Troughers Charged

Excellent news.

Kier Starmer the Director of Public Prosecutions has announced that Elliot Morley, David Chaytor, Jim Devine and Lord Hanningfield are to be prosecuted.

Morley who is the Labour Party MP for Scunthorpe is charged with two counts of false accounting.  The first charge relates to his mortgage claims between 2004 and 2006 where he pocketed in excess of £14,000. The second charge relates to mortgage claims between March 2006 into 2007 when he was claiming on the same property despite there no longer being a mortgage on that property.

David Chaytor who is Labour Party MP for Bury North faces three charges.  The first is for a claim for IT services for £1,950 using false invoices.  The second is for claims of £12,925 in rent of a property that he in fact owns.  The third charge is for claims between September 2007 and January 2008 when claiming rent for a property that actually belongs to his mother.

Jim Devine is the Labour Party MP for Livingstone and a former minister and faces two charges.  The first for claims of dry cleaning totalling £3,240 using false invoices in 2008 and 2009.  The second charge relates to stationery claims totalling over £5,000 made using false invoices.

Lord Hanningfield is a Conservative Peer and he faces six charges all relating to false accounting.  Some of his claims for overnight stays are contradicted by records which show he was driven home.

Each of them could see themselves face gaol time of upto seven years.  This blogger hopes that the prosecution team makes a very public example of these men for their crimes which have had an immeasurable effect on the whole nation.  If there is further evidence of wrong doing passed to the Police, and I believe there may be, I hope the example setting does not end with these four.

Crime Is Up, Crime Is Down..... Thanks BBC

The BBC reported today that reported crime numbers are up. The figures are as follows:

Knife/Sharp Instrument Robbery - Up 18%
Fraud/Forgery - Up 16%
Drugs - Up 9%
Home Burglary - Up 4%
Other Burglary - Up 3%

However, at the same time, a separate BBC report states that crime numbers are down. The key points being:

Gun Crime - Down 26%
Knife Crime - Down 12%
Robbery - Down 17%
Rapes and Domestic violence - Both Up

The difference between them being that the figures that show the increase are for the UK, where as the figures showing a reduction are for London only.

The two BBC reports, despite being online do not make reference to each other.

So let me ask the question. How is it that crime nationally continues to rise, but crime in London is falling? Could the answer be that in London the Met Police Authority is Chaired by the Mayor, currently Boris Johnson? This is not a Tory/Labour Comparison, as the figures show in London year-on-year trends meaning this is a continuation of a trend started under former Mayor Ken Livingstone. It is the only authority in England that is not completely controlled from Centralised targets sent down from the Home Office, and where the Met Authority has a say on policing, rather than the Chief Constable rolling out initiatives based on centrally set Home Office targets.

Could this be the real evidence that can be used to further the case for locally elected sheriffs and/or elected Police Commissioners? With the Mayor being an elected official in London chairing the Met Authorities meetings we can see a tangible link between an elected official conveying the concerns of the public that they are elected to represent.

A convincing case for local Sheriff's has been made by Daniel Hannan and Doug Carswell in their book The Plan: Twelve months to renew Britain. I must confess that I was sceptical about local Sheriffs until I read their proposal, but they won me over on this particular point.