Crime

There have been tears, laughter, and the odd stray F-word. The London mayoral race has been high on emotion and more than usually bad-tempered. Boris Johnson has been slightly more careful with his facts, choosing to deal in aspirations rather than promises. Ken Livingstone has made some extravagant claims which have landed him in hot water. Here’s the verdict from FactCheck HQ on a very irritable election.

Ed Miliband claims violence, theft and robbery is on the rise – is he right? FactCheck investigates.

The United Kingdom is locking up her children too young and too often – and it’s not helping to rehabilitate them, says Europe’s human rights watchdog.The Ministry of Justice hasn’t reviewed the minimum age since the 1960s. But does it need to?

“The actual cash saving this year is nothing like £445. It’s £3.10, barely enough to buy you a pint of beer in a central London pub.”

Despite the ring of alarm bells over frontline police numbers, David Cameron told the House of Commons that the thin blue line is actually getting fatter. Is he right? FactCheck investigates.

The biggest political porkies of 2011: Channel 4 News’ FactCheck team run through the dodgiest politics claims of the year.

Metal theft has caused at least six deaths, 50 injuries, 60 fires and – a contender for stat of the year here – a total of 673 days of train delays in the last three years. But unless personally blighted by it – as Jon Snow was over the weekend – you’d be forgiven for being oblivious to the problem. Graham Jones, MP for Hyndburn in Lancashire, says it was the “constant concerns” of his wife and son – who both work for Electricity North West – that brought it to his attention. He is not alone in calling for a reform of the Metal Theft Act of 1964, which was slammed in the Lords last month for being “still legally in the age of Steptoe and Son”. But are we really dealing with a cable crime wave or has Mr Jones got his wires crossed? FactCheck dons its hard hat.

“That’s a worringly large proportion. There’s only one small problem. The numbers are completely wrong.”

FactCheck is a bit mystified. Labour’s press office pinged out a preview of Yvette Cooper’s speech this morning, which obviously we leapt on with our fine toothed factchecking comb. And something caught our eye. The release, published on Politics Home, announced that Yvette Cooper would say at Conference today that Labour was “the first government in a hundred years where crime went down and not up”.

After the funeral of Mark Duggan today, whose death sparked the riots a month ago, it is understood that police forces from Cornwall to Northumbria will finally leave the capital – ending four weeks of unprecedented extra support for the Metropolitan Police. Will the government pay up, or will the police foot the bill? FactCheck investigates.

Eyebrow-raising statistics and verbal gymnastics from Theresa May as she insists police cuts are manageable. FactCheck investigates.

David Cameron and Theresa May insist the cuts won’t affect the police’s ability to handle major incidents like this week’s riots. FactCheck investigates.

Arresting statistics were published today: 34,100 police jobs will be axed in England and Wales by 2015 due to Government cuts – a third of these have already been cut. And the overall figure is an underestimation, Her Majesty’s Inspector of Constabulary (HMIC) admitted.