Interesting view from someone who is not a career politician on the state of our parliament.
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Iām going next summer for the first time. Will go to the TdF.
They are my words, so what is your point? Can you provide some context to your post?
Why is it that I am called to provide substance to my posts - posted in good faith - and you are allowed to avoid accountability, usually on the back of slandering the poster. As I have said, you would make a good politician.
Before I post my opinion, I am not trying to get into an argument with you. It is a subject that needs to be discussed and without it being blamed on a Party.
I am a Site Manager, working predominantly in the Shop Fitting industry for the big supermarkets.
I do not have any āstatsā - joke - to support my opinion, but I agree the Police are over worked and that they donāt have the resources to investigate every incident and so have to prioritise.
Shoplifting is a massive issue in todayās society, it has become an accepted crime, dismissed to the point that even the average shopper has been normalised to it.
The general rule is the Police are not called as they will not respond to a crime below Ā£250 in value. Unless it is a persistent offender it is unlikely to be reported it is marked down as wastage. Staff are advised not to engage with a thief and security are there as a deterrent only.
I am aware of one incident where a family got their child to drag out a TV and security were not allowed to challenge the child because he was a minor. The Mom, walked into the store to open the gates for the child to walk out.
I am not questioning your conversation with the PC and his comments are probably true and reflective of his experience. However, his experience maybe completely different to areas with high crime.
To report a crime for insurance purposes affects your premium. To encourage your staff to engage with a shoplifter increases your insurance premium, and we are only discussing the thefts we are aware of.
As I have said. I am not after an argument. I am just putting a different perspective on things.
Yes it sure looks like me. 
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Very square and porous?
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Donāt you fucking dare call me a politician, when all Iām doing is quoting the words you used. You are the one trying to spin your way out of a statement you now realise was absurd. What the right honourable gentleman meant to say wasā¦ Who exactly is the politician here?
You expressed the view that stars are meaningless and when you were called out on this you then claimed you were speaking about how people feel about crime. This is what you said.
You are not by any stretch of the imagination speaking subjectively there. You are making an objective statement about reality and disregarding the evidence to the contrary. You are starting with how you feel and working backwards from there, throwing out anything that contradicts you.
There is a legitimate question about why Iām still pursuing this, when I probably should have let it drop.
The reason is that this contrarian approach to discourse and to our politics is why the country is essentially fucked, and when I see it posted so unapologetically and unrepentant, I canāt help but call it out.
Where weāve ended up as a society is that statistics, evidence and truth doesnāt matter. What matters is how we feel, and if the evidence doesnāt support that, then it goes in the bin.
Of course if you are, to paraphrase Sherlock, fitting the evidence to your beliefs instead of adjusting your beliefs to fit the evidence, then you are also extremely vulnerable to bad faith actors manipulating those beliefs and feelings to persuade you to support politics that are not in your best interests.
The reason why I was talking to the copper last week was because we had the annual parish council public meeting, where the police turn up to talk about crime and what they are doing to keep people safe. What became obvious was the sense that most of the (predominantly older) people in the meeting believed they are besieged by crime. When pressed on this it seems to be people riding e-bikes, the odd Amazon parcel getting nicked, and, worst of all, teenagers hanging around. No matter how many times they were told that the crime rate where they live is amongst the lowest in the entire country, they would not have it. These people are not victims of crime in any meaningful way, so why are they so terrified? Iād suggest that fact that the local co-op has to get in a pile of Daily Mails as tall as me to satisfy demand might have something to do with it.
You see when talking about crime, you see it in the immigration debate, you see it in the trans debate (which is off the scale for the sheer idiocy of the arguments made to justify bigotry).
It is so important that as we navigate maintaining society we are able to build from a starting point of shared truths and evidence. When that has gone, there is nothing left.
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The old people where my son lives arenāt happy that the road is degrading and want to stop the traffic. They are very worried and afraid, itās proof that crime is rising.
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Now remind me, when and where did we really see this kind of stuff weaponised in the past again?
Hereās a nice example
Reform in Wales are campaigning to remove the 20mph limit imposed in city and town centres.
Meanwhile in Kent, a Reform run council.
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Sheās caught a few with that.
https://x.com/lukejcr/status/2048429080136040849
https://x.com/BenObeseJecty/status/2048438505022296231
Ben Obese-Jecty (who?) calling her an NPC is an alarming lack of self awareness even for an MP. Like her politics or not, sheās certainly not a basic, boring cardboard cut out like most members of parliament including the two above.
