When you’re in a hole…

It’s probably time the government stopped digging themselves even deeper into the mire they created with their dodgy knife-crime stats. From Mark Easton’s blog:

The row over the release of unchecked knife crime stats by the Home office last December has taken an extraordinary new twist today with the government’s account of what happened looking increasingly shaky.

This afternoon, cabinet office Minister Kevin Brennan told committee of MPs that “the statistics produced within the Home Office on that fact sheet were approved by statisticians in the Home Office before publication”.

Startled by a suggestion made by the committee chair (and revealed on this blog a few weeks ago) that the stats guys had done no such thing, a flustered Mr Brennan replied: “That is the information I have, but if that is incorrect, Chair, I’ll correct the record”.

That’s only the start – go and read the rest of it.