Calculating crime

At last a Police force has engaged professional mathematicians. The LAPD are worknig with University of California. They’ve come up with two equations that could explain crime hotspots into two types.

If I’ve understood correctly:

“supercritical” – small spikes in crime rates pass a critical threshold and create a local crime wave.

“subcritical” – when a particular factor such as a drug den causes a large spike in crime.

 They state that the equations suggest that rigorous policing could completely eliminate subcritical hotspots but simply displace supercritical crime.

So the key would be keeping below supercritical thresholds and quickly dealing with subcritical factors.

Any local mathematicians available for pro bono work?

Improving the NHS

Earlier this week the Liberal Democrats launched its Health Policy.  

Our first priority will be protecting frontline care in tough financial times in areas such as cancer care, mental health treatment, maternity services and dementia treatment. We will also give patients more control over their treatment, by radically cutting central spending at the Department of Health and electing Health Boards to make key decisions about local services. And under the Liberal Democrats if patients do not get treated on time by the NHS we will pay for them to be treated privately. 

We are also showing our commitment to carers in England. We believe that people who selflessly provide care to their loved ones deserve a break.  If you are in employment you are entitled to paid holidays but for a huge number of carers that simply isn’t an option. We believe that respite care is a lifeline – not just for carers but for whole families.  That’s why we will provide a week’s break from caring every year to the 1 million unpaid carers who provide more than 50hrs care each week.

Getting healthcare right is hugely important to all of us. Only our party has the values and principles that can deliver the NHS our country deserves.

Keeping East Dulwich special – shops

As local councillors we’re absolutely committed to keeping East Dulwich special – one of the main reasons I became a councillor. It’s clear from residents responding to our Keep East Dulwich Special surveys that one key characteristic of our area is the preponderance of small local independent shops and businesses. None of us want Lordship Lane to become a ‘clone’ high street with repetitions of all the same shops from national chains. We all want a balance and don’t want more of our local shops to become estate agents, bars or restaurants. As a councillor I’ve helped ensure that we have legally enforceable policies so that at least half of retail units remain exactly that, retail units. But we’d really welcome your thoughts on whether 50% is the right balance.

Perhaps it should be 60%?

However, this policy doesn’t enable councillors to decide which shop is owned by whom, or stop a particular shop being sold from one retailer to another. So the recent Sainsbury’s Local opening near Dulwich Library has caused consternation for many residents. This particular site is a tricky balance between creating something to attract more shoppers, not killing the local small shops but in fact generating more business from residents who previously drove elsewhere for all their shopping.

Read the rest of this entry. Read the rest of this entry.

Government emissions up 6.25%

Carbon emissions from the public sector increased 6.25% in 2008, the last period data is available, Liberal Democrat analysis of new Government figures have revealed.

While every major sector of the economy except housing saw emissions fall, the public sector saw emissions rise from 9.6m tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2e) to 10.2 MtCO2e. I can;t say how frstruating this is.  So many individuals, private companies and public bodies have been making the 10:10 pledge, signing Copenhangen accords and the Labout governemnt produces lots of rhetoric and perversely this increase in CO2 for things it controls.

This contrasts with the Liberal Democrat motion in parliament to sign the whole public sector up for a 10% reduction in emissions in 2010 but was rejected by the Government.

The Liberal Democrat Shadow Energy and Climate Change Secretary, Simon Hughes stated “How can the Government expect to be taken seriously on climate change if it can’t even get its own emissions under control? Britain needs a Government which sets an example and delivers immediate and ambitious carbon reductions.”

The most recent Dept Environment and Climate Change figures on UK greenhouse gas emissions released on 2 February 2010 can be found here: http://www.decc.gov.uk/en/content/cms/statistics/climate_change/gg_emissions/uk_emissions/2008_final/2008_final.aspx

Mayor Boris Johnson cuts 455 Police officers

For many months GLA Lib Dems have been highlighting that London police officer numbers are set to fall. Just before Christmas Mayor Boris Johnson was directly challenged about his proposed cut in Police numbers as per his draft budget for 2010-2011. These advanced warnings are now being picked up on and this week were reported in the Guardian newspaper.

Lib Dems proposed a reversal to this cut and to also allow extra police officers for boroughs with the higher gun and knife crime while reducing the overall budget. The Lib Dem proposals can be seen in the group’s budget amendment.

How will this affect Southwark and East Dulwich?
455/32 London Boroughs would result in something like one less police officer for East Dulwich. It doesn’t sound much but we only have one Police sargent and two police officers supported by five Police Community Support Officers covering East Dulwich at present.

Lib Dems pledge smaller class sizes to break education inequality

Liberal Democrat Leader Nick Clegg has pledged to give every child a fair start in life by investing an extra £2.5bn in schools which could be used to cut class sizes, offer one-on-one tuition and provide catch-up classes.

In a speech to Barnardo’s, Nick Clegg set out the Liberal Democrat manifesto pledge to introduce a Pupil Premium which would raise the poorest children’s school funding to private school levels.

He said: “One of the biggest challenges we face as a country is breaking this link between financial deprivation at home and educational under-achievement in the classroom. Despite all the money that has been spent by Labour, schools taking disadvantaged children aren’t getting the money they Read the rest of this entry.

Car clubs in East Dulwich

Southwark Council is negotiating with which preferred Car CLub supplie rshould have 85 dedicated car clubs parking spaces around Southwark.

Car clubs are a great concept and have shown that each car club car replaces 8-15 private cars. Most private cars sit parked up 95%+ of their lives. Also, car club members tend to increase their thinking about travel and use publci transport more.

To accelerate this the East Dulwich councillors allocated £10,000 for extra Car Club spaces in East Dulwich. These spaces have been proposed no casework feedback about parking issues AND to ensure that generally an East Dulwich resident will have car club space within 200m of their home.

The next step is to finalise the Car Club and then the road markings process will happen across Southwark. 

Labour’s 4,300 new criminal offences

Since coming to power in 1997 the Labour government has created over 4,300 new criminal offences. That’s around one for every single day in power.

apparently when Tony Blair was Prime Minister 27 new criminal offences a month were being created but under Gordon Brown’s premiership it has accelerated to 33 a month.

Some have likened this to ‘legislative diarrhoea’.

Importantly has it reduce the fear of crime or solves great issues?

I can’t say I feel any safer. Do you?