Measuring Crime Again.

London mayor Ken Livingstone is pushing out propaganda about how crime in London has fallen over the last few years. What is interesting is that he is using the recorded crime figures which show a different trend to the British Crime Survey figures. This is after years of Labour insisting that the recorded crime figures are meaningless and that the BCS is the ultimate arbiter of crime levels. Still if the recorded crime figures are back in fashion then let's use them {edit: these figures are for England & Wales, not just London}:

Total Crime Levels UPViolent Crime, Doubled Since 1999:
Robbery Up:
Anyone notice a trend here?

Look I've been critical of the BCS in the past and my view remains that neither that nor the recorded crime figures are that reliable and should only be taken seriously if they show the same trends as they did in the early 1990s when Michael Howard started increasing prison places.

Update: The murder rate* is one of the best alternatives to the BCS or recorded crime figures and Ken Livingstone releases a chart showing that they are now falling. There are two problems though, first of all I think that he is lying about the numbers, as it appears that 2005 doesn't include the 7/7 Tube bombings, these weren't his fault (although his response was pathetic) but the fact that he simply omits them without mentioning means that he may have been similarly creative elsewhere. Secondly if he is responsible for the fall from 2004 to 2007 as he implies then isn't he equally responsible for the rise from 2000 to 2005?

* The murder rate for the England & Wales has risen by around 50% since Labour came to power.