Interesting political movements afoot in the coalition goverment with Ken Clarke, former Home Secretary and Chancellor in the previous Conservative administration of the 1990s, coming up with a policy on prisons which sounds more like a LIb Dem policy and is likely to give grassroot blue-rinse Conservative supporters the vapours (as indicated here in a Daily Mail article).
In sum, the credit and fiscal crunch has led government to look for cutbacks in most government depts of 25%, more of which will become evident in the spending review due to happen in the autumn. Clarke's argument is that increasing the cost of prisons by banging up people for longer is more expensive in the long-run than rehabilitating those prisoners who can be persuaded not to offend again.
It is a startling contrast to a previous Conservative policy promoted by former Conservativve leader Michael Howard in the 2005 election and in the 1990s: "Prison works"
The new Labour policy in this area was to lock-up increasing numbers of prisoners until serious overcrowding occurred and then prisoners had to be released early, as described here in this BBC article from 2009. Former Labour Justice Secretary Jack Straw even defends his record in this piece in the Daily Mail in reaction to Clarke's new policy.
Useful stuff for G&P students contemplating the policy differences of new Labour with old, Conservative Thatcherism vs Cameronism and the impact of Lib Dems on the coalition government policy.
I haven't taken a look at George Osbourne's emergency budget yet; I'll do a separate post about it.
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