TORIES have reported Sir Keir Starmer to Britain’s statistics watchdog over claims he’s misled the public by wrongly claiming crime is going up.
The Labour boss was slammed for repeatedly using tweaked stats which show reported crime has gone up – even though most people’s experience shows it’s dropped.
Furious policing minister Kit Malthouse has written to Sir David Norgrove head of the UK Statistics Authority, to complain about the “false” stats.
He said the Office for National Statistics recommends people use The Crime Survey for England and Wales as the most reliable measure of trends – not police recorded crime.
Home Office sources said more bobbies on the beat would naturally lead to more reports of crime, but that the overall trends of people experiencing crimes had fallen.
The Crime Survey for England and Wales says crime has dropped by around nine percent between June 2019 and the beginning of lockdown.
Theft has dropped 12 per cent and criminal damage down 13 per cent in the same timeframe, it says.
In a letter, seen by HOAR, he stormed: “The public have a right not to be misled, especially with regard to a subject as emotive and important as crime.
“I request that you investigate the Leader of the Labour Party’s claims and issue the necessary censure should you decide that his comments were misleading.”
