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Brown faces reprimand over knife crime figures
Nicholas Cecil, Chief Political Correspondent12.12.08
GORDON BROWN faced a humiliating reprimand today after trumpeting a fall in knife crime.
The Prime Minister and Home Secretary Jacqui Smith used official figures to launch a new No To Knives campaign with England footballer John Terry, actress Brooke Kinsella, whose brother Ben was killed in a knife attack and Richard Taylor, who lost his son Damilola.
But the Evening Standard has been told that officials at the UK Statistics Authority, the Home Office and police officers involved in compiling the figures have been dismayed at their use before they had been properly checked and validated.
The authority, which was set up to stop politicians abusing official data, was expected this afternoon to criticise the Government for the first time since its establishment in April.
Sir Michael Scholar, chairman of the independent authority's board, is understood to be making a final decision today on whether, and how strongly, to criticise the Government.
Tory MP Michael Fallon, former chairman of the Commons statistics panel, said: "It appears that Gordon Brown has this time been caught red-handed by his own watchdog. Knife crime is too important an area for political spinning."
The figures, initially released through the BBC, showed a drop of 18 per cent in the number of young people injured with knives in London. A Home Office spokesman said: "We agreed with the 10 (police) forces to provide us with interim findings outside of national statistics protocols."
Reader views (2)
But the new figures are essentially correct so it is clear that the Government's actions on knife crime are indeed working, and not before time
- Keith Price, Luton, England
It's important that the controversy surrounding the alleged spinning of these figures does not detract from the key issue of tackling knife crime.
As Gordon Brown alluded to in his comments at the release of the findings, these short term figures are encouraging but in the long term there is still allot to do. At Beatbullying we believe it vital that government builds on the police’s crack down by looking to change young people’s attitudes towards knife possession and violence as this is what is going to make the real difference over time.
We need to help young people develop a sense of character and responsibility to stop them from picking up the knife in the first place and carrying out youth on youth violence.
- Emma Jane Cross,, London, UK
