International Law

Gordon Brown pretends that "knife crime" is a "new kind of crime"

Why is Gordon Brown still Prime Minister ?

Both the BBC and The Times (UPDATE: and the official transcript of the speech on the number 10 Downing Street website) quote him, without seeming to notice or care about exactly what nonsense or deceit he was uttering:

Mr Brown told a crime conference in west London: "We face new kinds of crime - especially knife crime, organised crime, e-crime and identity theft

• BBC: Brown unveils anti-crime strategy

• The Times: Failing Serious Organised Crime Agency to be overhauled

• [UPDATE] even the Official Transcript of the Speech on the No. 10 Downing Street website, includes this nonsense - Transcript of the Prime Minister's speech to the Crime and Disorder Reduction Partnership Conference in London on 12 May 2009
  

On which planet can "knife crime" be described as a "new kind of crime" ?

We understand that politicians, especially Labour politicians have little or no grasp of complicated modern technology, but low tech "knife crime" has been with us since pre-historic times !

The Times also notes, just as Spy Blog has done in the past, that:

The budget for Soca is about £400 million, compared with the £2.5 billion a year designated for counter-terrorism, leading to criticism that the Government has never taken organised crime seriously.

We await tomorrow's publication of the SOCA annual report with no real expectation of reassurance.

Full post as published by Spy Blog on May 12, 2009 (boomark / email).