A party that isn't tough on crime cannot call itself 'conservative'.
The planned early release of prisoners is shameful - no sensible party should consider it, let alone oversee it
Soon a Conservative government could preside over the early release of criminals whose offences were serious enough to have them imprisoned, because not enough cells are available. An unnamed judge has been quoted in the media about the appalling possibility of a man sentenced for rape being allowed to remain on the streets and coming face to face with his victim. However, although the Government plans an early release scheme, and is contemplating ending jail sentences of less than a year, they claim this would not include serious crimes such as sexual offences.
However, any early release, or escaping jail altogether, reminds one of a time when the Conservatives were the party of law and order, and criminals had what was coming to them. Now, with the active connivance of an increasingly demoralised and ill-directed police force, it is the party that proves crime pays. Any crook, fraudster, rapist or murderer who does not vote Conservative at the next election cannot see on which side his bread is buttered.
The Conservative party has presided over a growth in crime and criminality, yet has done little to create the prison space required for the consequently growing number of criminals. The short-termism practised in the last 13 years has been astonishing: it is of a piece with nothing having been done with the social care system despite the demographic time-bomb predicted since the 1980s resulting in many more elderly people; or, in that regard, about the NHS; or closing down the production of fossil fuels without building nuclear power stations; or watching the world become alarmingly dangerous while continuing to cut our armed forces.
One suspects such considerations were at the forefront of the minds of the people who voted Labour, or (in even more cases) chose not to vote at all, in the two by-elections last Thursday, both of which resulted in shocking defeats for the Government. Immediate polling suggested that the shambolic era of Boris Johnson and the debacle of Liz Truss’s economic mismanagement were still fresh in the minds of natural Conservative voters when they cast their ballots, or chose not to.
That may well be true. But it cannot be denied that if the Conservative party fails to implement fundamental Conservative policies – such as protecting the public against serious criminals by locking them up, and trying to deter potential criminals through the certainty of severe punishment – the natural constituency of Conservative voters will see no point in coming out to support it.
One of the great problems with the governing party is that it believes its own publicity. It has banged on for years about ‘the war against drugs’. There is no such war. Drug-taking, and the small-scale market in drugs, is promiscuously common. It has been for years, and senior policeman told me recently he thought 85 per cent of crime in London was drug-related, much of it muggings and burglaries done to buy drugs, as well as the gangsterism of the trade itself. By choosing to tolerate this drug culture, the Government has encouraged crime to balloon; by choosing to mould an ineffective police force, other crimes too have become rampant (there are now 1,000 shoplifting offences a day: five per cent of such crimes result in an arrest). Whether that is down to lassitude, incompetence or a deliberate strategy to keep the prisons empty one cannot be sure. Another 20,000 prison places are promised by 2027: but it is already too late. The public sees a government desperately scrabbling to house the illegal immigrants it weakly allows in, but not to accommodate those who are a danger to society.
As the Tory leadership ponders these crushing defeats, it can find scapegoats. But it should look in the mirror. If it chooses to abandon one of our most fundamental pillars – a society built on law and order – then is there really any point in it at all? DT.
