ConservativeHome's ToryDiary

Tory GLA member attacks G20 protestor for aiming to make money from her alleged mistreatment by police

Often controversial (see here and here), London Assembly Brian Coleman has today said, according to a press release from London Assembly Conservatives, that he believes that the woman struck by a policeman during G20 protests outside the Bank of England is looking to make a “quick buck”.

Newspapers are reporting that Nicola Fisher has hired publicist Max Clifford with the aim of selling her story for £50,000.  Mr Coleman said:

“This is utterly disgraceful profiteering from someone who was on an anti-capitalist demonstration. Nicky Fisher turned up to this protest, which everyone said could be violent. She put herself in this situation and lo, she was hit. It’s like going gambling and then complaining that you’ve lost money. All right-thinking people will have little sympathy for her. The police were dealing with a very serious situation caused by some very silly people.”

On Platform today, David Davies MP defends the police's handling of the G20 demonstrations.  On CentreRight yesterday Graeme Archer said that the G20 incidents made the case for thorough reform of the police.

Tim Montgomerie

Chris Grayling has not sounded the death knell of "hug-a-hoodie"

Shadow home secretary Chris Grayling gave this speech in Doncaster yesterday in which he called for a "war on antisocial behaviour", to be based on five central principles:

1. There have to be consequences for every act of antisocial behaviour;
2. Parents must not be allowed to abdicate responsibility for their children's behaviour;
3. A tougher approach to bad behaviour in schools must teach children the difference between right and wrong;
4. Adults encouraging children to be irresponsible - by selling them drugs or alcohol for example - must be dealt with effectively; and
5. Youth engagement in society must be ensured, not least through support for the voluntary sector groups delivering that process of engagement.

Mr Grayling spoke about his desire to see "an effective punishment every time young people do step out of line" and he added that he wanted "instant community punishments for serious acts of antisocial behaviour".

The speech has been written up by the Times's Sam Coates as a repudiation of David Cameron's so-called "hug-a-hoodie" speech of three years ago:

"The speech marked a final break for the Conservatives from Mr Cameron's initial youth crime strategy, which called for greater understanding of hoodie-wearing teenagers. In July 2006, the Tory leader told the Centre for Social Justice that young people needed 'a lot more love'. Mr Cameron added: 'So, when you see a child walking down the road, hoodie up, head down, moody, swaggering, dominating the pavement - think what has brought that child to that moment'."

But I would contest that Sam Coates' analysis is entirely wrong: "hug-a-hoodie" was never about letting youth crime go unchecked, but rather seeking to address the social problems such as family breakdown, illiteracy and unemployment which are the context for such crime taking place.

Indeed, as Chris Grayling said himself in the same speech yesterday:

"Family breakdown, addiction, benefit dependency, educational failure all play a part. Changing what we have called the broken society will be a long and difficult process."

Jonathan Isaby

Conservatives demand that innocent people's DNA must not be stored by the state

Some in the party - especially members of the David Davis and Dominic Grieve fan clubs - have privately expressed concerns about whether the recently-appointed shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, shares his predecessors' commitment to civil liberties.

He may be putting a different emphasis on the home office brief, but today Mr Grayling will please the civil libertarians in the party by championing the plight of the millions of inncoent people whose DNA is being stored by the Government.

He is demanding an immediate end to the practice and accuses the Government of breaking a European Court ruling by storing the samples as it currently does, a huge number of which are from innocent people - including tens of thousands of children - tested purely in order to eliminate them from criminal inquiries.

Mr Grayling says:

“People know that I believe we should be tough on crime. DNA data plays an important part in many modern criminal investigations. So it should be taken and used where needed.

"But I also believe in the fundamental principles of our nation – and one of the most important of those is that people are innocent until proven guilty. So if the system judges someone innocent, or if they are only peripherally involved in a case, there is no excuse for storing their DNA indefinitely.

"This practice has now clearly been ruled illegal by the courts. It is morally wrong as well. Yet Ministers are dithering about what to do. It’s very simple. They should stop breaking the law, and remove this data right now.”

