The coalition’s liberal approach to sentencing could be the final straw for the middle class

Today brings another couple of reminders of the coalition’s potential political problem with the middle class. In the Telegraph, Peter Oborne attacks Cameron and Osborne for a “morally disgusting” policy of targeting the middle class for an outsize share of the fiscal pain. While the Mail’s front page screams ‘What does get you locked up?’ as it details how 2,700 criminals who have more than fifty convictions were not sent to prison. Now, this is, obviously, the result of the last government’s sentencing policies. But, as the Mail points out repreatedly, this is a regime that Ken Clarke wants to make more liberal. In other words, even fewer people would be put away for the crimes they commit.
 
I suspect that the fuss about the financial pain being caused to the middle class will die down a bit once we have had the spending review and we see how the country as a whole has been affected.