Prisoners to be released early: fur coat no knickers ministers left their backsides hanging out for too long
A penny for the thoughts of Shabana Mahmood, the new Justice Secretary, who must be feeling like one of those poor sods who move into a newbuild house, only to find the roof leaks, the walls are cracked and the toilet flushes out onto the landing.
I’m starting to think that the Conservatives weren’t entirely stupid after all, and that all of their relentless incompetence was in fact an act - nobody could possibly be that useless, eh!? - in order for them to frank, first class, once-and-for-all their ticket out of there.
I am, of course, referring to the prisons. The Tories have left male prisons full to the brim with convicted criminals, dangerously overcrowded with a workforce stretched to breaking point. Of the 84,000 cell beds available, there are just 700 left. That is the equivalent capacity of a baked bean's room left in a phonebox. The system is one shock away from catastrophic collapse. One riotous outbreak; one fire; one pest infestation on a wing away from breaking point.
It is an utterly disgraceful, damning indictment of the now rotting corpse of Conservative rule, illustrating quite perfectly a period of inertia and ineptitude in Government brought about by sloganistic populism. Mannequin ministers modelling fur coats with no knickers, oblivious to the fact their backsides were hanging out. Then, now on the sidelines, they have the brass neck to criticise! A man for whom I have enormous respect and admiration, Tom Tugendhat (the Tories could do far worse than place him at the helm of their party) said in response to Labour being forced into urgently finding a solution to the problem, before they have a national emergency - disaster, even - on their hands said: ‘In what world is releasing 20,000 criminals onto our streets a good idea?’ You can see it HERE.
Well, Tom, with respect - and I mean that because I think you’re one of the capable ones - in a world you helped create. Where jails have been so poorly run that they are about to fail in a manner so disastrous that the public is placed in danger. The only reason ministers are having to contemplate releasing individuals who are closest to the moment they are entitled to their liberty back anyway is because the Government wants to be in control of those it releases before the system you left behind breaks in a way that relinquishes that control, enabling individuals back onto the streets who have no place at all in society, ever, because of the threat to life and limb they pose. That’s the world you created, Mr Tugendhat. I’m minded to break into a Queen song: ‘Is this the world we created, we made it on our own. Is this the world we devastated, right to the bone.’
Yet, there is hope, and it comes in the shape of the finest signing of the transfer window: Cobbler-in-Chief of Timpsons, CEO James Timpson, a corporate leader who sets the benchmark for compassionate vision, now appointed Prisons Minister. Mr Timpson, OBE, is a man whose business is staffed to the tune of 10 per cent by former prisoners, so he knows a thing or two about the potential that is locked behind bars waiting for positive guidance, trust and purpose.
This is a man whose family is in the top 10 per cent of taxpayers, too. They have a track record of insightful decision making and successful entrepreneurialism. Oh, and James' parents fostered almost a century of children over three decades. Compassionate and capable. I’ll take that over former ministers screaming blue murder at the mess they made on the carpet all day long.
Mind how you go.
James
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