The Conservative Party is announcing proposals to build on the existing system in place in Scotland, which would only allow Ministers to order DNA from innocent people to be retained in cases involving some sexual and violent offences – and only then for up to five years (rather than indefinitely).

Incidentally, this is also a theme which Hammersmith and Fulham MP Greg Hands took up in this CentreRight post last summer: his DNA has remained on the national database after he was interviewed in the wake of his uncle's murder.

Jonathan Isaby

Jonathan Aitken proposes that rehabilitation should be the centrepiece of the prison system in new CSJ report

Tomorrow see the publication of a comprehensive new report on prison reform by the Centre for Social Justice, Locked Up Potential, which has been written by an 11-strong working group chaired by former Cabinet minister (and ex-prisoner) Jonathan Aitken.

ConservativeHome covered his appointment to that role in November 2007 here and the work he has conducted over the last sixteen months has clearly been very fruitful, with the report running to no fewer than 273 pages.

The thrust of the report is that rehabilitation must be the centrepiece of the prison system. The headline proposal is that those working in the prison and probation services who cut reoffending rates should be rewarded, but also that some savings made from the cuts in reoffending should be invested in schemes to treat prisoners' drug and alcohol addictions and to help them into jobs.

The following feature among the recommendations in the report:

• Replacing the National Offender Management Service with a local network of Community Prison and Rehabilitation Trusts (CPRTs) modelled on local NHS Trusts;
• Giving financial incentives to prison and probation officers who deliver reduced reoffending rates in local CPRT areas;
• Compulsory testing of all prisoners on arrival for drug addiction and alcoholism, with stricter anti-smuggling measures being introduced;
• Continuous but lower cost rehabilitation in Community Supervised Homes for Offenders (CSHOs) for certain offenders, such as some elderly, disabled, mentally disturbed and women prisoners;
• Enlisting thousands of additional volunteers to mentor prisoners and released prisoners and help them with their literacy and preparation for finding employment, housing and jobs on release;
• The full introduction of restorative justice, making criminals come face-to-face with the after-effects of their crimes.

It is a thoughtful report from a thoughtful (ex-)politician, and shadow justice secretary Dominic Grieve has  indicated in The Observer that he recognises it as a "very interesting contribution"  to the debate on prison reform.

As Iain Duncan Smith writes in the Sunday Telegraph:

"It makes powerful reading and sets out a programme for change which I believe will help alter the lives of large numbers of offenders and, correspondingly, the lives of all of us."

The full report will be available to download at the Centre for Social Justice website.

Jonathan Isaby

Liam Fox attacks Muslim fanatics who branded British soldiers as "babykillers" during homecoming parade

Soldiers returning from Iraq - and marching through Luton as part of a homecoming parade - were greeted with banners branding them as "butchers, war criminals, murderers, terrorists — and baby killers" by Islamic extremists.

Inayat Bunglawala, of the Muslim Council of Britain, told The Express: “This was a very offensive protest by a tiny number of known extremists who should not be allowed to tarnish the reputation of Luton’s Muslim community."

The police had to form a protective cordon around the Islamic fanatics when local people turned against them:

Shadow Defence Secretary Liam Fox called the protests “disgraceful, appalling and offensive”.  He continued "It is only because of the sacrifices made by our armed forces that these people live in a free society where they are able to make their sordid protests."  'The Sun Says' agrees:

"Our brave troops have enough to put up with as they risk life and limb in Afghanistan and Iraq.  To top it all, now they fly home to vicious abuse from Islamic fanatics.  The Royal Anglians had to face a chanting mob waving grotesque placards accusing THEM of terrorism and child murder.  Astonishingly, this despicable demo went ahead with police approval.  When it turned predictably ugly, who did our brave bobbies arrest?  Not the extremists who started the trouble, but a couple of locals who rallied to Our Boys’ defence."

What do readers think?  Should the police have approved this "despicable demo"?  I think not.  It was the wrong time and wrong place for such protests.

