So a Remainer at the Treasury leaked a document claiming to predict what the economy would look like in 15 years time after Brexit, it assumes the EU would remain as it is now…clearly nonsense. The document was incomplete and didn’t include data that would show how Brexit might improve the economy but that didn’t stop the BBC et al from using it to tell us we’re all doomed #duetobrexit.
Curious then that the Bank of England’s Ben Broadbent on Wake up to Money, when asked why he couldn’t predict what the interest rates would be in one year, that’s one year not 15, he said …..
That’s why we meet eight times a year, because stuff happens.
‘Stuff happens’….‘stuff’ that they didn’t or couldn’t predict…In other words it’s almost impossible to accurately assess what any economy will do even in a relatively short period of time never mind over 15 years especially when the assumption is that nothing will change in the EU.
Also you might have noted the furore over crime going up according to police statistics whilst the British Crime Survey said it was going down. The BBC chose to use the police record as the gold standard whilst dismissing the BCS as useless. Might be because Corbyn is using the rising crime figures to attack May and according to the BBC that is a ‘crack in her armour’.
Whether crime is rising or falling is hugely important. It can affect how much is spent on policing and other related services, even how people vote.
How times change. When Labour was in power and the BCS showed crime going down but police records showed crime was going up with Tory MPs making political capital out of the police records the BBC, in the shape of Mark Easton in particular, went out of their way to explain the issues telling us that it was the BCS that was the gold standard, it was unchangeable and thus could be compared year on year and used over 40,000 interviews from crime victims as its basis. The police records however were totally unreliable, the methods of collecting and recording data changed and this meant there was no reliable means of assessing the true figures for crime from them.
So when Labour was in power the British Crime Survey was the gold standard as it showed crime dropping, when the Tories are in power the police records are the gold standard as they show crime rising. Funny that.
The BCS is completely unreliable…of that 40,000 or so crime report maybe 1,500 are actually used, and who selects which crimes are judged to be crimes? The Home Office…so hardly impartial or independent when drawing up crime figures. On top of that the methods and systems the BCS uses to record crime also change frequently thus making a lie of the BBC’s claim that it is consistent and thus trustworthy when it comes to comparing year on year. Naturally the BBC now see the error of their ways and have declared the BCS as a total waste of time…until Labour get in again and the BCS shows crime going down.
Here’s Mark Easton in 2008 beating the drum for the BCS:
Police figures go up and down depending on police activity. Crime may not be reported. But the crime survey gets round this problem by asking individuals what has happened to them.
It is regarded as the most robust survey on any subject in the country – tens of thousands of respondents and with a remarkably high completion rate.
And even in 2014 here he is again, telling us the police records are totally unreliable….
Now we know that the statistics watchdog doesn’t trust the police recorded crime figures, what faith can we have that crime really has been falling for the past 20 years?
The answer is plenty.
The UK Statistics Authority has said that police recorded crime data in England and Wales should no longer be designated as National Statistics because of accumulating evidence that they may be unreliable.
Recorded crime figures have always been a lousy way to identify crime trends.
So how can we be confident about crime trends?
Ask people.
The British Crime Survey (now the Crime Survey of England and Wales or CSEW) is a world-renowned invention. Using robust statistical modelling, it identifies far more crimes than are recorded by the police.
And yet today….
Labour, and the police, want to link an alleged rise in crime to Tory cuts to the police and the BBC obliges by making that link explicitly again and again whilst talking down the BCS figures…
The Crime Survey continues to show a reduction. But it’s increasingly clear that the survey, with a relatively limited sample, is not good at gauging emerging crime trends and offences which are small in number but great in impact, such as knife crime and robbery.
For now, the police statistics are a more useful guide as to what’s really going on.
Funny how the BCS, ‘world renowned’ and ‘the most robust survey’, is now so easily dismissed by the BBC when Corbyn goes onto the attack on crime figures and the BCS shows a fall in crime.
Remember that only 13 000 people from the ex commie bloc were going to come here and each immigrant adds £6 million to the economy ?
As for crime , whether Labour or Conservative it’s going up . The figures might go down , but actual crime goes up , until we rid ourselves of the Gramscians that infest our police and judiciary .
Shop lifting is not now considered worthy of police attention unless it’s over £200 pounds.. there that’s cut crime !!
Farcical isn’t it!
I argued long and hard on the old Al Beeb messageboards that the BCS, derived as it was from a SURVEY of the EXPERIENCE/PERCEPTION of the 40-50.000 sample, was deeply flawed and that police recorded crime, inexact as it was, was a far better method. Leftoids disagreed, of course but in those days BCS statistical extrapolations ‘showed’ crime decreasing. And it was always the actions of NooLabor wot dun it, not better burglary protection or car protection.
They used the same sort of arguments about Black criminality. It woz becos dey am discriminated against, innit, not that dey are more inclined to criminality.
15 years ago the eu had 25% of world trade.
It now has just over 15% of world trade
My forecast for the eu world trade using the above information.
In 15 years time the eu will have 5% of the world trade.
Now, can anyone say how my prediction is worth any less than the remainers treasury prediction.
One can say with certainty that your prediction is more worthy, mainly because it is based on a trend. The greatest defect of the clearly biased treasury guesses is that both pre and post referendum they are totally at odds with trend with no reason to justify the change. Merely citing ‘Brexit’ is the same game as defining those against excessive economic migration to the U.K. as ‘racist’. And guess what, it’s the same Leftoids doing it in the main.
I keep hearing on the BBC that more funding for every cause or service they can think of will be the answer to all those problems (all due to evil Torycuts of course). One such is lack of Police numbers which according to them and other experts is the cause for the increase in crime.
I’ve always lived in small peaceful, monocultural villages and only once felt obliged to move because of a crimewave due to an influx of pikies (who were/are an absolute nightmare). Small villages, in my experience, typically had their own Police House until about 1960 when they were closed down and sold off…and that was the last time I saw a local Policeman. Small towns nearby had their Police Stations until about 1980 when they were closed down. I have no idea where the Police are now!
So, when I hear cries for more Police numbers, I assume that they’re only intended for the cities? I’m trying to get my head round the logic that more Police = less crime when fortunate country folk like me find that zero Police = insignificant crime.
I suppose we’re just not diverse enough 🙁
Countryblues:
My advice is to keep the twelve bore handy, and if you ever do a Tony Martin, don’t bother reporting it!
I relinquished all my 12 bores 20 years ago but, I once had a pikey in my sights and was sorely tempted…
Now, shooting someone is a serious business but, nowhere near as diabolical as a nasty tweet 🙂
The Treasury leak, the appearance of Soros, the threats of punishment beatings from Barnier………………..coincidence?
What was entirely predictable though was the bBC output……..it was onto this like a rabid dog……………..woof woof ya ****s.
Market forecasting plagued the business I was involved in……….used to keep an aphorism on the office wall ;
” Predicting the future whether by forecasts or crystal balls have the same thing in common, they are almost inevitably wrong.
To end the week on a high apparently the Reich hausfrau has said she doesn’t understand what Blighty wants from being out of the ReichEU and that the Reich is not softening its stance on Blighty leaving
With a bit of luck this will edge us further to that great cliff of no deal.