The latest crime figures are out [PDF]: they show a fall in recorded crime, and flat crime according to the British Crime Survey [*].
This isn’t surprising - it just highlights that the rest of the country is actually doing the same ‘crime probably down a bit and certainly not up‘ thing as London, and that [...]

Did you know that crime in London fell by 6% last year? Weird, considering the hysterical paranoia in broadsheet papers and tabloid blogs alike.
Yes, I know that reported crime figures are seldom accurate, which is why people who claim things like “Rape offences have increased ELEVENFOLD” are being dishonest (this is because women now feel [...]

I like to think that, despite living a champagne-and-caviar lifestyle, spending my time with models and rock stars, and living in a luxury penthouse [*], I’m still in touch with my left-wing roots.
As a result, I’m always slightly reluctant to denounce trade unions and strikers: had they not existed in the past, there’s a reasonable chance we’d [...]

Technorati Tags: english+spelling, simon+jenkins, spelling+reform
Last Friday, in the Guardian, Simon Jenkins wrote that he welcomed the decision of the Scottish Qualifications Authority that they would accept text-message spellings in school examinations in “a direct challenge to the English at their most reactionary”. “The dark riders of archaism will protest and the backwoods will howl. [...]

Sort of; though, for what it’s worth, he does not appear to have committed any great crime over the Dome. Nor did he commit any great crime with his secretary; nor did he commit any great crime by playing croquet.

Despite not being a football fan, a nationalist or a car driver, I really rather like all those England flags festooned about the national vehicle fleet (and indeed pretty much everywhere else).
There are numerous detractors of which Janet Street-Porter seems typical. She bemoans ‘white van man’ and the pointlessness of football. Aside of the snobbery [...]

Not my phrase, but one borrowed from Brian Taylor, political editor of the BBC in Scotland and author of books such as The Road to the Scottish Parliament. He was giving a lecture on Scotland and the EU at Edinburgh Law School, and in that context identified three weak points of devolution: the soft underbelly. [...]

First the good news. The Liberal Democrats narrowly beat Labour in the local elections as a percentage of the national vote (with 27%). This being a 22% increase on what they managed during last year’s General Election, you could say they have not had a bad few weeks. After all it is only the second [...]

Well, hardly. Respect’s stunning success in Tower Hamlets has provoked borderline hysteria amongst some:
Once the sectarian identities multiculturalism inevitably promotes get hold, it doesn’t seem to matter how bad the politicians who exploit
them are, as Respect’s success in London’s East End shows…
Once again, we find a slice of the electorate in a poor part of [...]

London tubeworkers are threatening to go on strike tomorrow evening.

London isn’t like other cities. It’s better than all the others put together, for a start. More importantly, like the one or two places that could mistakenly be [...]

This crossed my radar today. It seems that the POWER inquiry, with the support of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, has convinced London Borough of Harrow to conduct a form of Participatory Budgeting. This is very exciting for those of us who are into democratic innovations.

The UK government may soon face a terrible clash of Silly New Laws: not only has it vowed to protect witches from discrimination, it has also vowed to clamp down on witches. The Wiccans are apparently following in the footsteps of their historical predecessors in seeking to slaughter children, although gingerbread houses appear not to be involved this time round.

Constitutional issues have a curious ability to excite those with a particular interest in them to a near frenzy, while leaving the rest of the population at best bemused, at worst somnolent.
One such issue is voting reform, a subject already dealt with in some detail on this site. Another, and one with the potential to [...]