Terror is the toughest issue facing the Tories

A prisoner is released early and just days later attacks people. It then emerges that he was known to still be a danger to the public before he was let out. Normally at this point in the story one would be expecting ministerial resignations. But in the case of Sudesh Amman, the Streatham attacker, we are not. Why? Because the law meant that there was no alternative to him being released.

The government is now in a mad scramble to prevent this from happening again. Emergency legislation is being rushed through parliament to stop terrorists from being automatically freed from prison halfway through their sentence.

Historically, one of the Tories’ electoral strengths has been their reputation as the party of law and order. But in recent years, they have come perilously close to losing that reputation. In the 2017 election campaign, Labour hammered the Tories with the argument that police cuts were making people less safe. The recent spike in violent crime (up by 19 per cent in England and Wales in the past year) has left the Conservatives politically vulnerable.

Since he became prime minister, Boris Johnson has tried to show that he is strong on law and order. He announced the hiring of 20,000 police officers (effectively reversing the cuts), appointed the hardline Priti Patel as home secretary and backed an end to automatic early release for violent and sexual offenders. Johnson’s strategy worked on voters. He successfully neutralised crime as an issue ahead of the election.

Johnson also benefits from the fact that he has successfully established himself in the public mind as a new type of leader, rather than the third prime minister in a decade of Tory rule. When he says it is ridiculous that terrorists are being automatically released halfway through their sentences, the reaction is not, ‘Well, you’ve had since 2010 to sort it out.