Revealed: The ‘Blairite’ crime policy that never was

With rumours flying around the Commons that if elected, Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn would appoint a Shadow Peace Secretary in the place of a Shadow Defence Secretary, Mr S is also looking forward to hearing Corbyn’s plans to reform judicial punishment.

However, Mr S is happy to place a bet on his approach not being as radical as a crime policy Tony Blair heaped praise on while in power. In today’s Times, Blair’s former chief speechwriter Philip Collins reveals what happened when he put forward a paper which suggested Blair take a less liberal approach when it came to dealing with crime:

‘The Blair government was, to my mind, daftly authoritarian on crime and punishment so I submitted a paper in which I suggested we ignore all the namby-pamby liberal nonsense.’

The note read:

‘Imprison all people whose eyes are too close together. Lock away those with names you don’t like, such as Gordon or Edward.