Penny Mordaunt: Debasing The Political Debate?

It's a rather sad indictment of the media's coverage that MP for Portsmouth North Penny Mordaunt's joke speech in the Commons makes the front page of a Sunday newspaper. This at a time when a proper debate is ongoing in the wake of Owen Paterson's and Cameron's speeches earlier this week regarding our membership of the EU and immigration.

We're not sure that a slightly silly speech by Penny Mordaunt as a "bet" on behalf of her constituents warrants front page coverage. But we have long given up on the media having a sensible debate on anything serious as Evan Davis demonstrated on BBC's Newsnight earlier this week.

However this blog rather more fondly remembers her gallant efforts to remove a certain Andrew Andronikou as administrator to Portsmouth Football Club, efforts which turned out to be successful.

Andronikou had previously been an administrator at Swindon Town FC and memories of his time there are less than kind to this blogger. If we were to be very generous we could consider that he had a questionable integrity. In our original post we slightly pulled our punches and it is the only post which has been published on here that was "legalled" before publishing.

So here on TBF we are entirely grateful for the efforts of Penny Mordaunt...

"A Powerful Reputation For Accuracy"

It is of little wonder that the media cannot grasp the complexities of our membership of the EU when they fail to even try to grasp the basics of a Football Club's boardroom politics, particularly when it involves poker games between rich men, one of whom happens to be the founder of a gambling site called Betfair.

I will spare my readers of most of the details, just give a quick summary. First we come to the, very well funded, BBC who breathlessly reports this on 17th January:

Swindon Town has been put up for sale in order to avoid administration, with debts thought to be around £13m....Around £9m is set to be wiped from the deficit if Swindon enter administration for a third time in their history, but they may then face a points deduction.

Strangely enough there's not one quote in the BBC piece that backs its assertions up and seems instead to be based on this:

When asked if he could guarantee the club could avoid administration, Patey responded: "Not a single chairman in the country could do that." 

Still, it feeds into the lazy narrative that Swindon has had a long and dubious history of financial problems. Yet since a successful takeover in 2008 it doesn't owe a penny to creditors who are knocking on the door, doesn't have an overdraft, doesn't owe the taxman.

The main creditor is Swindon’s owner Andrew Black and it exists in the form of soft debt of his own money. Swindon’s current situation is that Mr Black, the main shareholder, for personal reasons has decided to sell, and it’s been that position for many months.

But the BBC, in their wisdom, ran with Swindon financial 'crisis' story, picking up on a quote which was taken out of context. As a result it has lead to constant accusations from other media outlets that are of a very untrue nature. No wonder Swindon Town received an apology and damages from the Football League Paper, for blatant libel. And now today the Daily Mail has this:

Paolo Di Canio is facing an increasingly uncertain future at Swindon, amid claims the financially stricken League One club will go into administration in the next 24 hours. 

A desperate search for new investment to help offset debts of around £13m appears to have failed and left club bosses fearing they may have little alternative but to call in the administrators. 

As a consequence, Swindon’s entire first-team squad would be put up for sale, in a move that would leave Di Canio agonising over his next move.

But...oh dear...

A DEAL has been reached which will see Swindon Town taken over by a consortium led by Jed McCrory subject to Football League approval, the Advertiser understands.

It is believed that the new owners and the current board, led by Andrew Black, will hold joint responsibility in the running of the club until the deal is ratified by the authorities.

Still, "a powerful reputation for accuracy" is what the media has, despite that you get a far more accurate picture of what's going on from a humble internet forum.

Update: Just simply marvellous:

Today's report in the Daily Mail which suggested Swindon Town's players were all up for sale and that the club was about to be plunged into administration appears to have been the result of an erroneous email.

The Advertiser has learnt that an agent issued the missive, which intimated that every member of the Town squad was available for transfer, last night.
The Adver has also been told that several agents have been claiming to represent players who are not their clients.

Fit And Proper?

Those that have read my blog for a while know that I have long been following the perils of Portsmouth Football Club So it was with some amusement that I have picked up on this report from the Guardian a couple of weeks ago (my emphasis):

One of the most unhappy sagas in English football's history of club ownership may finally be nearing its conclusion after the Football League declined to approve the bid by the Hong Kong-based businessman Balram Chainrai to take over Portsmouth again.

A central issue the league is known to have considered is whether Chainrai may not pass the "fit and proper person test", now known as the "owners and directors'" test, were he to buy Portsmouth back from a second period in administration in two years.

