Comments by "Mat Broomfield" (@matbroomfield) on "Has London's murder rate overtaken New York's? - BBC News" video.

  1. It's foolish to think that in a city of ten million people you would ever eliminate murder, so saying "The fact that there is even one murder is an issue" is just moral grandstanding. What could you or anyone possibly do to eliminate murder completely? How would you stop the quick tempers, the momentary drunkenness, the cheating wives or husbands, and the thousand other possible causes that are unique to a particular pair of people in a particular moment.
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  2. Can't stand the man but this is utter nonsense. They're simply trying to point out that if you take the statistic over a single month, which could easily be a momentary blip, you can tell a totally different story to reality.
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  3. "Because they know its due to immigration" where's your evidence for that statement? 1 in 77,000 people strikes me as a pretty decent rate.
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  4. Because a single month does not tell the picture. In the month of march, we had had 6 inches of snow in London. Does that mean that the snow rate in London has increased to 72 inches per year?
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  5. You must have watched a different report to me. At no time did I hear them dismiss that ANY kind of problem exists. They certainly countered alarmist rhetoric suggesting it was all gang violence. They also countered suggestions that you are more likely to be murdered in London than New York. In fact London is on the low side for capital city murder rates, so does that mean there's a murder problem in EVERY capital city, or simply that in any group of almost ten million people, some of them will kill each other? Hint: it's the latter. You can't solve human nature.
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  6. And have you heard the phrase "Lies, damned lies and statistics"? Or here's another one "Correlation does not equal causation." But frankly I'm not sure what you're alluding to in any case. Are you suggesting that a rise in murders is due to a rise in immigration? Are you suggesting that it's due to a Muslim mayor? Or some other factor? I'm quite willing to accept the former if evidence suggests that. However, there are factors that you may not be taking into consideration. For instance, funding for the Met is constantly being squeezed, job satisfaction amongst those working as police is plummeting, and staff numbers are through the floor meaning that there are not even enough staff to cover holidays. Now I don't know what other factors may be at play - a rise in drugs or guns, a rise in poverty, a rise in gang affiliation, etc. To look at a multi-factorial issue and lay the blame 100% at the feet of a single factor seems to me to be simplistic, although it may certainly be satisfying if you already have issues with the target of your blame.
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  7. The BBC was not burying its head in the sand - it was countering alarmist claims that London has a worse murder rate than New York. The fact that you missed the fact that they were actually trying to elucidate the issue, rather than minimise it, shows that you completely missed the point. Of course any murders are bad, you might as well have said "bad things are bad" for all the value your comment added to the conversation.
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  8. A long time since I've seen this many idiots in the comments section. Britain's murder rate is so low as to be statistically insignificant. Even in London, where it is higher, it is still only .67 per 100000 according to the figure in this video (a little higher if you take the UN figures, but still under 1 per 100,000). Compared to the overall rate in America of 4.92 or Russia 11.31 London is incredibly safe. Globally, Britain is well down in the lower 25% of the global murder rate leagues and is falling.
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  9. And what war is that TIH? The war to use calm rationality instead of constant inflammatory rhetoric? You know NOTHING about my politics. Don't presume.
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  10. Yes, I can accept that.
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