Labour wants to be the party of law and order

Andy Coulson was right to worry about the coalition’s law and order policies: Labour is trying to outflank the government from the right. Sadiq Khan and Yvette Cooper have cut assured figures at fringe events at this year’s conference, sensing that the government’s cuts to the law and order budget will imperil one of Labour’s positive legacies: substantially reducing reported crime (by 43 per cent according to Sadiq Khan) between 1997 and 2010.

A strange atmosphere pervades the law and order fringe: the name ‘Tony Blair’ is spoken of with something approaching respect and it is met with scattered applause. Blair’s memory is profane to this incarnation of the Labour Party, a grinning devil to be exorcised. But the record of his crime policy speaks for itself and his mantra ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ remains extant.