What does Rory Stewart’s time at the helm as prisons minister tell us about his fitness to lead the Conservative party and our country? In January last year, I wrote an open letter to his boss, Justice Secretary David Gauke with some thoughts on how to deal with Britain’s shameful prisons crisis.
In it, I referred to Gauke’s new prisons minister, who, ‘given his diplomatic experience in conflict zones, will know a bullshitter when he sees one, which can only be good news when he meets the people who are running the wreckage of our probation system.’
I was right about Stewart’s low tolerance for bureaucratic abstractions and managerial verbiage. The unfolding months saw a calm, determined but very focused coup that deposed dissembling mandarins and ensured direct ministerial control in an effort to try to restore order and control on prison landings. The ‘hands off’ ministerial conventions that sustained mediocrity and underperformance in our criminal justice system were ditched in place of polite but relentless questioning.
Why were prisons disgracefully filthy? Why were all the windows broken? Why did those in charge of delivery spend so much time behind their desks playing with process when they should have been out on the ground saying, ‘this is disgusting, sort it out’?
I got to know Rory Stewart quite well in the intervening period.
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