Alistair Campbell « Dr Alf's Blog

Alistair Campbell is only partially correct.

Crime of all kinds is rising, and is, in many cases, unreported because of fear of retribution and because insurance cover is either not there or would not pay out.

As an old insurance man, I used to compare the old DTI returns on claims with the Home Office crime figures and the two are poles apart.

Within the past 2 weeks, the police have themselves admitted to the Public Accounts Committee of the House of Commons that they routinely “adjust” the crime figures to make them look better.

Alistair Campbell and others like him who talk about “xenophobia” do not talk about the persistent failure to build enough houses with the current shortage standing at 11.5 million and current rates of new build which at 100,000 a year will mean that it is 44 years before the backlog is cleared.

He knows that there are not enough builders and not enough mortgage finance so unless we move to systems building there will never be enough houses yet the Bulgarians and Romanians are to come here even though there are no houses to put them in.

David Cameron is no better and has incoherent policies that fail to do the job but Campbell’s analysis fails to deal with:

–Exports

–What the millennials are going to do?

–Our lack of productivity

–The obesity crisis

–The NHS which has seen a 225% increase in the number of managers under the Government of which he was a part and a 189% increase under Margaret Thatcher before that

–Foreign military adventurism, Iraq, his part in it and breaches of the military covenant

–The funding of the NHS through Petroleum Revenue Tax and the plundering of the National Lottery fund for that purpose and for other spending priorities when the money should remain ring fenced

As a critique of David Cameron the Campbell analysis broadly stacks up but is incomplete and contains inaccuracies.

However, before Campbell gets out of the house to start cycling tomorrow, he perhaps