Christian Guy: Saving lives will also save money. That's why compassionate conservatism has much to offer

Christian Guy is Managing Director for the Centre for Social Justice.  Follow Christian on Twitter.

“I don’t do social justice”, he growled, before storming off muttering more discontent. Another delegate uttered exactly the same sentence minutes later.  “People are poor because they choose to be poor” said someone else.  And so it continued.  My first day at the 2007 Conservative party conference, working for the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ), didn’t start well.

Since then I have encountered the Conservative Party's strange unease about social justice.  Many reject it, some dabble in it and a few live by it.  But nobody seems to mention it.

This silent surrender means social justice tends to be an uncontested concept for the Left.  Often wary, many Conservatives consider it a cloak for mass wealth redistribution, uncontrolled public spending or intrusive statism.  Others, like Friedrich Hayek, famously dismissed social justice as ‘meaningless’ and ‘impossible’.  

How absurd.  Some of the country’s finest reformers, from William Wilberforce to the Earl of Shaftesbury (and as Paul Goodman noted earlier this month, lesser-known figures like Henry Willink) demonstrated a distinguished Conservative tradition for radical social transformation and concern for the vulnerable. Add to that the outstanding service of numerous party members in their local communities – helping the disadvantaged and supporting those less fortunate – and a mysterious Jekyll and Hyde identity crisis takes shape.

Christian Guy: David Cameron's speech yesterday may be the crucial step to making the justice system fit for purpose

Christian Guy is Managing Director for the Centre for Social Justice.  Follow Christian on Twitter.

Six years ago David Cameron came to the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) as Leader of the Opposition to deliver a radical speech on the causes of crime.

The address should have been remembered as a landmark moment for the Conservative Party – a time when a commitment to tackle Britain’s most acute social problems was put firmly at its heart. Instead, the speech is recalled for "hug a hoodie" – a misrepresentation that unfortunately stuck and undermined its key messages.

But what the Tory leader said back in 2006 remains the same today. If we want to get to grips with crime – if we want to mend our broken society – we have to look at its root causes; we have to commit to social reform. Our reoffending rates in England and Wales are appalling: a staggering two thirds of inmates serving sentences of a year or less are reconvicted within two years of release. 

Under the stewardship of Ken Clarke as Justice Secretary, things started to move in the right direction with the Coalition adopting the "rehabilitation revolution" mantra. But we all know there is a long road ahead in this journey, and that is why David Cameron’s speech at the CSJ yesterday should be widely welcomed.

Christian Guy: We haven’t yet fought a true war on drugs

Chrstian Guy is the Director of Policy, at the Centre for Social Justice. The CSJ’s report Breakthrough Britain, which includes a volume on tackling addiction, can be downloaded here.
Follow Christian on Twitter.

Some say de-criminalise, others seek full-scale legalisation. Some focus only on cannabis, others would include cocaine and heroin. Some claim drug use and crime would plummet, while others forecast marginal reductions. Then follows the assertion it would become more difficult to buy drugs if they were legal, and a belief that people would be safer in the hands of state regulation. ‘We have failed’ they say, ‘and it is time to admit it’. We should look to other countries. We should heed the warning of Colombia’s President, who was in London for a conference at the House of Lords and talks with the PM. So went the calls last week on drugs.

Some of these routine calls come from people understandably cautious regarding the Government’s right to ban certain things. Other calls come from a liberal elite who, frankly, want to protect their casual dinner party drug use and see little damage in what they do behind closed doors.

Yet even those motivated by public good and despair at the status quo seem strangely detached from reality, and the sense that decent people want the law on their side.

Aside from worrying weaknesses in their alternative vision, which I will come to, most of these calls to abandon ship begin with the false premise that the war on drugs has 'failed'.

Christian Guy: Don’t write off Ken Clarke just yet - the rehabilitation revolution remains his greatest challenge and opportunity

Christian Guy is Co-author of Locked Up Potential, a prison reform report published by the Centre for Social Justice.

It seems last week’s decision to privatise Birmingham prison will not go unchallenged.  The POA has branded the move ‘disgraceful’ and we read that the Justice Secretary has troops on standby should officers decide to break the law to go on strike.  Debates about the role of profit making companies in social policy, never mind the justice system, are bound to rage again.  The pros and cons are well-rehearsed but, ultimately, the private sector should play its part in advancing the urgent cause of prison reform. 

Paying down the deficit is a core aim for the Coalition and rightly so; there is nothing socially just about dumping our debt on tomorrow’s taxpayer.  But Britain also needs a social recovery and the Government’s underrated prison agenda is integral to sparking one.

Prison is essential and serves three core purposes.  For many years the first two of these have been clear and generally met: prisons should protect the public, and they should serve just punishment on sentenced offenders by removing their liberty.  But although, ultimately, it is sentencers not ministers who take such decisions, there are legitimate public concerns about the Government’s plan to sustain these functions and keep us safe.