Tim Montgomerie

David Ruffley announces "Mobile Urban Gaols" to spearhead Tory effort to let the police concentrate on policing

A pilot scheme of mobile prisons in crime hotspots - where police could process, fingerprint and fine criminals without needing to leave their beat and return to a faraway police station - is the headline proposal in the Conservative Party's plans to allow the police to concentrate on policing.

It is included in a new paper, Back on the Beat, published last night by David Ruffley, the shadow police reform minister, and you can download it directly as a pdf here or through the Conservative Party website. It comes at the end of a week where the recently appointed shadow home secretary, Chris Grayling, made his first speech in that role.

The main proposals included in the document are:

• A pilot of new specially-designed mobile urban gaols (“MUGs”) to go into crime hotspots that are afflicted by, for instance, knife crime and antisocial disorder. Police will be able to deal with more offenders more quickly without having to go all the way back to the police station. MUG’s can reduce the time offenders spend off the beat. MUGs will also mean a more visible police presence for the public.
• Reforming one of the biggest police paper chases of them all – the police having to fill in the length MG6 disclosure forms for the lawyers in the CPS.
• Abolition of statutory charging for a large number of offences - this means giving back powers to custody sergeants to charge offenders without having to fill in forms for the CPS lawyers and then spend further time waiting for those lawyers to make a charging decision. (David Ruffley first announced this policy in an article on ConservativeHome in November last year)
• Scrapping the current ‘RIPA’ rules that make a policeman fill in multiple forms every time he wants to stakeout a known burglar’s house or carry out plain clothed surveillance.
• Cutting the paperwork of stop and search recording.

David Ruffley said:

"Twelve years of Labour red tape and bureaucracy have wasted police time, keeping them away from front line crime-fighting. Labour have a criminal record - antisocial disorder, gun crime, violence, robbery, knife crime and stabbings are all up on their watch.

"We need to take the handcuffs off the police and put them on the criminals. The public want the police back on the beat which is where the police also want to be and these proposals are a start in achieving just that."

Jonathan Isaby

Grayling gives first big speech on law and order as nation braces itself for a 'summer of rage'

Chris Grayling gave a speech earlier today on Britain's crime-ridden society.

It included two stories...

"Let me tell you a story about life in Britain today. It was told me by the father of a serving soldier, who will be risking his life for us in Afghanistan this spring. He was home on leave and was out in his local town centre when he was the victim of an unprovoked attack from behind by two youths. He was able to hold them off and the police were called. He was left badly bruised after what was a completely unpremeditated attack. The two young men were arrested, but then extraordinarily they were let off with a caution. That's life in Britain today. A nation where we appear so used to a violent assault of this kind that police only deem it fit for a caution. And where the incidence of an attack like this is routine and not a rare exception. I don't think there could be any clearer example of the fact that our society desperately needs change."

"Let me tell you another story. Of a visit I made to a run down area of Toxteth. To a family living in a seriously run-down block of flats. Two small girls and their mother. And every night, almost without fail, a gang of local teenagers gathered on the staircase outside their flats to take drugs. Leaving a state of debris and chaos around them. Breaking down doors to get there. And leaving a very scared family living in a state of misery. And I left the building after talking to them with one dominant thought in my mind. Why is this being allowed to happen?"

...and damning facts...

• "Violent crime is up almost 80% under Labour. Nearly 1.1 million violent crimes were recorded last year - half a million more than in 1998-99.
• Robbery is up 27% under Labour.
• Criminal damage is up past 1 million offences - that's nearly 3000 incidents each day.
• There are over 400 serious knife crimes a week - 22,000 in one year.
• Fatal stabbings up by a third.
• Gun crime has nearly doubled under Labour - a gun crime was committed every hour in England and Wales in 2007-8.
• Injuries from gun crime are up almost four fold."

Mr Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, reviews what the Tories already intend to do on family, welfare reform and schools choice in order to mend the broken society.  He then sets out other actions relevant to his new brief:

• Powers to impose curfews on troublesome youngsters for operation outside school hours;
• Stronger licensing laws;
• An end to cautioning for violent and serious crimes.