For those unversed in football governance it's worth noting that not passing the football league's 'fit and proper test' is impossible - it's the equivalent of winning at Mornington Crescent. Being a crook is a requirement, so one has to wonder how crooked Chainrai is to have failed.

It's one hell of an achievement.

Hurrah Part 2

Following Portsmouth Football Club's point deduction today, I'm most pleased to learn of this:

A £5,000 FINE has been dished out to UHY Hacker Young partner Andrew Andronikou for "manifestly inappropriate" conduct in relation to a client going through personal insolvency proceedings.

In a consent order made with the ICAEW, Andronikou was severely reprimanded, fined £5,000 and paid costs of £6,500 in relation to his role as a nominee and supervisor of an insolvent individual in 2007.

The institute's investigation committee said that the complaint against him related to wrongly recommending a creditors' meeting should be summoned, in that he had not undertaken sufficient investigations into the validity of certain creditor claims. Court proceedings to set aside a decision of the creditors' meeting by a third party saw his conduct as "manifestly inappropriate" relating to evidence filed by him on the respondent's behalf.

He was reprimanded and fined £500 last year by the ICAEW in a consent order for failing to meet insolvency reporting requirements.

Not that it is personal from my point of view of course and nor would I even suggest he often wilfully does anything remotely untoward.

Speed Cameras

Even though the trigger point was always reduced to catch more motorists;

“When you put a camera in, the number of speeders always reduces. Suddenly there’s no money coming in, so they drop the trigger speed from 38mph to 35mph to pay the bills,” says Reynolds. “What good did that do but alienate the public?”

And as soon as the Newbury by-pass opened, the speed limit was dropped from 40 down to 30mph on the incoming A4 - consistently used by commuter traffic - with very little notice. The Police knew they would catch lots of motorists one Monday morning because at the time, they choose a pub (pictured below) along the A4 for their speed trap, a pub which was noted for having a very large car park - so conveniently there was plenty of room to pull over copious motorists going to work early on a Monday morning:

...and Swindon is an experiment in proving they don't' work:

A Wiltshire town that decided to get rid of its speed cameras has the safest roads in Britain, a report has revealed.

...we now have this...

Still, it's about road safety don't cha you know?

Splicing The Mainbrace

After a weekend of indulging in very rare joy (you have to appreciate these things fully when you can) I've spent the morning catching up, so blogging will hopefully resume again shortly.

Looks like not much has changed; the euro is still knackered, democracy is still non-existent and the coalition is still useless.

Ho hum...

Getting It Wrong (2)

For God's sake it's not difficult is it. Why do the media consistently fail to spell Paolo Di Canio's name right.

This from Sky:

And from the Mirror:

How hard can spelling a bloke's name correctly be?

Getting It Wrong

It's not just the news, but the media struggle with details regarding sport particularly football - despite being a lucrative staple of the MSM and Sky Sports.

So given the high profile nature of Swindon Town's manager you would think some fact checking would be done regarding his name, at least. But no, above is an image from Sky Sports regarding Swindon's recent promotion.

And in the Telegraph last year:

It's Paolo not Paulo, his name is easily found on Wikipedia. And this is a mistake describing a former Premiership player who's on the list of best goals scored since its inception.

Amateurs.

Safest Roads In Britain...?

...are... *drum roll*....in Swindon, which scrapped its fixed speed cameras nearly 3 years ago:

A Wiltshire town that decided to get rid of its speed cameras has the safest roads in Britain, a report has revealed.

Swindon, which scrapped its speed cameras in July 2009 to save on council costs and trial other traffic calming measures, has just two accidents per thousand registered vehicles on its roads - the lowest rate in the UK. The town became the first English local authority to decommission fixed cameras, although it decided to maintain mobile cameras used by police.

Swindon saw little change to the number of accidents after the cameras were scrapped, with no fatalities in the six months following their removal. 

Despite the scaremongering at the time and accusations by MPs of council leaders "playing politics with lives" the reality is that speed cameras have had little effect. But then they were never about road safety

The Real Thugs

Above is a picture of my view yesterday from my seat in the shithole more popularly known as Wembley, at the JPT final. A second visit hasn't changed my views of the place, particularly as it took over 20 minutes at half time to queue for the Gents' toilet, in a stadium less than half full, and far longer than it did in the old Wembley. Still that's £798 million worth of progress for you:

Football games were held on the pitch and visitors tested the 2,618 toilets - more than any other venue in the world.

