Page 16 Daily Mail, Monday, August 12, 2019If Boris fixes
Wild West Britain,
he’ll be feted far
more than he will
for solving Brexit
O
ne OF the more
extraordinary
developments
of recent years is
that the Tories
have carelessly thrown
away their reputation for
being the dependable
party of law and order.
Almost unbelievably, Labour
was partly able to seize this
moniker by pointing out
that the Conservative-led
Coalition had drastically
reduced police numbers.
Of course, no one really
believed that Labour under
Jeremy Corbyn would be
tough on criminals. But the
fact that it even tried to
represent itself as being on
the side of more effective law
enforcement illustrated how
far the Tories have drifted
from their moorings.
now, in a series of welcome
announcements, Boris
Johnson has unveiled a set of
measures which suggest he
understands public alarm
about rising crime, particu-
larly knife crime, whose most
high-profile recent victim was
heroic PC Stuart Outten,
attacked in east London by a
thug carrying a machete.Pledge
Over the weekend, Boris
promised 10,000 new prison
places and the expansion of
new stop-and-search powers
to all 43 police forces in
england and Wales. This came
hard on the heels of a pledge
to recruit 20,000 new police
officers over the next three
years, which would reverse the
Tories’ ill-advised cuts.
In an article in yesterday’s
Mail on Sunday, he cited
criminals with more than 50
convictions ‘who are being
spared jail altogether’. He is
expected to announce this
week that prisoners will no
longer be automatically
released early from prison.
My immediate response to
all this is ‘Alleluia!’ At last we
have a prime minister who
recognises how worried many
people are about a new crime
epidemic — and how sceptical
they also are about the ability
of the police and the criminal
justice system to deal with it.
One instant objection could
be that Boris is electioneering.
So what? It is to his credit
that he grasps the fears ofvoters about law and order,
which have more or less
disappeared off politicians’
agenda during the never-
ending Brexit nightmare.
He rightly foresaw in his
article the certainty of protests
by ‘Left-wing criminologists’
over the extension of stop-
and-search. no sooner had I
read what he wrote than
I turned on the radio to hear
just such a person allege,
without any evidence, that it
is racist as well as ineffective.
Most people will disagree.
They will think that stop-and-
search is one of several useful
ways of discouraging young
men from carrying knives.
And I believe many will be
grateful to Boris for ignoring
the usual bleating of the
soggy liberal establishment,
and for addressing their
pressing concerns.
So it doesn’t matter that he
is on election manoeuvres.
This is what democracy is
supposed to be about — being
alive to voters’ well-founded
anxieties, and trying to do
something about them. The
real culprits are those who let
their fashionable scruples
stand in the way of action.
My worry is different. It is
that, on the admittedly test-
ing assumption that the Tories
are going to win an election
which is surely not far off,
Boris won’t fulfil the alluring
pledges he is making.
If this happens, it won’t be
because he doesn’t believe in
his remedies. It will be because
improving prisons, making
the police more effective
and reforming the criminal
justice system are gargantuan
challenges which will require
political genius — and endless
determination — to solve.
It’s no exaggeration to say
we have dysfunctional prisons,
a less-than-competent police
force and a justice system
bursting at the seams and often
failing crime victims. Let’s
look at them one by one.
Many of our prisons are amess. They are violent, drug-
infested places where the
chances of rehabilitation are
slight and recidivism virtually
guaranteed. Yet, believe it or
not, the annual cost of keeping
one prisoner incarcerated is
about £78,000.
An insight into the state of
some prisons was provided by
a report last year by Chief
Inspector of Prisons, Peter
Clarke, into Bedford jail. He
found this rat-ridden hell-hole
on the brink of a ‘complete
breakdown’ with 116 assaults
on staff in the previous six
months. The prisoners had
‘effectively taken control’.
Only two weeks ago, another
report by Mr Clarke revealed
anarchy at Feltham Young
Offenders’ institution. During
one April weekend, 20 officers
were injured in separate inci-
dents, with 13 requiring hospi-
tal treatment. Female staff
have allegedly been sexually
assaulted by young offenders,
but the cases have not been
pursued by the authorities.
Building new prisons is
necessary, though it isn’t clear
that some of Boris’s 10,
new places haven’t been
announced before. But if the
new jails are no better run
than the old, and many of the
existing ones continue as
academies for criminality, the
outlook is bleak.Overdue
What of the police? The
Coalition’s cutbacks overseen
by Theresa May were unwise,
though in her defence they
happened when most crime
was declining. It is now soaring
again, and 20,000 extra officers
are overdue.
However, there will be
limited benefit in spending
£1.2 billion on recruiting them
if the clear-up rate of everyday
crimes abhorred by the public
doesn’t improve. There has
been a dramatic fall in the
proportion of criminals being
brought to justice for all types
of burglary and theft thatcan’t be wholly explained by
falling police numbers.
For example, only 3.1 per
cent of burglaries in London
resulted in a charge last year.
