Prison

CoffeeHousers raised some very good points about my post on Cameron’s undead ministers. I thought I’d reply in a post, rather than the comments thread. 1. About the ‘undead’. Cameron leads a radical government of surprisingly competent people: the ambitious tasks of welfare and school reform are testimony to how far he is moving. Cameron’s policy is to delay a reshuffle for as long as he can. While Blair did reshuffle a lot, he tried his best not to do so to satisfy the media headlines. This is when the concept of undead ministers first arose. You’d have people like Geoff Hoon in defence and Stephen Byers in transport, who

What do the public think of Ken Clarke after his gaffe on Wednesday? According to a YouGov poll conducted during the 48 hours since his comments, a slim pluarlity think he should resign from his post as justice secretary: Perhaps unsurpisingly, the majority of Labour supporters agree with their leader’s call for him to go, although a majority of Tories and two-thirds of Lib Dems think he ought to stay. When it comes to the issue at the centre of the furore – reducing the sentence for someone who pleads guilty by up to half (as opposed to a third, as it stands now) – the public is much more

The Ken Clarke media storm continues. But, talk to lawyers and they complain that the Justice Secretary did not have sufficient command of his brief to redirect Victoria Derbyshire’s line of questioning. There was one particularly illustrative example when she said: “(The starting points) for single offence of rape by a single offender are 10 years’ custody if the victim is under 13, eight years’ custody if the victim is 13 but under 16, and five years’ custody if the victim is 16 or over.” Those numbers look a little light and they create the impression that the justice system is soft on rapists. Clarke should have countered that Derbyshire’s

Prisoner voting is back on the agenda. The European Court of Human Rights has rejected the British government’s appeal and declared that the coalition has six months to draw up proposals to change the law.   David Cameron now has to decide whether to ignore the Strasbourg Court or go against the will of his MPs, who voted overwhelmingly to oppose giving prisoners the vote in response to the court’s initial decision. In many ways, ignoring the court is the safer option. Tory MPs aren’t inclined to back down on this issue and if Cameron tried to make them he would create a lot of ill-will and take an awful

When it comes to the overall sway of British politics, Sadiq Khan’s article for the Guardian is probably the most important of the day. We’ve heard Ed Miliband say before that, “when Ken Clarke says we need to look at short sentences in prison because of high re-offending rates, I’m not going to say he’s soft on crime.” But Khan’s article, a summary of a speech he is giving later today, actually puts that sentiment into practice – and then some. His central argument is straight from the Hush Puppied One’s playbook, particularly in its emphasis on the limitations of New Labour’s policy: “Some claim crime fell because of the

PoliticsHome reports that the government is to ask the ECHR to reconsider its verdict in the prisoner voting rights case. The website says: ‘In a response to a parliamentary question from Labour MP Gordon Marsden, Cabinet Office Under-Secretary Mark Harper said: “We believe that the court should look again at the principles in “Hirst” which outlaws a blanket ban on prisoners voting, particularly given the recent debate in the House of Commons.”’ This is unsurprising. Last month, the government asked its lawyers to advise on the ramifications of noncompliance. The lawyers were unequivocal: the repercussions of such defiance was diplomatically impossible and extremely expensive. As non-compliance is foolhardy and acquiescence

Another Saturday, another interview with Ken Clarke. This time, the bruised bruiser has been talking to the FT and the remarkable thing is that he has managed to say nothing. Not a sausage. Colleagues were not insulted, Middle England escaped unscathed and the European Court of Human Rights wasn’t even mentioned.  But Clarke conveys his determination to fight. He defends his prison reforms and community sentences, to which the right has now applied the grave term ‘misconceived’. Clarke retorts: ‘We are trying to take 23 per cent out of the budget. I don’t recall any government that’s ever tried to make any spending reductions on law and order – let alone 23

The Davis Straw motion on keeping the ban on prisoner votes has just passed by 234 votes to 22. It is a crushing victory on what was a very good turnout given that both front benches were not voting. The 22 against the motion were a bunch of Liberal Democrats plus the Ulster MP Lady Hermon, the Plaid MPs Jonathan Edwards, Elfyn Llwyd and Hywel Williams, the Green Caroline Lucas,   Labour MPs Barry Gardiner, Kate Green, Glenda Jackson, Andy Love, Kerry McCarthy, John McDonnell, Yasmin Quereshi  and  one Tory Peter Bottomely, David Cameron now finds himself between a rock and a hard place. His MPs hate the idea of giving