On the right of the picture above is an example of copious blue coated so-called stewards that walk about the place 'keeping order'. Generally in football stadia stewards tend to have two kinds of colours - yellow and orange (Orange ones are the important ones apparently). However blue was a new colour - to me -  and on the back were the words; 'Response Team'. So not stewards then. Their attitude was no different though. By keep walking in front of the supporters, so obstructing our view, they were politely asked to stop - after all Wembley tickets are not cheap. The response was robustly unhelpful along the lines of; "tough we'll kick you out if you don't like it".

And previously despite the day passing off very peacefully, with warm weather and friendly banter between opposing fans sharing the same pubs, 'England's law and order' decided that wasn't acceptable, and so confiscated cans of beer from numerous fans outside the stadium (including from myself) and tipped it away down the drain, much to the delight of female police on horses.

One can only come to the conclusion that authorities are being deliberately provocative.

Hurrah For HMRC

Before some suspect that I have lost copious marbley things, bear with me. I've been following the somewhat protracted administration problems at Portsmouth Football Club closely. They were the first Premiership club to go into administration and they've gone into administration for the second time recently - demonstrating once again that many football clubs are living beyond their means. But my main reason for following their plight closely is not because I have any particular affinity with them (yes good luck to them), but due to one man -  the administrator Andrew Andronikou.(pictured above - this is a bit of a personal post)

For those who are not familiar with the man, Andrew Andronikou works for chartered accountants UHY Hacker Young which in their words are:

...one of the UK's Top 20 accounting and auditing firms

Mr Andronikou's profile can be found here:

He has extensive experience in Bank receivership and investigation assignments, and also liquidation appointments. He is particularly interested in undertaking corporate reconstruction work, such as Administrations and Company Voluntary Arrangements. Andrew has headed a number of high profile appointments including the recent Administration of Portsmouth Football Club, the first premier league club in history to enter Administration.

Hmm "extensive experience" eh? Not that implies any level of competence of course, and rightly so. A substantial part of Mr Andronikou's experience was being the administrator during the deeply entrenched money problems at Swindon Town. In summary, for long time until December 2007 we were a financial basket-case - and we were the first club to go into administration twice.

However according to Andronikou - when he was appointed at Portsmouth - he was the 'saviour of our club', as he became the only administrator arrogant enough to sign autographs:

This makes me think Portsmouth's administrator Andrew Andronikou (the only accountant in the country who signs autographs) isn't quite as media savvy as he imagines he is.

Yet describing him as Swindon’s saviour is a historical revisionism on a scale that the Ministry of Truth would have been proud of. Having been involved during that time, and witnessed first hand Andronikou's role, (and I'm not sure how to put this nicely), but his actions left the deep suspicion that his mind was not entirely focused on fulfilling his legal obligations to the professional standard that would be expected.

Now I should mention at this point that he also had a close relationship with Swindon Town's 'advisor' Mike Diamandis at the time. Diamandis was appointed as an 'advisor' despite being banned as a director for trading whilst insolvent. Yet in truth it was apparent that de facto he ran the club as a Director, some would say potentially illegally

He is the man who - behind-the-scenes - has effectively run the football club for the last five years.

Diamandis and Andronikou have had a close personal relationship in the past, their business record is indeed deeply suspicious. Andronikou was often appointed to a number of Diamandis' businesses which had gone into administration and no questions were apparently asked - it won't do to investigate rigorously whether a company was trading insolvently.

Unfortunately for them football fans tend to be a different kind of customer - ones with years of an emotional attachment that far outweighs concerns of finances. So as a consequence, and almost altruistically, awkward questions get asked, much to the discomfort of those with vested interests:

"I have an issue with the supporters trust as well as they could have caused untold damage if we had not ignored them. Their self importance genuinely put the club at risk. I think we all agree a supporters trust is healthy but for the right reasons. I think they have got out of hand. I think it represents about 20 people and that has to change quickly.

The Swindon Trust's response being:

"The comment about the 20 or 30 busybodies finding something else to do has caused a great deal of anger among fans," said Davis.

"We (the Trust) have over 950 members, all of whom are extremely concerned about the way the club is being run and the way that Mr Andronikou is supervising the CVA.

