HERE’S a question for you: What will you never hear from Government ministers or increasingly politicised public servants?

Answer: “Sorry, we got it wrong, and we have learned from the mistake!”

Sadly, we have another recent example of classic “never admit to a mistake” spin, from the police this time. Faced with the appalling statistic of Bury’s deteriorating domestic violence record, Sergeant Tanya Kitchen says that while the figures “may look dramatic”, they imply that the increase is not really an increase in incidents but a greater willingness by victims to report violent conduct at home.

Not surprisingly, it mirrors the Government’s own spin about crime figures generally, where increases are always put down to increased rates of reporting. Against this background, it is particularly worrying that our school expulsions hit an unenviable record too, which may, to some extent, be affected by troubles at home for the children concerned.

Fortunately, lessons seemed to have been learned by local council managers and figures are coming down.

It is a pity though that Labour’s representative from the council’s scrutiny committee could offer nothing as an immediate response other than to blame schools for taking “an easy option”.

Derek Brooks Tottington