a crude numbers game in which 3,000 live births is put forward as a hard and fast cut-off point for the viability of the service seems to say rather more about Tory preoccupations and propaganda than about any review process that may be undertaken in future.

Another hospital on the Tory list does not have a maternity or accident and emergency facility.

Altrincham General Hospital in Trafford does have a minor injuries unit. Mr Cameron said the party had meant to name nearby Trafford General Hospital instead.

Apart from that error, Mr Cameron said: “We stand by what we have in our document.”

That just takes Cameron’s arguments into the realms of high farce.

What we’re dealing with here is the matter of the location of A&E and maternity services in an urban area, specifically part of Greater Manchester and, like many such urban areas, if one compares how the various hospitals relate to each other in terms of geography and administrative organisation then quirks very quickly begin to emerge - for example Altrincham General may be part of the same NHS Trust as Trafford General, but if you live it that area and need to access A&E then you’re better off heading over to Wythenshawe Hospital, which may belong to a different NHS trust but is about half the distance from Altrincham of Trafford General. Its precisely these kinds of anamolous situation that make the question of where best to site critical services a considerably more complex matter that just plonking them on the site of existing hospitals and its impossible to adequate evaluate what the implications such decisions might be without being clear as to precisely what the alternatives on offer are - unless you’re politician whose more interested in vote-grabbing headlines than providing the best possible services to the public based on actual evidence.

To compound Tory embarrassment even further, having ‘fessed up to one cock-up and then claimed that everything else he’s said is gospel, it now seems that other hospitals listed by Cameron are fair queueing up to debunk his claims:

Other NHS trusts have contradicted the Conservative claims.

Chief executive of the Shrewsbury & Telford Hospital NHS Trust, Tom Taylor, said there is no threat to maternity services at the Princess Royal Hospital in Telford.

Meanwhile…

A spokeswoman for North Bristol NHS Trust - which covers Frenchay and Southmead hospitals - said Conservative claims that A&E services at Frenchay were under threat are “absolute rubbish”.

She told the BBC. “It simply isn’t true and it’s very annoying.”

However, the A&E unit at Frenchay will be closed and a new one built at Southmead Hospital five miles away, where there is only a minor injury unit at the moment.

So what’s happening here is simply that the A&E unit is moving from one site in the trust to another, one that seems, so far as one can see, to be rather more central placed in terms of the area the trust serves, which seems an eminently sensible course of action.

A spokeswoman for the Oxford Radcliffe Hospitals NHS Trust, which is responsible for Horton hospital in Banbury, said there is no threat to its A&E unit and extra consultants were being employed there.

And another claim bites the dust.

The Beeb goes to to cite Cameron as promising  a “bare knuckle fight” with Prime Minister Gordon Brown over district hospitals - personally I’d prefer some sign that Cameron can actually present an argument based on facts rather than conjectures and misinformation.

As Cameron used to work in PR at one point then its seems only fair to close this piece with a few reflections on the nature of marketing from the late great Bill Hicks, in the vain hope that Cameron (and other politicians) might just take note and do us all the favour that Hicks recommends…

By the way, if anyone here is in marketing or advertising…kill yourself. Thank you. Just planting seeds, planting seeds is all I’m doing. No joke here, really. Seriously, kill yourself, you have no rationalisation for what you do, you are Satan’s little helpers. Kill yourself, kill yourself, kill yourself now. Now, back to the show. Seriously, I know the marketing people: ‘There’s gonna be a joke comin’ up.’ There’s no fuckin’ joke. Suck a tail pipe, hang yourself…borrow a pistol from an NRA buddy, do something…rid the world of your evil fuckin’ presence.

With everything else that’s gone on around the Ealing Southall by-election and mere hours before the polls open, you’d think there was nothing left to be said until the result is announced tomorrow night.

