Anecdotes, statistics, lies and other pre-election nonsense

A friend of ours was assaulted recently. He was walking along in the snow, carrying a pair of boots in a bag. The bag accidentally brushed against the side of a parked car. No damage was caused, but the car’s owner, who was nearby, thought his car had been scraped, went bananas and punched our friend in the face, knocking him to the floor. It was an isolated incident, proving only that there are some aggressive idiots about and that getting the police involved is hardly worth the effort unless they happen to be actually present at the time and can see what’s happening – otherwise it’s one person’s word against another.

With an election coming up, though, politicians are less cautious about panic-inducing over-extrapolation. Our local Tory MP's been caught out making some wild claims which make Central Milton Keynes sound more like South Central LA:

In Milton Keynes, local [Tory] MP Mark Lancaster's office put out a statement last week claiming that there were 6,015 "violent attacks" in the town last year, reflecting a 236% increase over the past decade.
…
Milton Keynes sounds like Dodge City. That's a "violent attack" every 90 minutes.
However, according to the Milton Keynes Citizen newspaper, the town's police says that the statistics are "extremely misleading".

Local commander Nikki Ross told the local paper that the figure includes "everything from public order offences, to harassment, to allowing a dog to be out of control in a public place".
"The actual number of people who were victims of serious violence was 81," she said.
The point here is that the phrase "violent attacks" does not equate directly with the crime category "violence against the person". For instance, if someone swears at you in the street and you complain to the police about it, that incident goes down as an act of "violence against the person".

Via Freemania. I could do some sort of Dirty Harry-style skit on the David Cameron election poster generator, but frankly, they're not worth it.