So...far from being a saviour, he took our club to within 24 hours of being wound up and didn't sign off our Company Voluntary Agreement for years after it should have been. Previous to that this was the man that always had 'mystery buyers' lined up which never materialised, ignored genuine buyers to the detriment of the creditors because it didn't apparently suit those in charge and blamed everyone else when things didn't go according to 'his plan'.

Not only that he took it upon himself to, despite being someone appointed to look after creditors’ interests, tell the creditors what to do (my emphasis):

"I have the discretion to do what I think is right for everyone. That is where it starts and ends really.  No matter what some people say, as long as I think it is in the interests of everyone to extend the deadline then I can extend or vary it as I see fit."

So it's no surprise to see Portsmouth experience the same 'incompetent' man:

Mr Andronikou was the preferred administrator - which sparked alarm among Pompey fans.

And as a result it comes as a source of great amusement to myself as a result of HMRC action that I learn this:

A High Court judge today refused to allow Andrew Andronikou’s firm to act as Pompey’s administrators. Mr Justice Alastair Norris ruled UHY Hacker Young will not be in charge.

The decision came despite Balram Chainrai’s firm Portpn Ltd offering £500,000 to the club if Mr Andronikou or another administrator it approves of was appointed.

And the Judge was pretty damning:

Mr Justice Norris added: ‘What’s proposed this time round seems to be exactly what was proposed last time round without addressing the real underlying problem. One would think that the real emphasis should be on reducing the trading losses of the club to turn it into a viable trading business. Perhaps a fresh view is called for.’

‘The general body of taxpayers, the ordinary consumers who do pay their energy bills and the ordinary traders and professionals who provide services such as, coach hire, catering, medical services, ground care and maintenance, must wonder why they should be subsidising the club’s energy bill and why it is that they are involuntary lenders to the club over their outstanding bills and why they will only get back pence in the pound for the services they have provided.’

And with that he blew the final whistle saying: ‘I will appoint Mr Birch and his team to be the administrators of Portsmouth Football Club.’

In other words the least of Andronikou's concerns was the small business creditors. But we knew that all along. Sometimes HMRC gets things right - albeit like a stopped watch still being correct twice a day.

Deadly Switch Off

Swindon recently engaged in an experiment, despite local concerns, to save money and to 'reduce their carbon footprint' by switching off streetlights - enthusiastically supported no less by a Tory councillor.

But whoops it's gone a bit Pete Tong according to the BBC:

Hundreds of street lights in Swindon which were turned off to save money are being switched back on.

Swindon Borough Council said the authority felt it was not worth continuing due to the number of concerns being raised by the public.

But what the BBC report and the Councillors don't say is 'concerns being raised by the public' refers to the fact that lights have been turned back on because of significant safety considerations, views which were aired well in advance, and that accidents have subsequently increased as a result of the blackout.

Still at least it was supposed to save £20,000, only a snip compared to the total basic Councillor's allowances of £722,600.

Wembley

Some readers may have noted that my football team have booked themselves a place in the final of the 'watch-the-paint-dry' trophy. This strangely has left me with mixed feelings. Yes it's great to be in a final and have the opportunity to win some silverware, but it also means paying another visit to the new Wembley.

For me the new Wembley epitomises all that's wrong with modern football; the greed, the money, the corporatism, the buffoon-like administration by football authorities and also the woeful lack of imagination in new stadium design - in short I can't stand the place.

A visit to the old Wembley, particularly with your team, was one of the pinnacles of a supporters' life, it was one of the most magical grounds in the country -just walking down Wembley Way towards the twin towers raised goosebumps - the atmosphere inside often left me 'deaf' afterwards. However that's not to deny that the old ground had serious failings. There were many many faults; the lack of facilities, that the seats were too far away from the pitch, the view in many cases was atrocious especially towards the back where the roof obscured 2/3rds of the pitch, and the legroom...? What legroom - RyanAir's capacious by comparison.

So clearly the old Wembley was in need of a major revamp - a massive improvement in facilities yet retaining the old magic was required.  This was also the case with many stadia which the Bradford fire and Hillsborough showed up, with tragic consequences, the inadequacies of centuries old buildings which hadn't largely been touched since they were built. So the opportunity arose where we could build innovative, safe and exciting stadia. Some got it right like Sunderland, Huddersfield and the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, but many went along with the "off the shelf, boring, MFI all-you-will-need-is-a-screwdriver" option. Wembley though is in a different league of its own. So what's wrong with it?