And you’d be wrong, because just when you thought you’d seen every last twist and turn, Jonathan Isaby pops up at the Telegraph and manages to drop himself and the Tory Party right in the shit with a blog post (now hastily removed) that appears to contain a criminal breach of the Representation of the People Act:

Before anyone asks, the incriminating bit - which purports to show the postal vote tallies for the three main parties - has been blurred out for legal reasons, specifically those listed in Schedule 6, Section 66A of the 2000 amendments to the Representation of the People Act 1983, to whit:

“66A. - (1) No person shall, in the case of an election to which this section applies, publish before the poll is closed-

(a) any statement relating to the way in which voters have voted at the election where that statement is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information given by voters after they have voted, or

(b) any forecast as to the result of the election which is (or might reasonably be taken to be) based on information so given.

(2) This section applies to-

(a) any parliamentary election; and

(b) any local government election in England or Wales.

(3) If a person acts in contravention of subsection (1) above, he shall be liable on summary conviction to a fine not exceeding level 5 on the standard scale or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months.”

Got that? Up to six months in the Jeffrey Archer Suite at Belmarsh for publishing even the results of an exit poll before the polls close, never mind publishing the tallies that parties shouldn’t really be taking, from the verification of postal votes and Isaby manages to finger a ’source inside the Tory Campaign’ as having provided the information.

And lets not forget, of course, that should Her Maj’s Constabulary take a bit of a gander at this, then Isaby is going to come under pressure to identify his source within the Tory campaign and, should he refuse, could face the prospect of playing chicken with a judge over the relative importance of protecting one’s source vs contempt of court, a game in, so I am reliably informed, the judge always wins.

Not much else to say at the moment apart from cheers to PP for the heads up and to dedicate this next couple of songs are Jonathan and his, as yet, unnamed source:

And now for a little Magic Sam…

It seem that dear old Boris is just a touch indecisive about whether or not to run for London Mayor, so I thought I’d give him a bit of hand by reminding just what a wonderful TV performer he is:

You’ll have to excuse me for a moment - must just slap PragueTwatTory down:

Political Donors Have Rights Too

From the Labour webpage relating to donations.

“If I donate more than £1,000 to a Labour Party unit (e.g. Constituency
Labour Party) or more than £5,000 to the Labour Party nationally in the course of a calendar year, I understand that my name and the amount of the donation
will be reported to the Electoral Commission for publication on their public
register of donations to the Labour Party. The information you have provided will not be shared with any organisation or individual outside the Labour Party without your consent, nor transferred outside of the United Kingdom.”

Infrequently Asked Question - If, for example a limited company donated £4,800 to the Labour Party nationally, would it be reasonable for stakeholders in that company to expect a Labour MP to publish a copy of the relevant cheque complete with details of the transaction complete with a sample signature for fraudsters to copy on to his personal website (thus making the private details of the transaction known to the entire world) ? And what would the company’s legal rights be should this occur?

Model Answer - Of course this is a clear breach of confidence and contravenes the Labour Party’s own privacy policy - measures are in place to secure the privacy of privileged information regarding your donation. If you have any questions about this policy or need further reassurance

• send an email to: info@new.labour.org.uk or
• telephone our call centre on 08705 900200 or
• Melanie Onn Labour’s data protection officer can be contacted at the following address: Melanie Onn Labour Party 39 Victoria StreetLondon SW1H 0HA

Should the hypothetical situation occur, you should immediately consult a good lawyer about your legal rights and possible recourse. For your background reading, please browse through the Electoral Commission website, the Political Parties, Election and Referendum Act 2000 (warning it’s quite long and complicated) and of course the Data Protection Act. Whilst it is theoretically possible for this information to be mishandled, it is unlikely that an MP would behave in such a foolhardy fashion, especially one that has voted for MPs to be exempt from the Freedom of Infomation act. Such a person is in fact unfit to serve as an MP.
As usual, Praguetory is talking bollocks:

1. The web page disclaimer PT quotes applies specifically to donations made via the Labour Party’s website - it doesn’t apply to the purchasing of £4800 worth of tickets for a Labour Party fund-raising event.

2. Feel free to read through PPERA if you like, you’ll find nothing whatsoever about protecting the privacy/confidentiality of donors, only rules governing when political parties have to make mandatory disclosures of donations. Parties are actually free to make voluntary disclosures if and when they like.

3. Ah yes, the old Data Protection Act macguffin.

Without going into the full ins and outs of data protection - which can be pretty complicated - DPA only covers personal information and then only within certain limitations.

