We need a bang ‘em up motion on prisons next week

Next Wednesday is an opposition day in the House of Commons.  This means that the opposition gets to choose the subjects for debate. Labour’s ‘usual channels’ have yet to determine what next week’s motions will be.

Uncut would like to venture a suggestion: the debate should be about prisons. The motion should be strongly worded, along the lines of Jack Straw’s article in the Daily Mail. The thesis can be summarised thus: prison works; bang ‘em up.

Our view is not based on the rehabilitative efficacy or otherwise of prison. It is tactical.

Most Conservative MPs are furious with their justice secretary, Ken Clarke. They do not want to see prison removed as an option for those sentenced to less than a year. Most certainly not. They are not happy with reducing the number of prison places.  Not at all.

They say that offenders who are given custodial sentences of less than a year are normally repeat offenders, with prison thus already the last resort.  The crimes they commit are not trivial, most Conservative MPs believe.

Former home secretary (and proper Tory) Michael Howard has quickly pronounced himself unconvinced by Clarke’s proposals.

Many Tory MPs campaigned  specifically and vociferously on crime and on prisoners serving their sentences in full.

Several of them have told Uncut that they would support a strongly-worded, “bang ‘em up” Labour motion next Wednesday. Not a namby pamby equivocal one, obviously.  But a tough one that could have been written by Michael Howard. Or Jack Straw.

Most considered thinkers believe, as Tom Copley argues elsewhere on Uncut today, that Ken Clarke is right about this issue and Labour was wrong. That is not the point. We must not waste this opportunity by allowing policy to get in the way of politics.

Government is about policy. Opposition is about seizing your opportunities to inflict damage on the enemy.

With Tory backbenchers in semi-open revolt, there is no doubt that this is such an opportunity.

As it happens, it would also command public support. Which is not everything, but is not nothing either.


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11 Responses to “We need a bang ‘em up motion on prisons next week”

  1. epictrader says:

    I agree with the idea that Labour could score a victory here in the hearts and minds of the public with an attack on Clarke’s policy. We could do so on the premise – not without foundation, I suspect – that Clarke has arrived at his  stance not through a protracted, internal debate of conscience on the success, virtues or otherwise of a spell behind bars but, rather, a cold, cynical one concluded on the sole basis that the Tory government needs to cut back on the money it spends on locking up criminals in much the same way it claims the need to cut back on just about everything else. 

    Furthermore, we could argue that Clarke’s policy will mean that the punishment of those who are found guilty of certain acts of criminality shall become rooted firmly on the financial impact any punishment would incur upon the State, rather than the needs of the victim, who’s over-riding imperative is the satisfaction of knowing that justice has been served upon the offender.   

    I suspect the vast majority of the British public will be outraged at Clarke’s notion of justice for criminals and Labour should provide the voice for their fury.

  2. U Nimpressed says:

    “Our view is not based on the rehabilitative efficacy or otherwise of prison. It is tactical.

    Most considered thinkers believe, as Tom Copley argues elsewhere on Uncut today, that Ken Clarke is right about this issue and Labour was wrong. That is not the point. We must not waste this opportunity by allowing policy to get in the way of politics.”

    But what you are arguing for isn’t politics but moral bankruptcy… Please leave Westminster and spend a bit of time on planet earth.

  3. paul barker says:

    Sometimes you can be too clever, I just cant work out if this is a pisstake or not. Either way its very funny, keep it up.

  4. Matthew Stiles says:

    This article is an embarrassment. Pure opportunism is not good politics. No wonder there is so much unsigned stuff here. Mind telling us who the Uncut team are?

  5. Tom Copley says:

    We shouldn’t be playing politics on this issue IMO. The bulk of academic and international evidence shows that prison doesn’t work. This is a very serious matter and if it takes a Tory to do the right thing on prisons then so be it. We must stop playing the tune of the tabloid press on prisons.

  6. oldpolitics says:

    “The bulk of academic and international evidence shows that prison doesn’t work”.

    In fairness the bulk of academic and international evidence shows that nothing works at all, much of the time. Community sentences frequently have lower detected reoffending, but since they are first-resort, that’s to be expected – by the time we jail people, they’re often hardened criminals who have been through all the other sentencing options.

    Prison does its core job of removing people’s ability to inflict crimes on the public for a given period of time quite well. Should we be doing more about how to stop them committing crime on their release? Of course. Still, I have a hunch that Ken Clarke’s released prisoners are appreciably more likely (a factor of ten, say?) to be heading for Rusholme than Rushcliffe.

  7. You’re letting the moronic ape side of Uncut take precedence, rather than the normal Special adviser bereft of ideas side.

    Backbench revolts benefit you when it makes it look like the government is either a) likely to fall, b) massively out of step with the public or c) unable to keep its massively out of step backbenchers in line.

    The problem is that most people come down somewhere between the government and backbench positions. They like the idea of being tough on crime, but recidivism rates point out to them that prison isn’t working.

    So all this will do is make the public feel conflicted and in need of strong leadership. Step forward Cameron.

    Meantime, Labour has committed itself to an unworkable waste of money even more than it is already, it’s pissed off many of its most loyal activists and more to the point it’s pissed off the soft left who left us in around 2003 and who we’re only just beginning to win back.

    We cannot afford to lose the soft left. They won’t win us the election on their own, but they’ll let us take a lot of Lib Dem seats and they mean we don’t need to win as many right-wing working/lower-middle class votes – which we can only do in significant numbers when the Tory Party enters meltdown anyway.

    Also, it’s bloody irritating canvassing the soft left, because they all have a million complaints and you’ve got 300 doors to knock on. I want them to say, “Yes, I’m voting Labour,” not, “I’m considering it but [insert 300 issues here].” It’s time consuming and even if you agree with them it’s unlikely to convince them.

    So keep your good ideas to yourself, accept that it was morons like you who contributed in such sterling fashion to losing us the next election, and let the opposition day motion be on an issue we can win on, like the economy.

  8. hmmm says:

    This is surely a joke?

    You disagree with the policy, but want to use it just to embarrass the Tories? Say your motion was widely supported by Tory backbenchers and got passed. What would you do then?

    Who wrote this article?

  9. […] point: my feeling is that the Labour position this is a strategic ploy. The Labour Uncut editors make a case for that, and while I see the point, I think it backfires for two […]

  10. Thomas says:

    What an embarassment. I think Tom Copley is right in that this is too important to play politics with. I think Edward Browne is right in that you will get nowhere with the ‘soft left’, or those of us on the left who are interested in liberalism or evidence, if you take these sort of positions.

    I am a Lib Dem member who thinks the coalition was the least bad option available. But nontheless I am not pleased about it. I didn’t like the budget. Some of the Labour leadership candidates seem to be putting forward a good, reasonable, left-liberal program (Ed Miliband in particular), and the party as a whole seems to have become a bit more confident about putting forward left positions on economics – the debate on tax and the deficit seems to have swung to the left since you lost the election. Labour are in an ideal position to snap up some Lib Dem votes and members, and then you suggest something like this which is likely to make us hate you. Good job.

  11. Tom Miller says:

    “We must not waste this opportunity by allowing policy to get in the way of politics.”

    ROFL.

    That sentence is amazing.

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