Well its dubious good points are that it's impressively large from the outside, but significantly smaller inside - like a Tardis in reverse, and it's efficient (and no, escalators do not belong in football grounds) and it has comfortable seats - yeah well so does my living room.

In summary it's a reasonably effective modern building. But then so is my local Tesco's, but I don't get excited when I have to visit it - I'm more concerned about the impact on my credit card. And that's the problem. Wembley is less a football stadium and more a soulless leviathanic credit card machine that has been dumped in North London. The fact that it should host football matches is clearly an afterthought. TV commentators often complain about the empty seats in the middle corporate box section - it looks an embarrassment but yet it is a fitting tribute to the current state of the game and to the priorities of Wembley.  The ultimate symbol of a game that has turned into an 'us and them'.

And then there's the arch. What's that about? Apparently it replaces the twin towers as the iconic feature of the stadium:

 The 2,000 tonne, 315 metre-long steel arch replaces the Twin Towers as the iconic feature of the...stadium.

Well sorry it doesn't, it just looks like a left over from an Alton Towers roller coaster ride. One wonders whether the FA went to Bolliger & Mabillard for its 'signature piece'.

Still, it only cost £798 million and was only a year late...

Making The Most Of It

Apologies in advance to non-football readers of my blog but this doesn't happen often, so I'm making the most of it - a bit of gloating if you like:

And:

What A Farce

Much comment about the riots elsewhere, I don't have much time to blog my thoughts other than this little gem: my team was due to play Cheltenham Town this weekend but it was called off on Police advice due to the riots.

To put this into context all other matches including Premiership ones in Liverpool, Leeds and London are going ahead as normal with the sole exception of Tottenham vs Everton. So there you have it, Police in Gloucestershire were worried about a relatively low key game between two teams that have no history of trouble, taking place in a spa Town that has largely escaped the recent violence:

"Following recent events in Gloucester, there is requirement for us to focus police resources to deter and deal with any potential disruption which may take place."

"As a result, it will not be possible to deploy officers alongside stewards in the ground or additional resources in the town centre on this occasion."

"This presents a safety risk for and we have therefore advised the club to postpone the match in the interests of ensuring the safety of everyone involved."

"We have an excellent relationship with the club and are grateful for their support in this matter."

Anyway in a farcical and embarrassing u-turn that is completely unprecedented in my 30 years of watching football, the game is now back on, the Police excuse being (my emphasis):

Gloucestershire Police had originally withdrawn their support for the game due to the recent civil unrest in Gloucester and other parts of the country. However, a re-assessment of the situation has now resulted in the police being able to provide the required resources for Saturday's match.

The re-assessment being not only clear anger and frustration from the Swindon chairman (link now removed) but that Gloucestershire Police were inundated, via twitter and emails from fans with full and frank assessments that they were a bunch of...how do I put this politely...Jeremy Hunts.

Talking of Jeremy Hunts, Cameron continues his mastery of doing everything apart from being good at his job. Lots of sound-bites today on getting tough with rioters; such as claims that anyone convicted should go to jail - well yes Dave under Section 2 of the Public Order Act they usually do. Apparently also Police will be given powers to unmask thugs - well yes Dave under the 1994 Criminal Justice and Public Order (Section 60), ooh passed by a Tory Government, the Police already have those powers:

In addition, the police may require you to remove any item which they reasonably believe you are wearing wholly or mainly for the purpose of concealing your identity. They can seize such items and any you were intending to wear wholly or mainly for that purpose. This clearly includes removal of head and face coverings. Where the covering is worn for religious reasons the police have to be sensitive about the removal and it should not be removed in public and, if possible, not in the presence of anyone of the opposite sex.

And he proposes the shutting down of social networking sites. Quite how Dave thinks he can close down non-UK social sites, stop new ones emerging or anyone accessing the internet without ceasing mobile networks completely is beyond me. Jon Worth, a chap I usually fundamentally disagree with on many issues, has two cracking posts on this today. Not that it stops Tory 'A-lister' Louise Mensch agreeing with Dave and arguing for censoring twitter on...wait for it...twitter.

Despite Mrs Mensch's protestations, the Chief Constable of Greater Manchester Police Peter Fahy defends the medium as on balance useful:



It's beyond parody, and my head hurts, then I see this post from Witterings From Witney:

The "Poisoned Dwarf", as I named [Hazel Blears MP] approximately 12 months ago, compounded her inability to engage brain once again today when, in respect of looters and rioters, she said on Sky "People need to ask, why are they not at school?". Err Hazel, possibly due to three factors: it was the weekend, its was night time and it was school holidays........?

