Criminal "Justice" System?

This won't come as a shock to many people, but the Criminal Justice System in England has officially gone mad. It has lost its senses. Its logic has ceased to be.

A juror has today lost her appeal against a 56 day jail term for contempt of court. She had served for three weeks of a robbery trial but then went on holiday for two weeks, telling Court officials that she had back pain. The full story can be found here.

Now I'm not condoning her actions in the slightest. Jury service must be taken seriously, as it's a cornerstone of our justice system. That said, how can it possibly be right that this person gets a 56-day jail term, something that you wouldn't get for assault, shoplifting, or fighting drunkenly in the street?

Similarly reprehensibly was Liam Stacey's racist and offensive tweets about Fabrice Muamba. Offensive, crass, stupid - yes. Fifty six days in jail though? Really?

What sort of "normal" crime would you have to commit to get 56 days in jail? Has the CJS never heard of "proportionality"?

Reducing congestion at a stroke

Politicians around the world have been trying for years to reduce congestion on the roads. There have been numerous schemes, the most well known of them being "congestion charging", where a levy is charged if you wish to drive within the most congested areas. There is debate about the fairness and effectiveness of these solutions. Opinion is so polarised that there is no prospect of there ever being any consensus.

However - I have a solution. It occurred to me as I was driving back to Yorkshire on a very wet M1 on Sunday evening.

It is a uniquely British solution, and is simple and effective. In fact, it's so breathtakingly simple, I'm amazed I've never heard of it before. The legislation for this already exists too. It's a logical extension of the issuance of a Section 59 notice, but with immediate confiscation, no warnings.

Rule 1. If you are caught by a police officer with your front OR rear fog lamps on, when visibility is obviously greater than 100 metres, your car will be confiscated and crushed. There is no right to appeal. (see Highway Code sections 226-237)

This will remove thousands of cars from the road at a single stroke, virtually overnight. If you're impressed by that, wait; it gets better.

Rule 2. If you are caught with front OR rear fog lights on, but still tearing down Lane 3 of the motorway in excess of the speed limit, your car will be confiscated and crushed, as in Rule 1, but you will not be allowed to remove your personal effects first, AND you will receive a 5 year driving ban.

Rule 2  is specifically aimed at the idiots who think that the visibility is bad enough that fog lights are needed, but it's still apparently good enough for them to blast down the motorway at 90mph, 6 feet from the car in front. These are most frequently Audi drivers, but also seen with the lesser-spotted Mercedes, and the Common White Van. With reasoning and hazard perception skills like these, these morons are too stupid to be trusted with a car, and I would recommend consultation on compulsorily sterilising people who break Rule 2. The gene pool has enough turds in it, thank you.

I'm willing to have a small wager too, that implementing these rules would also reduce the number of accidents on our roads.

Playground or Parliament?

"I will put an end to Punch & Judy politics." - David Cameron

Do you remember that line from Mr Cameron when he became the leader of the Conservative Party? If I was a cynic, I might say that this was his first failed promise, or even the first claim as leader that he had no intention of seeing through.

In all seriousness, though, regular readers of this blog will no that I am no fan of career politicians from either side. A few moments ago I saw on the news some of the exchanges from the House of Commons today. Cameron, Miliband et al could scarcely have cut a less childish figure had they been dressed as Peter Pan & Captain Hook, complete with prosthetic hand.

The facile and boorish behaviour on the part of both sides does not serve well as an advertisement for British Politics. The backbenchers shout and jeer over the top of one another whilst the front benches, the supposedly "senior" politicians, seem to little but pull faces at each other. Never could a title have been less deserved than "the Right Honourable Gentleman".

Cameron seems to be developing a nasty little habit of belittling and attempting to humiliate female parliamentarians. In the past we've had episodes of "Calm down dear". Today when he received a question during PMQs from Shabana Mahmood, he sarcastically congratulated her on it being "well read". I say "developing", I wonder if a better word would be "revealing".

Just to prove that a real MP never misses an opportunity to score a cheap joke at the expense of their opponent, during the speech by Jeremy Hunt, Labour's Dennis Skinner stood to tell the House that "when the posh boys are in trouble, they sack the servants". A reference to the comments made earlier this week by Nadine Dorries, yes; humerous, yes, but not a single substantive political point was being made.

