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Are you happy with the crime rate? Jacqui Smith is.

In the best traditions of the DPRK, the government has unveiled a new slogan, and shortly it will "appear in national and regional newspapers, television and radio":

'Lets (sic) keep crime down'.

Or at least that is what it is in the press release at Pravda Central. A look at the adverts themselves suggests that they did a bit of pre-press proofing. However, pointing out typos is not that thrilling an entertainment for anyone, so on to the infinitely more fun task of playing semantics:

If the Home Office's figures are to be believed, and for now I will suspend disbelief, 'let's keep crime down' implies that crime has fallen to a level that is acceptable. I disagree, it has not. It might be argued that this is just a snappy slogan cooked up by the HO's agency, and therefore overmuch should not be read into it. Again, I disagree. I would accept 'let's cut crime' or 'let's fight crime'.

I will not even get started on what one might derive from 'let us...'

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This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 17, 2009 at 9:08 am. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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Anonymous Anonymous said... 9:56 am

Considering the current government's penchant for dictating to people how to live their lives and penalising dissidents who dare to be different (gods help you if you don't meet your recycling target!)...

...I wonder how long it will be before leaving a window unlocked itself becomes classed a "wasting police time" and hence, a criminal offence?  



Blogger Old BE said... 9:57 am

"Let's start getting crime down"
"Let the police start getting crime down"
"Let's start locking up violent people so they can't hurt anyone else"
"Let's stop cooking the books and start admitting that spending all our time accusing the police of being racist isn't helping them to fight crime"

I could go on for hours.  



Blogger Letters From A Tory said... 9:57 am

Perhaps they are making a subtle mention of the likelihood that crime will start to rise as unemployment really bites, so their job is merely to keep crime marginally under control rather than lowering it?  



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