White riot, I wanna riot...

Hang The Euro

Apologies but again due to real life getting in the way, blogging has been a bit slow round these parts.

Being busy though hasn't stopped me getting annoyed by the utterly irrelevant debate on reintroducing the death penalty - a campaign led by the self-proclaimed 'King of the Blogosphere' (Guido Fawkes), who is, by being less than forthcoming with the truth, a parody of the very medium he continuously professes to hate - the MSM. A tip Guido, the death penalty is forbidden as a result of our membership of the EU and Council of Europe via us signing up to Protocol 13.

Still, we'll have a couple of days of universal coverage of the 'passionate' debate, then probably a vote by MPs and...fuck all will change as the issue is decided by Europe.

Meanwhile... the Euro contagion spreads, rather than being a rumble in the distance you can tell it's serious this time - not only has the BBC led with the issue on its news bulletins but Barroso has been uncharacteristically blunt about the crisis. Previously the Euro has always managed to limp along regardless, but today's events look increasingly like a tipping point - panic is in the EU air.

Thank god the football season starts on Saturday to take my mind off things - though not sure it helps that my team's manager is Italian!

Quiet

Apologies, but posting will be a little slow round these parts for a day or two, in all honesty I don't feel up to it.

Stupid.

Well that puts me in my place:

According to a survey, Swindon is Britain’s most ignorant town. In a poll carried out for the BBC TV series QI, the town came an embarrassing last place. Its residents struggled to name the colour of oranges, were confused over the number of legs an octopus has and were unsure when Advent begins.

Though oddly:

Swindon...is also famed for having Britain’s most confusing road junction – consisting of five mini-roundabouts and nicknamed the Magic Roundabout.

So residents in Swindon who are apparently dumb are capable of using a roundabout which everyone else who's more brainy than them finds confusing? Hmm there's a contradiction in there somewhere.

I wonder if this man comes from Swindon?

A Victory For Common Sense

Southampton lift their photo ban:

SWINDON Town chief executive Nick Watkins has welcomed the lifting of the photography ban at St. Mary's Stadium.

Watkins summed up the decision as a 'victory for common sense' after the Saints backed down from their decision to not allow press agency or newspaper photographers inside the ground, following mass pressure from local and national media outlets.

Ridicule and pressure; it really works. Southampton? They were defeated by Subbuteo.

Speeding Data 'Misleading'

I meant to blog on this last week when it appeared on my local news, but forgot. Obo has jogged my memory.

On 1st August all speed cameras in Oxfordshire were turned off, well technically they were turned off over a period of a few days - prosecutions stopped on 1st August. So some of them still worked. I'm waiting for the first case of the council chancing their arm with an August prosecution. Anyway it didn't take long for some safer roads campaigners to start bleating:

Last week, Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership said a roadside camera on the A44 in Woodstock had seen an 18.3 per cent increase in speed offences since the switch-off compared to the average number caught this year.

At the same time a radar inside a second camera in Watlington Road, Cowley, registered an 88 per cent rise in offences when compared with figures in 2008 and 2009.

Speeding offences up eh? What about traffic accidents, casualties, deaths? Are they up? Thames Valley Safer Roads Partnership seem strangely silent on that one. But even these figures are not all they seem:

The partnership said the figures for 2010 were not available, as the camera had been switched off due to roadworks.

When the Oxford Mail requested 2008-9 data for the Woodstock camera – to make an equal comparison to the Watlington Road camera – the partnership said the figures were not readily to hand.

Now, the Oxford Mail having obtained the information, the figures actually show speed offences fell by four per cent when comparing the figures since the switch-off to offences in 2008-9.

So it takes a FOI request to prove they're misleading. But they insist:

...there was no deliberate attempt to mislead the public about the figures.

“I don’t think there’s anything we have done that is disgraceful or lies and damn lies.

“As we have always maintained, these remain limited data sets and there is a great deal more study that will need to be undertaken to determine what the increased risk at decommissioned camera sites is.”

Yes of course, which is why August isn't over yet but you couldn't wait to issue that 'shock horror' rise of 18%. Compare that to the pro-camera argument, that 11 months was too early to tell when Swindon didn't show any rise after a year of switching them off.