In other news, it turns out we are back in recession. So far, the Coalition have offloaded parts of the NHS to Virgin Care & other private companies, parts of the police service to G4S, cut frontline officer numbers, cut the numbers of teachers, cut services left, right and centre, and yet not only is there negative growth, Government borrowing is more than expected, and the deficit is growing by the second. At the risk of stating the obvious, where's the money saved by all these cuts going? The IMF?

Now, I'm not an economist. I'm not even an accountant. However sometimes I think that politicians attempting to control the economy is futile. The economy controls the politicians. They might as well try to take credit for the weather.

I'm not saying that Labour necessarily handed the crisis of 2008 well, but it is the Conservative's "Inconvenient Truth" that the financial crisis started in the US. Despite this, faced with difficult questions about going back into recession, Cameron reverted to the desperate "all Labour's fault, we inherited this mess" line. That might have worked in the first 6 months of this Government, but the Tories must think we're all thick if they think we're going to fall for that two years into this term.

The Incompetent Magician

I can't remember where I saw it, but I have an image of a magician finishing a trick, only for someone in the audience to call out exactly how the trick was done. He completed his next trick, to be met with the same result from a different audience member. This cycle went on. Eventually the red-faced magician left that stage. Embarrassed. Shambling, with the boos of the crowd ringing in his ears.

This image came to me today, as I reflected on another disastrous day at the office for Mr. Cameron and his friends. It seems at present that every day, some Minister or other makes some pronouncement that is soon, and easily, shown to be factually false or deliberately misleading.

Today was no different. It didn't start well. On BBC Radio 4's Today programme, Housing Minister Grant Shapps claimed that household rents were falling in London, and he accused the Labour-controlled council of Newham of "playing politics" by attempting to rehouse tenants in cheaper areas of the country as a result of the Government's cap on Housing Benefit. No sooner had the interview finished, it emerged - with precious little effort - that rents in London were in fact rising, and Conservative-led councils in Westminster and Kensington were running similar schemes to rehouse tenants in less expensive locations.

As if this wasn't enough, a simple search of the record shows that when the cap was first announced, London's Conservative Mayor Boris Johnson said he would "not accept any kind of Kosovo-style social cleansing of London" adding: "The last thing we want to have in our city is a situation such as Paris where the less well-off are pushed out to the suburbs."

"Playing politics", Minister? I apologise if I appear at all cynical, but it seems as though YOU might be the one playing politics. Perhaps he ought to try a few card tricks; maybe he'd be more successful at that. However, on present form I rather fancy we might spot the said card poking out from a sleeve.

The day went from bad to worse as James Murdoch arrived to give evidence to the Leveson Inquiry. It does appear to have dropped at least one more Minister in the mire. For now, we must wait to see how this particular disappearing act plays out.

"Haven't you got anything better to do?"

It's been a tough few weeks for the Government - Qatada, Charitable donations, pasties, fuel shortages etc. Now we've had the comments from Nadine Dorres about Cameron and Osbourne being "arrogant posh boys".

It's a dream for comedians, satirists and yes, opposition politicians. So many opportunities to poke fun at the Government, and I suspect we've all had a go at least once. What does concern me however, is when I see an endless stream of tweets and retweets from people like John Prescott and other Labour politicians making jokes at the expense of Cameron & Osbourne. I fully realise that the House Of Lords is an unelected body at present, but does that really mean that Lord Prescott and chums can sit back and toss it off all morning making fun of their political opponents? I've seen little else from Prescott lately; jibes, insults and demonstrations about pasties.

I'm no fan of the Tories, or indeed any other party. If the boot were on the other foot, you can be sure Cameron would be leading the hilarity.

This is why I think politics in this country in going down the pan. Ask him (or his colleagues) a serious question about politics, (or indeed, in Prescott's case, his candidacy as Humberside PCC) and you'll be met by a deafening silence. Crack a joke about the Tories or pasties, or granny tax, and you can guarantee a retweet.

Get on with it you lazy sods! Maybe the Lords should be an elected chamber after all!

"None Of The Above"

The local elections, for many voters, are only a matter of days away. Doubtless many will be asked, personally or by leaflet, for their vote. There are some, for sure, who vote for a particular party regardless, and nothing could make them change their minds.

David Cameron kicked off the Conservative campaign with the following, apparently not ironic, statement:-

"If you look at what Labour did to our country why on Earth would you let them anywhere near your council?"

One could well ask why on Earth you would let the Conservatives near your council after what they've spent the last two years doing to our NHS, Police, libraries, education, European negotiating rights, and economy. That's not the point of this blog entry. 

