r32

You cant believe what any of them tells you. A few truths from the live debate! But who told the most lies?

MR BROWN: 'Let's be honest, net inward migration is falling, it's falling three years ago, two years ago and it's falling this year.'

REALITY: The most recent immigration figures relate to 2008. The figure for that year (163,000) represented a fall on the figure for 2007 (233,000). But, between 2006 and 2007, net migration had risen by 42,000.

So, there is only one consecutive year in which net migration has fallen. To claim two or even three consecutive falls is wrong. Mr Brown has previously cited incomplete data for 2009 to bolster his case - but was rebuked by the UK Statistics Authority.

BROWN: '[Net inward migration] is falling as a result of the action we are taking and will continue to take.'

REALITY: While net immigration fell by 70,000 between 2007 and 2008, of that 67,000 - or 95 per cent - was a result of a fall in net migration from the new Eastern European members of the EU. That had nothing to do with government policy as East Europeans have free movement.


BROWN: 'Border controls have been brought in and we are counting people out and in from the end of this year. It was a policy that the Conservatives scrapped before 1997.'

REALITY: Labour scrapped embarkation controls - counting people in and out of the country - for non-EU nations in
2008. The Tories stopped counting EU journeys in 1994, in line with Britain's obligations as an EU member.

BROWN: 'We've brought together the police and immigration officials and customs officials in one agency, we're doing that already.'

REALITY: Police are not part of Labour's 'border force', which is a merger of HMRC, immigration and UK visas staff. The idea of including police was resisted by ministers. It is Conservative policy to merge the police, customs and immigration-staff into a border police force.

BROWN: 'Police have to spend 80 per cent of their time now on the streets.'

REALITY: The Advertising Standards Agency ruled the Government's claim that 'You can now expect your neighbourhood police to spend at least 80 per cent of their time on the beat in your area' to be misleading. It includes time spent in meetings. Just 14 per cent of all police officers' time is spent on patrol.

BROWN: 'The important thing is that we are doing the right thing by our troops and that's why we've increased the spendingon equipment dramatically over these last few years.'

REALITY: Figures from the Ministry of Defence show that the defence budget fell year-on-year in real terms on four occasions since 1997.

The other two party leaders were also caught out.

CLEGG: 'Young men going to prison now on short-term sentences come out and nine out of ten of them re-offend so we're actually producing more crime than cutting it.'

REALITY: Mr Clegg's statistics are wrong. The re-offending rate for men on short prison sentences is 60 per cent. By inflating the figure, Mr Clegg strengthened his case for giving community service instead of jail terms less than six months.

CAMERON: 'Money could be saved to get the police on the front line. The Metropolitan Police have 400 uniformed officers in their Human Resources department.'

REALITY: Most of the officers referred to by Mr Cameron are involved in training of new officers, PCSOs and driving school teaching. The Met says it has eight officers in 'Positive Action, recruitment, Community Engagement, Duties and other areas of HR

Rudolph Hooker

Funny you should post that, I knew as it went along that the drivle being spouted wasnt true!

Shouldnt be allowed

Bram

[quote=r32;9351373]You cant believe what any of them tells you. A few truths from the live debate! But who told the most lies?


CLEGG: 'Young men going to prison now on short-term sentences come out and nine out of ten of them re-offend so we're actually producing more crime than cutting it.'

REALITY: Mr Clegg's statistics are wrong. The re-offending rate for men on short prison sentences is 60 per cent. By inflating the figure, Mr Clegg strengthened his case for giving community service instead of jail terms less than six months.

The real figures are nearer 75% recidivism for all prisoners with short termers or prisoners doing less than 6 months even higher than 75% if selected on short term basis only.

He also along with any other party mention how many prisoners are not giving prison sentances prior to the statistic of 75% was taken. It is common for example that prisoners serving less than 6 months were given non custodial sentances so the figure of reoffending is far greater for short termers than 60-75% ie tagging/community punishments. It works out at anything thing from 3-7 previous convictions before getting a custodial.

You could also add the cost that everyone fails to mention concerning community punishment. To do it you must employ and cover the employment with the need of duty of care. Take for example a recent publicity on community punishments being clearing snow. The offenders must be transported to where thery are going, they must be properly clothed, supplied tools for purpose and supervised/inducted in process. So rather than saving money it would have been cheaper to incarcerate along with the defaulters who failed to attend clearing the snow. I know one person who still waits to serve his community sentance after a year and half and has been to court twice and stated he will not do it. He is still out and not carried out his community, his reason now is that it would not serve any purpose as it was a year and half ago he was given the sentance.

One last thought, their are lies, damn lies and then their is statistics.

Leslie

To be honest, I think that the idea of these "debates" is a waste of time and proves nothing significant.

All the rules of the programmes make it largely meaningless.

Les