It really is time for the New Labour brigade to shut up (Labour: we will
halt overcrowding and rioting in jails, 24/12/16). Don`t the likes of John
Spellar realise, that by saying such things as Shami Chakrabarti is
"unilaterally abandoning Labour`s policy of being tough on crime", they are
creating a rift where there most certainly should not be one? Far better for
Labour to divorce itself from failed past policies, and leave the "authoritarian
arms race" to the increasingly right-wing Tories, and Ukip. Not only
is Chakrabarti correct to want an end to prison overcrowding, she is right to
question the role of private companies like G4S, which "are profiting from
incarceration".
It is to
be hoped that Labour can receive positive publicity from its obvious desire to
listen to experts, something which May`s government clearly has no intention of
doing. What a nice change it makes, too, to see sensible judicial policies
coming from someone with recent experience in the field of human rights and
justice, rather than from letters written by politicians who had overseen the
staffing cuts which caused many of the problems leading to the current
crisis!
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