Are we really a high crime country?

[darcymum]

Crime figures down link here

But I heard somebody from the government on the radio today saying "we should remember that Britain is still a high crime country"

Sorry no link but anyone else hear that?

What did he mean? I always thought I lived in quite a low crime country, am I wrong?

We live in a relatively low crime country with isolated pockets of high crime. If someone was trying to paint the whole of Britain as a place where it's not safe to walk the streets then it was probably someone trying to avert any cuts being made to the police or prison service.

It was somebody from the current government and I got the feeling he was just trying to tarnish the last government. Sorry I can't expand more about who it was, anyone else hear it?

I think the fear of crime is much more of a problem in this country that actual crime so if a government minister announced publicly we are a high crime country (unless of course we are compared to others) I think he is behaving very irresponsibly by stirring up more fear.

Interesting to spot this I heard this too yesterday I think it was someone on question time?

When he said it I was very as well TBH.

I wonder if there is a transcript of QT on the BBC site will have a look.

I don't have the sound activated on my work PC but the QT site is here and you can watch it also they have highlights and one is ian duncan smith talking about crime I can't remember if it was him

I can't believe that we are officially a "high crime" country it's drivel.

I know, I heard it on the Today programme if I do find it I'm going to contact whoever said it to ask them to explain.

Well, true be told I probably wont bother.

I don;t understand how these people are able to chuck around random and highly inaccurate snippets like this.

In any other job if you just made shit up every time you were asked a question you'd be sacked PDQ

The government is very embarrassed as figures published yesterday revealed that crime in UK had reduced by 43% during Labour's terms in office-this of course is totally at odds with the rubbish they were spinning during election campaign about 'broken Britain' and so they had to peddle the line about UK being a high crime country!

Its just scaremongering of the worst kind though, and a complete lie

Agree ISNT.