So say, for example, I go an trace not only PTs full name (which I already know) but also his home address, sourcing my information from a public register, such as the electoral register, then I would be perfectly free to publish that information because its already in the public domain.

As it transpires, because we’re dealing with a company cheque here, the only personal information disclosed by its publication is the signature on it, which the Telegraph has identified as being that of Avtar Lit, who happens to be the company’s chairman - and that information happens to be in the public domain already in a variety of places from Companies House registers to the Radio Authority ruling regarding the radio station’s breach of broadcasting/electoral law back in 2001.

So no breach of Data Protection here, either…

Still, as is well know to bloggers, when Praguetory gets on a roll and becomes determined to make a complete arse of himself, he rarely stints at going the extra mile to finish the job…

The Riskiest Blog Entry I Have Ever Seen An MP Post

Now, you know he’s talking bollocks from the title alone, which amounts to a pathetic attempt to blow smoke to cover his own party’s embarrassment over Lit’s attendance at a LabourParty fundraiser.

I’m no lawyer,

No shit Sherlock… D’oh!

but were you to decide to post something like this, you might like to think about the following potential actions that could be brought;

But you’ve just said you’re not a lawyer, so our expectations have already been set - you’re talking bollocks.

By Sunrise Radio Ltd for breach of confidentiality both in respect of the existence and value of the transaction and in respect of private bank details. If it could be shown that they suffered a loss as a result of Tom Watson breaking the law, they may be entitled to compensation.

What possible loss might Sunrise Radio suffer for having paid for its MD to go to a Labour Party fund-raiser? And who says Tom Watson has broken any laws here, Mr ‘I’m no lawyer’? - only you and you haven’t got the first fucking clue what you’re talking about…

By AIB Bank, who as payee bank are generally liable for losses arising out of fraudulent cheque payments. If it could be shown that losses arose due to the actions of the Labour Party, the Labour Party may become liable.

Fraudulent cheque payments? What the fuck are you talking about, PragueTwat.

What’s been posted is a black and white scan of a cheque on which all the numeric information relating to AIB that could, hypothetically be used by a forger, has been deliberately obscured using photoshop. to use that image as the basis for defrauding AIB you’d need to be more than a master forger, you’d need to be psychic as well.

Ok, so there’s Avtar Lit’s signature on there, but if that’s an issue then many leading politicians have more to fear, given the extent to which scanned signatures of leading politicians appear in policy documents, manifestos, reports leaflets and even e-mails, as a mark of their personal endorsement of the contents.

PTs problem here is that he’s desperately trying to spread a bit of FUD and no one’s buying, because he’s crap at it.

By the Information Commissioner and therefore the police for breach of Data Protection Laws. Here’s how Sunrise Radio Ltd could record a complaint.

By the Labour Party for breaking its privacy policy relating to donors.

Something for the Electoral Commission to look into. PPERA (2000) covers legal requirements relating to political donations.

Covered all this earlier on - all a complete load of bollocks…

Sunrise Radio Ltd exists as a separate legal identity and a £4,800 donation does not need shareholder approval. Anyone actually saying Tony Lit donated to Labour has probably committed a libel. I believe the Lit family is financially solvent.

Anyone actually saying that Lit had donated to Labour last night would have made such a statement in good faith and in the reasonable belief that he had, based on the photograph of Lit at the Labour fund-raiser with Tony Blair (oooh, bit like Cluedo, that…) and on the knowledge that Lit was, at the time, the Managing Director of the company making the donation, from which one would all-too-reasonable presume he would have been aware both of the cheque and of where its being paid to.

UPDATE:

PTs now running around posting idiotic ‘warnings’ like this (from Pickled Politics - see comment 2) 

May I introduce you to the concept of a company having a separate legal identity? From a legal point of view, you may wish to amend the wording of your post. A friendly warning.

Of course, what PTs ignoring is the little matter of corporate responsibility (and liability) under which directors share equal responsibility/liability for the actions of any company of which they are a director, and as Tony Lit was still managing director of Sunrise Radio at the time the cheque was issued, legally-speaking its as much his responsibility as that of any of the company’s directors, including his father who actually signed the cheque.