The point I want to make is slightly different. Unless you are an ardent supporter of any of the particular parties, the choice of who to vote for is not necessarily clear. You might wonder why. Surely, if you want Labour out of council or Government, you vote for the other lot don't you? You could, but here's the rub. Politicians, bless them, are but simple souls (childlike actually) in that they only see votes in terms of how it relates to them. Your vote for party X might have been chosen in order to oust party Y from power, regardless of whether you actually wanted party X at all. Party X will announce, victoriously, that they have received a powerful mandate for their policies from the electorate, when often it's nothing of the sort.

Take the next general election, due in 2015. If the current course is maintained, there will be those who will vote Labour or Conservative, and would have done, come what may. The election will be determined, as usual, by those voters horribly described by pundits & politicians alike as "floating". These are people of no fixed alignment in favour of any party. It is a measure of the mediocrity of the UK's current political stock that with a Government as unpopular & incompetent as the last Labour government, that the Conservative Party could not win an overall majority. How badly did Labour have to have messed it up before Cameron was elected outright? It's shocking to contemplate.

My proposal, albeit incomplete (and slightly tongue-in-cheek), is for the voting system to reflect a difference between a voter saying "I want X candidate" and "I don't want Y candidate". You could even have a "None of the Above" box to tick.

Some will say that this is not necessary because the options exist to not vote, or to spoil your ballot paper. It's my belief that people who don't vote currently are either completely apathetic, or they do take an interest but feel that there's no difference between the candidates. Some people currently do use spoiling their ballot paper as a form of protest, but the protest itself is not recorded as such, it's just a "spoil". I worked on the 2007 Scottish elections. Each voter had three ballot papers to mark on the day, each with a different voting system. Many people simply did not understand the instructions for some papers, especially the Single Transferrable Vote paper, and these too were recorded as spoilt. The number of spoilt papers that evening counted across Scotland was astounding, and made a significant percentage of the total ballots cast.

In my system, each candidate would have a "YES" column and a "NO" column on the ballot paper. If you want a particular candidate, you put a X in his YES column. If you don't have a specific desire for any other candidate, but you really don't want someone to get in, you put a X in their NO column. You are only allowed to put one X on the ballot paper.

At the count, NO votes are subtracted from YES votes. A vote for None Of The Above would subtract one vote from all candidates. We would then not have the situation where, to all intents and purposes, a bag of lard was elected simply because it was not the other candidate, and then the bag of lard claimed support from a majority of voters.

It'll never happen, of course. Politicians are far too self-important for that. They would far prefer to delude themselves and everyone else that a vote for them is a vote of support, not a protest against someone else. It's a shame though. I'd love to see their arrogant, smug faces when they see how many NO votes have been cast. I'd like to think that it'd make them raise their game, and stop mistaking protest for support.

Crystal ball: Police & Crime Commissioners

I've never really been one to try to look into, or guess, the future. I'm going to have a go now though.

The year is approximately 2015, after the Police & Crime Commissioners have been elected, and have had their attempt at running a police service. The PCC will have outlined a set of wholly unachievable goals. The public will be largely disgruntled and disillusioned. The Chief Constable will be feeling the heat from the PCC. Based on the old adage that "shit always runs downhill", that heat will be felt, in differing ways, by every officer through the organisation, down on to what used to be called "frontline" duties. It's now called "customer-facing crime technicians".

There are now fewer "Customer Facing Crime Technicians" than at any time since the Second World War, but more people in back offices than ever before in "Customer Service" and "Customer Experience Manipulation" departments, yet crime figures are less accurately recorded than Enron's accounts.

The Chief Constable has had enough. He decides that he needs to confront the PCC.

The Chief Constable storms into the office of the PCC and says "Sir, you've promised the electorate things that my police force can't possibly deliver. Do you know what this means?"

The PCC eyes the Chief Constable suspiciously. "Of course I know what it means. It means I'm a great politician and you're a crappy Chief Constable."




With apologies to Scott Adams whose Dilbert cartoon the above was based on.

Police officers stabbed in the back by unions

In a spectacular cock-up/communication breakdown/deliberate betrayal (delete as appropriate) the PCS and Unite unions have severely dented the hopes of UK police officers to make a protest felt by marching on London on May 10th.

How's that?