In england, just two per cent
of thefts ended in a charge in
2018/19, falling to 0.9 per cent
in London and one per cent
in Surrey.
no wonder Cressida Dick,
Commissioner of the Metro-
politan Police, believes that
‘overall police detection rates
nationally are low, woefully
low’. You can say that again!
Isn’t it plain there are
systemic failings in the police
that won’t be corrected simply
by spiriting up more officers?
I blame police chiefs, not the
rank-and file bobbies, who
usually do their best, and dis-
play sometimes great bravery,
as in the case of PC Outten.Victims
These are the same out-of-
touch police chiefs who
throughout england and Wales
have taken the unilateral
decision to ignore cannabis
users, while often indulging
growers as well. Yet cannabis
is an illegal Class B drug
believed by many medical
experts to cause schizophrenia
in some heavy users.
If a criminal is ever caught
and prosecuted, their chances
of ending up in prison are, of
course, relatively slight. Mean-
while, crime victims are often
expected to wait many
months, even years, before a
perpetrator is brought to
court — if that ever happens.
And, as we all know, some
judges hand out laughably
soft sentences, which are
unlikely to be toughened on
review. One recent analysis
found that just six per cent of
applications made to a
Government scheme to tackle
lenient sentences are result-
ing in stiffer punishments.
One way and another, this is
a glorious time to be a crook.
It is cheering that Boris
Johnson and Home Secretary
Priti Patel say they intend to
make criminals afraid. But
words are easy, actions hard.
If the Tories win an election
and really do improve our
execrable prisons, failing
police and lamentable crimi-
nal justice system — and it’ll
take much more than just
money — Mr Johnson will be
feted even more than he would
be for delivering Brexit.COMMENT
Crime is crime... and
we can’t just ignore it
WITH a snap election looming, the Prime
Minister is promising more police officers
and prison places, combined with more
muscular stop-and-search powers.
Good news after years of neglect during
which the Conservatives lost credibility as
the party of law and order – and, frankly,
much better than anything we can hope for
from Labour’s lamentable shadow home
secretary Diane Abbott.
But, as with the nHS, this is not just
about resources. An insidious culture has
taken hold in the police in which efforts are
targeted at ‘serious’ crime while supposedly
minor offences are simply written off. Clear-
up rates for theft and burglary are minuscule.
And ‘minor’ can mean vicious assault.
Take ex-soldier Lewis eames, beaten in a
road rage attack. After Greater Manchester
Police labelled this ‘low priority’, he turned
detective and traced his attackers. Still, GMP
did nothing – the force admits it ‘screens
out’ almost half of cases to save money.
PCs may be in short supply but not PC
nonsense. Gwent Police still waste time
warning people they face prosecution for
abuse if they joke about the hairstyle of a
fugitive pictured online. Yes, really.
Back in the real world, who hasn’t heard of
a local incident being reported and dropped?
There is an invisible cost of unsolved crime
- lost confidence, lost peace of mind. Officers
on the beat are derided by ‘experts’ as
inefficient, but they reassure the public.
British policing is at its finest in extreme
situations – witness courageous machete
victim PC Stuart Outten – but minor crime
matters, too. If it routinely goes unpunished,
we surrender ourselves to low-level anarchy.
Cure this GP ‘crisis’
BORIS Johnson made himself a hostage to
fortune on his first day in Downing Street
when he said it was his job to ensure that
we see a GP when we need to.
The news for him is that the average
waiting time is now two weeks, the longest
in nHS history. Some patients wait six.
For years now, Britain’s general practices
have been in a state of almost perpetual
‘crisis’. But what is this really about?
Under rules introduced by Labour, GPs
can farm out night and weekend shifts to
locums. A shortage of new recruits means
non-partners on salaries can demand more
comfortable hours.
GPs are retiring early or cutting overtime
because their £1million-plus pension pots
are being taxed more heavily. But do they
really expect a bespoke tax break? Patients’
sympathy is likely to be in short supply.
The buck-passing needs to stop. Ministers
must find the GPs of tomorrow, and today’s
doctors must accept that handsome rewards
require the commitment of yesteryear,
when family practice was a vocation.
Sepsis, the silent killer
A TODDLeR is admitted to hospital with
a sore throat and fever – and just hours
later dies from sepsis. What more tragic
illustration could there be of this silent
crisis within the nHS?
Sepsis kills 50,000 people annually in the
UK. Many victims die in hospital because
its symptoms are difficult to spot and are
often misread. But does this justify the
appalling death toll?
The debate about the nHS is always
framed in terms of budgets. But this issue
is about standards of care, pure and simple.
There should be no excuses.
O
THe militant RMT crows about the
35 per cent pay rise it has secured for
rail workers over the past decade, almost
three times the national average. But the
union sheds crocodile tears over fare hikes
for passengers. Where exactly does it think
the cash for this inflation-busting bonanza
comes from? Wages are the biggest single
cost for train operators – no wonder when
drivers earn up to £70,000 a year. Less of
this base hypocrisy, please. DOMINIC LAWSON IS AWAY
by Stephen
Glover