And let’s also not forget the little matter of the £4,000 that Lit’s table at the event currently owes the Labour Party, in lieu of the two tickets to a Hillary Clinton fund-raising event in the US that Sunrise successfully bid for during an auction at the event…

…or is PT going to try and claim that Tony nipped out to the toilet while the auction was on and didn’t know anything about that either.

Let’s face it, as a wannabe spin doctor Praguetory is a quack and unfit to be considered a halfwit.

And with that, time for me do my Sunday morning DJ bit, and this next song goes from Praguetory to David ‘Davey-Dave’ Cameron and the Bullingdon boys…

Oh, and remember PT, whining only makes it worse…

I see Iain Dale’s reporting that the Tories are planning to sue the Lib Dems for copyright infringement over use of a photo of Tony Lit in one of their leaflets, at the conclusion of which he makes this hilarious observation:

Whatever the result of this by-election Grant Shapps and his team have drawn a line in the sand and taken on the LibDems in a way which has rarely happened in the past.

Well, yes, Shapps has made quite an impression, whether by making unsubstantiated allegations about an alleged Lib Dem poster lottery (which would have been illegal had the Tories had any evidence to back up their claim) or by getting caught astroturfing using his own YouTube account.

That said, here’s another couple of Lit-related photos for Dale and Shapps to chew on…

Here’s the Minimum ‘Voted Tory all his Life’ Tone schmoozing with the Maximum Tone at the Labour Party fundraiser on 20th June 2007, a mere seven days before he joined the Tory Party and a mere eight days before he was installed by CCHQ as the Tory candidate for the Ealing Southall By-election -

Sky News has picked up the story and obtained a response from Lit -

Mr Lit insisted he was at the event in a business capacity as managing director of Sunrise Radio.

He has since quit the Asian station which serves London.

Mr Lit told Sky News he did not know the bash was designed to raise cash for Labour coffers.

“It was a diversity event and I attend them throughout the year,” he said.

“It was just part and parcel of my everyday job.”

I guess his former everyday job as MD of Sunrise Radio can’t have included signing cheques such as the one below, which paid £4800 to the Labour Party to cover Mr Lit’s attendance at this event…

If anyone does happen to recognise the signature on the cheque, please let me know who it belongs to…

UPDATE

No soon as I ask the question, the Torygraph provides the answer…

Mr Lit’s company, Sunrise Radio, paid £4,800 for a table at the event in a cheque made out to the Labour Party five days earlier and signed by his father Avtar Lit, chairman of Sunrise.

And there’s more…

During an auction, the Sunrise table also successfully bid £4,000 for a weekend trip to Atlanta, the highlight of which was two places at a fundraising dinner for Hillary Clinton.

Labour insiders said Mr Lit’s company had not yet paid the £4,000. If they had, in addition to the £4,800 for the table, it would have put them over the £5,000 limit requiring Labour to declare them as a donor.

Dale will be pissed off, especially as the byline on the story goes to Melissa Kite…

As for Dale’s story about the Tories suing the Lib Dem for breach of copyright, Lib Dem Voice has this to say…

After the all-round rubbishing of the Grant Shapps “but my password was set to 1234″ story which Iain Dale published (and is pretty much the only person to say they believe) you’d have thought Iain would be a bit more careful about stories he is fed in future.

But it would seem not … for his latest outburst about the Liberal Democrats using a photo of the Conservative candidate and thereby breaching the law, leaving themselves open to massive legal costs (and probably being guilty of eating babies too) is left looking really rather odd by one small fact.

Can you guess what the leaflet the Conservatives have been distributing today in the Ealing Cleveland council by-election includes?

Oh go on, I’m sure you can… (hint: it’s a photo, it’s of the Lib Dem candidate, and it’s taken from a Lib Dem website).

Now, if using such a photo is a heinous crime, do pray tell us Iain what that means the Tories in Ealing have been up to. After all, it’s not as if you would be saying that there is one rule for the Tories and another for everyone else is it?

Yep, that Grant Shapps sure is sticking it to the LD’s, isn’t he?