When the police last marched, in 2008, there was around 25000 officers protesting. The changes now being made to numbers, pensions, terms & conditions etc are even more strongly opposed. I would have thought that numbers on the day could have been 30 000 to 50 000 officers, all protesting. That would have made a sizable spectacle, one that not even the UK media could ignore. (Up till now, the UK media has done an excellent job of ignoring the protests of police officers from England & Wales. The BBC has done itself especially proud by not mentioning it at all.)

The plan was, then, to have as many as 50 000 officers marching through the streets. Quite a site, quite a statement.

Then, PCS and Unite decided to strike and stage protests on the same day. Why they chose May 10th is anyone's guess. Unite have ignored my request for an explanation, and other interested parties have asked the same question.

Why is it important? Well, two main reasons. Firstly, in the face of widespread strike action and demonstrations, many police areas will cancel rest days and annual leave to ensure that the strikes are adequately policed. The officers who are recalled to work have no choice in the matter - such are their terms & conditions that they can't strike or refuse to work. This means that many officers who wanted to come to London to protest - and will have already booked time off and travel/accommodation plans - will now not be able to because they will be obliged to work.

Secondly, 50 000 officers marching on their own, as I've said, is quite a sight. Now significantly reduce the number of officers and add on 100 000 other protesters from PCS and Unite, and we've now simply for "a large protest by public sector workers". What police protest? You mean the police were protesting as well? The media is already ignoring the destruction of UK policing by this Government. How much coverage do you think it will get now?

I'm not saying for one moment that PCS & Unite shouldn't have a strike. That's a matter for them and their members. After all, unlike the police, they already have the right to strike, so why not use it? In fact they have other strikes planned for later in the year. What PCS & Unite have done is the equivalent of turning up to a wedding in a big white dress and upstaging the bride. May 10th was supposed to be the day for the police officers of this country, the ones with no industrial rights at all. Police officers can't even join a union, let alone strike. Did you know that? The Police Federation is a staff association, and can actually do little to force the Government's hand on anything. It's an offence to incite disobedience among police officers. Basically, the rank-and-file officers are over a barrel. It was supposed to be time to fight back and show the strength of feeling among officers.

PCS and Unite KNEW that the police were marching on May 10th. They were told by the Police Federation as soon as the march was announced. I am told that there was even consultation with PCS & Unite, but they metaphorically gave the police service the finger and decided to go ahead anyway.

Unite and PCS unions have selfishly decided to ruin and neuter the police protest.

SHAME ON YOU Unite & PCS.

"Not On My Patch Lad" by Mike Pannett

This is the third book in the series by ex Met and North Yorkshire policeman Mike Pannett. I have previously reviewed "Now Then, Lad" and "You're Coming With Me, Lad" on this blog. If you are not familiar with these titles, or have never read Mike Pannett before, then I recommend you read the review of "Now Then, Lad" to get an idea of the direction that the books take.

As with the second edition, this third edition flows seamlessly from its predecessor. In a few years time, I can imagine the complete series being sold either as a complete, single bound edition, or a boxed set. In fact, I predict that these books will be as well known and fondly remembered as the James Herriot books. Pannett continues to tell his tales of crime, police work, and personal life in North Yorks with endearing honesty and passion. His descriptions of the countryside and the idyllic lifestyle do a great service to his home county, and it's no surprise to find that he has now teamed up with "Welcome To Yorkshire" to promote tourism in the area.

The book also continues to capture the unique nature of Yorkshire folk; friendly yet fiercely proud and independent. There's also some gentle fun poked at the legendary Yorkshire stinginess! The pace is always good, but there are times when it accelerates to a rush, such as when Mike in involved in pursuit of some serial criminals, or attending a fire at a remote farmhouse in treacherous icy conditions.

The book ends with Mike at a crossroads in his career, and I eagerly await delivery of the fourth book, "Just The Job, Lad".

The fifth book in the series, "Up Beat and Down Dale" is out in July. You can pre-order using the link below.

That's Another Fine Mess You've Got Me Into

It really does take a spectacular brand of idiot to take something that has widespread public support, i.e. avoidance of tax by the richest people in the country, and present it in such a way that charities and other organisations, not to mention the majority of the country, are offended and outraged on a grand scale.

In the same week that millionaire George Osbourne professed to be "shocked" at how widespread tax avoidance was (despite engaging in it himself), the latest jolly wheeze from the "You Couldn't Make it Up Room" (aka Cabinet Office) was the severe restriction of charitable donations. Never mind that in the grand scale of things, this sort of dodgy donation only accounts for a very small amount of lost tax revenue. Now charities will lose out and some of the most generous people in society are branded tax-dodgers.

