Why Boris and Dave are wrong about crime mapping

As a GIS professional it is nice to see our field of work at the front of national politics for once.

However the Tories are making a fundamental error in suggesting live data should be available to the public.

Crime hotspot analysis is first and foremost an intelligence tool. By modelling where crime is occurring at different times of day it is in theory possible to quantify risk and deploy your resources to respond to that risk.

So what will the Tories plans achieve put simply they will ensure the police are sharing their intelligence with the criminal fraternity.

Take burglary for example. Under Daves new world the IT savy local burglar can now check out where his competitors are working see the hotspot pattern and move to another part of town away from the focussed police presence designed to catch him. Then 2 months later when the insurance claims are settled he has a nice list of properties to revisit safe in the knowledge that the TV is brand spanking new.

In short if would be like the USA sharing their troop deployment with Russia in real time at the height of the cold war.

Far from forcing forces to spend time and effort on these shiny new web sites they should invest the same resources into improving the analysis infrastructure of forces to maximise access to this information at the beat level rather than leaving it trapped with a small group of highly professional analysts

Why MPs need to back their pay deal in full

I had lunch today with one of our MPs, a long term friend we specifically decided politics was off limits for the day. They did said they will be voting against the full pay rise because of all the work they were doing in support of the police claim and it would be hypocritical to do otherwise I told them I thought they were wrong and we left it at that ,but here I thought I might explain why.

Personally I think the best thing an MP can do for every nurse, policeman, teacher and everyone else whose pay is "set" by independant review is to back this increase in full.

Why? because to do otherwise is the leave Gordon Brown with the stick "MPs rejected their full increase so you should follow there example". Of course the there will be accusations of snouts in a trough so some care on presentation will need to be undertaken but there is a fundamental principle at stake in that vote.

IF you set pay by independent review then you must honour that review in full.

Of course I hope our MPs will propose at least one amendment the abolition of this crazy vote in the first place.