Picture the perfect Tory attack advert. During the general election, the Conservatives gave it a go. They released a video showing a small boat arriving with migrants on it and a red carpet being rolled out on the beach. The word “welcome” was scrawled in the sand, and the film ended with the words: “Labour’s approach to illegal immigration”.
The film was viewed as objectionable on several levels – but also on a practical point. After all was the government of the past 14 years, under which small boat crossings had soared, really in a place to land blows?
These days the brains in Conservative Campaign Headquarters don’t need to think too far outside the box when it comes to their next video. Instead, they could simply pick up a paper or stand outside a prison for material. This week Labour released the second tranche of prisoners on early release as they try to deal with overcrowding in prison. The headlines write themselves.
So far this week there’s the convicted kidnapper Daniel Dowling-Brooks who shouted, “Big up Starmer!” on being released early from a seven-year sentence. Then there’s the man convicted of assault who said he’ll be voting for Keir Starmer “for sure” after he was released having served half his sentence. That’s before you even get to the gang member jailed for torture and kidnap who was released early before taking to TikTok to herald his release. As one Labour aide puts it: “It’s awful”.
Even landing some of the blame on the Tories won’t change the fact some voters will see what’s happening and link it to the Labour Government under which it has happened. It’s a problem the party has long anticipated but that doesn’t mean they have the answer. Sue Gray may have left 10 Downing Street but her “shit list” of potential crises awaiting a Labour government lives on. Top of that list was prison overcrowding.
The Tories made the calculation that the political downside of releasing prisoners early was too great – so they ran the system hot. At times, the number of spare prison cells was in single figures. The new Justice Secretary, Shabana Mahmood, was unwilling to let things go so close to the wire – previously telling me of the sleepless nights she expected to have in government if Labour won the election.
Yet the problem for ministers is this is just the beginning. Tricky decisions are mounting over a sustainable solution to the number of convicts versus the number of prison places. While Mahmood and Starmer see the emergency response they have had to deploy as a prime example of the Tories being irresponsible in government, the long-term justice strategy will have to be owned by Labour. And here the signs are that fewer custodial sentences or reduced time in prison is a trend that is set to grow.
In opposition, Mahmood once had to warn her then shadow cabinet colleagues to stop suggesting the easy answer to their problems was tougher sentences. She said anyone pushing for tougher sentences would have to find the cash for more prison spaces. Now in Government, figures in Ministry of Justice are of the view that even if all the planned extra spaces are created, a new approach will be required.
In a politically savvy move, Mahmood has appointed David Gauke, the former Tory secretary of state, to lead a review on sentencing. It’s a shrewd decision on the grounds that Gauke is a Conservative so any tricky decisions can be pitched as cross-party and the One Nation Tory is known to be sympathetic to moving away from custodial sentences for some groups.
The pair may even go to Texas at some point to embark a fact-finding mission. However, this isn’t exactly novel. The last justice secretary, Alex Chalk, talked up Texas-style reforms. Previous justice secretaries such as Michael Gove have visited Texas in search of answers. The beauty is Texas sounds tough – some associate it with the death penalty. Yet the measures Mahmood is looking at involve home arrest measures, community work and things such as sobriety checks and smartwatches to monitor behaviour.
The dilemma for the Labour Government: they pitched themselves as tough on crime. They spoke about more prisons. Yet Mahmood is set to be one of the losers from this month’s Budget, and she has to somehow work out how to pitch a potential reduction in custodial sentences as tough justice. It’s a puzzle others have avoided, on the grounds it is so hard to do. It’s why the Tories let the problem fester, to the point that one of the reasons Rishi Sunak called a July election was fear of prison riots if overcrowding continued. Better to go to the polls than release prisoners.
In CCHQ they are ready to go on the attack over this week’s releases and a future rejig of the rules. But the Conservatives might want to think twice before going all in. After all, did they make the problem better or worse? It’s an easy political football – but a cross-party consensus might be the best thing for the country as a whole.
Katy Balls is political editor at The Spectator
'President Musk' is flexing his muscles and revealing how weak Trump is