Well done you pair of fools. You've managed to mess up something that no one else could have imagined you'd be able to mess up.

Update 16th April 2012:

I listened with interest to a piece on this subject this morning on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. The interviewee, David Gauke, Exchequer Secretary to the Treasury, was saying that it wasn't right for high earners to be able to remove themselves from the tax system, or reduce their effective rate of tax below that which they should be reasonably be expected to pay.

On the face of it, this is a reasonable statement, but again shows how little consideration has been given to this proposal. Let's take an imaginary high-flyer, earning a nice round £500 000 from whatever industry they happen to be in. Let's suppose that they give £470 000 of that to charity, leaving them with £30 000 in actual income. This is what they pay tax on. Because that figure is below the higher tax thresholds, this person would pay 20% income tax on that part of their income above the personal tax allowance. This is the ConDem headline that results - "XXX pays only 20% tax on earnings of £500 000". Whilst this is strictly true, it is of course hugely (and deliberately) misleading.

If someone earns £500 000 but gives £470 000 of it to a legitimate UK charity, how much income do they really have? Why shouldn't they pay tax on the remainder of their income? What is the difference between the above example, and someone earning £30 000 and doing, say, 200 hours of voluntary work for a charity? Is the latter "avoiding tax" by choosing to spend their time working voluntarily, when it could have been spent earning taxable income? Of course not, and here lies the folly in this prepostrous scheme.

The other opinion stated by the David Gauke was that everyone has to contribute to costs of defence, education, health etc. This might give us rather more insight to the real reason for this policy. The ConDem Government is not in the least concerned about the very rich who avoid tax through loopholes, and then keep the difference. Nothing substantive has been heard about that side of the debate.

This leads me to some conclusions.

1. This is intended to ensure that Government retains control over charitable schemes, so throttling off smaller charities benefitting the poorest areas of society.
2. Since Government seems not to be bothered about what Vince Cable called "abusive tax avoidance", perhaps this has been offered as a sacrificial lamb so that they can say "we tried to stop tax avoidance but it was so unpopular we retreated from it".
3. Cameron's Big Society was never intended to be financed by the "Conservative Classes", the really rich. It was intended to be contributed to by the rest of us, earning considerably less.

"Shaken Not Stirred", an evening with Henry Blofeld.

On Thursday 5th April, I went to see Henry Blofeld at Hull City Hall. For those that don't know him, Henry is a commentator on the BBC radio programme Test Match Special. He's had cricket in his blood since 1947, and is one of the most well known cricket commentators around the world.

I've been listening to Test Match Special (TMS) for over 30 years now, so Henry, often known as "Blowers" (following the Etonian tradition of adding 'ers' onto the surname, started by Brian 'Johnners' Johnston) has been the sound of summer for me since I was ten. He is truly an individual and idiosyncratic commentator. He was my father's favourite commentator, just a nose (no pun intended), ahead of Johnners.

Unfortunately, my wife didn't come with me to the performance. She's not a cricket fan and didn't think that she would get the humour. She needn't have worried. Cricket was mentioned, of course, but it was by no means the dominant topic of conversation. Blowers told a series of tales, jokes and anecdotes including his friendships with Ian Fleming, Noel Coward and Clive Dunn. He had the whole audience enthralled for the whole performance. He is a natural and brilliant raconteur.

Blowers spoke with only the briefest of notes for two halves of approximately an hour each. One of the best compliments I could give would be to say that if it had been twice the length, that would have been great for me. I thoroughly enjoyed myself for the duration of the evening, and judging by the laughter, I wasn't the only one. I can honestly recommend "Shaken Not Stirred" to everyone, cricket lover or not.

As I write this, I'm drinking a glass of red. To your health, Blowers. My Dear Old Thing!

"Police, Crime & 999" by John Donoghue

Well, what can I say about this book?

The first thing is that I haven't laughed out loud so much reading a book since I read Tom Sharpe's Wilt about 25 years ago. The book is crammed with stories from Donoghue's first year as a police officer in the town referred to as Sandford to retain anonymity. The other regular characters in the book are mostly pseudonyms of his other colleagues on shift with him, with the occasional recurring criminal.

