CONSERVATIVE leader David Cameron is telling British voters “one big fat lie” when he says that United Kingdom crime figures are increasing, home secretary Alan Johnson has charged.
The tougher language from Mr Johnson marks a significant escalation in the battle over crime between the Conservatives and Labour, amid Labour allegations that the Tories are prepared to let rapists go free.
Copying long-established US election campaigning attacks, a Labour web advertisement published yesterday shows a burglar breaking into a property, declaring his support for the Conservatives as he breaks in.
The Conservatives want to cut the number of years DNA records of people who are cleared of offences, or not even charged with offences, are kept by the police from the current period of six years, or 12 in seriously violent or sexual cases.
Under the Conservatives’ proposals, which mirror those already in place in Scotland, records would be deleted if a person was cleared, or not charged, or kept for a maximum of five years if they were cleared of serious sexual or violent offences.
Saying that this would have cut the number of rape, murder or manslaughter convictions in England and Wales last year by a quarter, the home secretary said: “They have made clear they would water down the police’s ability to use DNA evidence – making it harder to convict the most dangerous criminals.”
The British Crime Survey says violent crime levels have fallen by 41 per cent since Labour entered power, but statistics produced by the House of Commons library showed contradictory figures.
The government, said Mr Johnson, “cannot allow” the Conservatives’ use of crime statistics – which has already been criticised by the UK Statistics Authority – “to continue so close to an election”.
The use of statistics by the Conservatives is significant politically, since the party’s credibility has been damaged in recent months by a series of mistakes, most notably a vast overestimate of the number of teenage pregnancies.
The Conservative leader has repeatedly put forward the image of “broken Britain” in speeches over the last couple of years, in a bid to damage Labour’s handling of crime and social issues.
His most recent charge came after the conviction of two boys for a savage attack in Edlington in Yorkshire, when they beat, stamped, choked and burned two other boys, age nine and 10.
However, Mr Johnson said the Edlington attack was an exception.
“If such cases were commonplace they would indeed paint a lurid and depressing picture of life in the United Kingdom. But they are not. The shock value was amplified by their rarity.”