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Heās real. A Conservative MP. Ironically, he isnāt particularly fat.
He also rather self-owns by the fact that he thinks that speaking in Parliament is the only thing an MP does. The bulk of the work for non-ministers will be constituency work. For a new Mp there is likely to be a fair backlog for it.
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I did check he wasnāt a parody. It took me about 4 years to realise Michael Fabricant wasnt a spitting image creation.
This is obviously a co-ordinated attack from MPs of the traditional parties against her. The arrogance is off the scale.
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I had never heard of him until he appeared around the time that Boris Johnson became a thing, and I assumed that he was satire.
When I was working in the Civil Service you did get a good idea of which MPs worked the hardest, because you would see their names come up in official queries.
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Wow, I touched a nerve there didnāt I.
I didnāt actually call you a politician I suggested you would make a good one. The statement referred to your constant dodging of questions, ignoring/failing to respond to the facts/points you cannot contest and the cherry picking of the points you chose to respond to, changing the context to suit your narrative and deflect from actual debating.
So now that you have finally managed to quote me, are you happy to accept my comment referred to Crime and Crime only?
Why donāt you provide the comment I was responding to for context.
I donāt know why you are so hung up on my comment, I stand by my comment in regards to this is and I even proved the Stats meant fuck all by referring to the disclaimer/Caveat in the METs own report, where they said the figures are not to be used in comparison to previous figures.
So tell me who is ignoring evidence to the contrary? Who is throwing out anything contradicting them?
You proclaim it is important for society to maintain shared truths and evidence and yet I provided one of my experiences and you mocked me.
And in another instance you tried to justify one of your initial responses to me on āon line algorithmsā created by the Right.
I have consistently referred to āLived Experienceā, it is quite clear our are different. The fact you have an Annual Parish Public Council meeting emphasises my point. Having a Copper come in and tell the community what they are doing to prevent crime is subjective and could be biased, yes/no? Dismissing it as fear is an opinion, yes/no? Providing no stats to support your point means what? I mean all I have is your words, your interpretation of events. I trust you are sincere so I listen to you, if I came to you with the same experience you would shut me down and you know it.
To further prove my point regarding stats, if you asked the room āwho felt crime was on the increaseā and all the old people, said it was, is there not a Stat derived from this. The Stat being that in that room, a number of old people felt crime was getting worse. So tell me if these Stats are right or wrong, do they mean anything? How many of these old people views were because of RW algorithms on Social Media?
There are many problems with the Country, you and I included. The problem is there are people Left or Right who will jump on anything to try and sensationalise their view, they will also dismiss other peoples views, on the basis of their political leaning.
The initial post used an article in the āEconomistā to shut down a comment made by Rupert Lowe about London Crime, The poster even referred to it as a LW source and questioned whether that was the reason I questioned it.
So letās say the Stats were 100% accurate, is that a reason to celebrate when viewed over a 10 year period? We have a better homicide than other Big Cities is that a reason to celebrate? Or is the only reason to celebrate is because we proved a RWNJ wrong, a liar, all whilst failing to call out our own Political party.
If you want society to prevail and build then you need to stop ātelling old people they are wrongā, you need to try and understand people who donāt live in an area āwhere crime rate is amongst the lowest in the countryā. Yes there will be people who are bigoted, but that doesnāt mean that everyone sharing their concerns are racist.
A question to you, do you enjoy the fact you can go to the local public hall and have a community based discussion? Have the privilege of the local copper attending and reassuring you? Knowing the community by their first names? And the most serious of crimes is a teenager on an e-scooter?
It sounds idyllic to me, I mean a public hall is unheard of, I would be lucky if a Copper turned up for a Crime and would love my communityās main concern to be Teenagers loitering. Not Car cannibalism, uninsured drivers, violence, drug dealing, rubbish on the street, fly tipping, etc, etc.
I am not going to respond on the subject anymore. It is unfair on the other members and I am bored of you failing to understand the underlying point.
To you, this argument is all about me saying Stats mean fuck all, a statement I have taken ownership of and counter argued. But you are so obsessed with being right, taking the morale high ground. So, to draw a line under our exchange, you are right, I have lost this argument, you win. Well done you?
If only we could find a happy medium between weaponising it and dismissing it altogether.
Itās curious. There is no official D- notice but it looks like there is super-injunction over it.
There have been lots of very similar looking arson events across Europe over the last couple of years. Iām wondering whether itās related?
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(Apologies - couldnāt be arsed reading the rest of it)
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