It's well written, and rattles along at a very good pace. There are a few asides during some of the tales, some of them are relevant to the story in hand, all of them add to the comedy. I would imagine that this book would be best received by those with experience of policing, but should be a humourous read for all. There is an absolute minimum of police terminology and jargon. At various points the author explains the origins of common sayings or practices, however by the end of the book I was beginning to wonder if I wasn't being "had" by some of them. They are told with the literary version of a straight face, but I'm not entirely sure I trust the author to be truthful about all of them!

I can't think of another book that I've read that tells a personal story with such humour. Donoghue is clearly a mischievous character who enjoys looking for the joke in any given situation. That is common in the police service, especially dark humour, as that is a great way of relieving the stress of the situation. It's clear from the book that he is an educated, well rounded and experienced person who no doubt does an excellent job.

All humour aside, it's a great insight into the "people" side of the job, the fact that you deal with all sorts of people. This can be the most rewarding part of the job as well as the most dangerous.

I hope that there will be other books in the series in the future. I thoroughly enjoyed this book, and recommend it to anyone.

David Cameron is a big, fat LIAR

The title might seem a little harsh. Indeed, it may seem unfair to single out the Prime Minister, as most leading politicians are economical with the truth. However, Cameron is supposed to be the leader of this country, and for him to be so frequently untruthful is simply not acceptable.

In this previous blog entry I discussed how Cameron had been caught rolling out a statistic that had already been exposed as false after the Home Sectretary Theresa May said it. That didn't stop him from saying it again though. In this instance, he was attempting to mislead the public about the number of frontline police officers, saying that they were increasing when in fact they are provably decreasing.

I've spoken before about how statistics are misused, or to be more exact, used to mislead and create deliberately false impressions. That blog entry is here. Cameron was at it again in a 2006 speech, about police reform. It seems that Cameron likes to lie about the police, for reasons unknown. Certainly the recent "independent" review of the police service by Tom Winsor is shown to be anything but independent when you read the 2006 speech. You can read the full text on the Guardian website.

The biggest lie in the speech was this:

"This year, each police officer, on average, will make under 10 arrests. That's not even one a month. Think about it. Yet one police constable in Nottinghamshire, PC Coetzee, arrested over 300 suspects last year." [emphasis added]

Cameron's Conservative Party appears to have some agenda against the police service. It is hell bent on selling their opinion of the service as lazy. Winsor's report told several half-truths and this whopper: that 75% of male officers in the Metropolitan Police are overweight. In fact, the inconvenient truth for Winsor was that the Met ran a scheme for officers who were concerned about their weight. Of those that joined the scheme 75% were overweight.

I suspect that Cameron's speech writer simply took the total number of arrests and divided by the number of warranted officers. Leaving aside the arguments about the term "average" in my last blog, this is misleading because not all warranted (i.e sworn) officers are in positions where they are likely to arrest offenders. For example, firearms officers (ARV teams) will often arrive first at a scene, contain it, and detain anyone who needs to be arrested until the local beat officers arrive. This is done so that the ARV can resume patrol duties rather be tied up taking statements and filling in paperwork. Similarly, there may be warranted officers who work in areas such as the training department. You might say "Why have fully qualified officers wasting their time in the training department?". I can answer that. I've worked in the training department of a police force, training new Special Constables before they went to their respective stations. It is extremely difficult to convey the application of law and best practice without having the practical experience of having done it yourself. There is also the issue of credibility before your students.

Then we have situations where five or ten officers might arrive to deal with a particular situation, such as a pub fight, and only one or two arrests get made. Does that mean that the other officers were wasting their time? Of course not. Only an idiot would suggest that. However, an idiot did.

Can a police officer's performance be measured solely by the number of arrests made? Obviously it can't. It really would take someone who didn't understand policing to say that. That'd be like saying if an officer isn't arresting people then he's not working, or that while an MP isn't earning their public salary whilst carrying out Executive Directorships on the boards of private companies. Oh, hang on, that might not be the best comparison.

Cameron's lies aren't limited to slagging off the police though. We can find him lying about the number of people in work during PMQs on January 25th, debunked here.

We can also find him lying about the benefits to taxpayers of their economic policy. That lie is put to the sword here.

Let me be clear that politicians of all parties make false claims. Labour are equally guilty. I don't support any particular party. Voting for any of them is akin to choosing the burglar that's going to ransack your house. Just remember, though, Cameron is the man who said he was going to clean up politics and stop the "Punch and Judy" exchanges in the House of Commons. Perhaps that was his first recorded lie?