Read the full speech here.

We are entering a time when law and order are going to rocket up the agenda.  The front page of today's Guardian warns of a 'summer of rage'.  Police intelligence suggests a mood change within public protests and a serious danger of "people who have lost their jobs, homes or savings becoming "footsoldiers" in a wave of potentially violent mass protests."  Chris Grayling's mettle will be tested very soon.

Tim Montgomerie

Grayling promises to end police's reliance on cautions for violent offences

According to The Sunday Telegraph, Chris Grayling promises to end the police's increasing use of cautions for violent offenders.

Noting a 28% increase in the use of cautions over the last five years Mr Grayling, the Shadow Home Secretary, says:

"If you are found carrying a knife, if you attack a stranger in the street, you should end up in the courts and then behind bars. You should not get a caution, or as I heard recently, a £65 penalty notice for carrying a three foot Samurai sword around. That must stop."

Mr Grayling may, however, face some headlines for the wrong reasons tomorrow.  The Sunday Mirror reports that he has claimed £100,000 for a London flat he is 'rarely seen in'.  There is no suggestion of anything illegal but the newspaper's Vincent Moss is noting a substantial capital gain for Mr Grayling on the flat for which the allowance is claimed plus the fact that his £1.5m constituency home is just 17 miles away.

11am Sunday: This comment from Phil Taylor is worth highlighting:

"Clearly the Mirror has no idea about London/Surrey geography or South East public transport. Either that or they are banking on their readers having no idea. Late at night after a debate or doing some political engagement the idea of walkng over to Waterloo and getting a train to Epsom and then maybe a cab or a lift from the wife from the station at 12.30am or 1am does not sound attractive. It would probably involve a door-to-door journey of 1.5 hours. A black cab would cost about £80 and still involve a 40 minute journey. I only live about 7 miles from central London in Ealing but I always leave an hour to get from here to the West End door-to-door. Having a second home is one thing, it helps get the job done. Calling a room in your sister's house your main residence is just plain lying."

Tory MP claims leaked document raises prospect of "dangerous" cuts in prison service staff

David Davies, the Conservative MP for Monmouth, is giving ConservativeHome readers exclusive sight of a document that he has obtained from within the prison service which he believes suggests there will be "dangerous" cuts in staffing as part of a process to find "significant cost reductions".

The document, headed "Draft notice to staff" and subtitled "The management of vacancies and staff surplus" states:

"Over the next twelve months a number of changes will take place that are likely to have a significant effect on the number of staff at any workplace. Both national and regional headquarters of NOMS [National Offender Management Service] are being restructured bringing together the former NOMS and HMPS [Her Majesty's Prison Service] management structures above establishment level. This will inevitably lead to a reduction in the number of staff required."

In reference to Ministry of Justice requirements for "more significant cost reductions", the document continues: "All of this is likely to lead to reductions in staff numbers" (although for whatever reason a manuscript amendment has put square brackets around this phrase).

Mr Davies says:

"It is a document that has been issued to senior managers in the prison service, and it clearly details the Government's intention to reduce the number of prison officers to save money at a time when crime is rising and they are promising 'Titan' prisons. Understaffing prisons is very dangerous for the prison officers who are left."

Justice questions take place in the Commons today, so perhaps there will be an opportunity for the issue to be raised directly with ministers there.

Whilst it is indeed right that the State should, like the country at large, also tighten its belt during these difficult economic times, it is surely paramount that no savings found by such agencies as the police and prison service put anyone in any danger. Hopefully such reassurances will be forthcoming.

I have reproduced the document below - click on it to enlarge it.

Jonathan Isaby

Chris Grayling vows "zero tolerance" of small crimes

When David Cameron moved Chris Grayling to the Home affairs slot he wanted a "pub ready"* spokesman on the issue of crime.  Although economic issues will dominate the next General Election there are growing fears of a "credit crunch crime wave" as people falling on harder times engage in more "acquisitive crimes".

Grayling has hit the ground running with an article for The Sun.  It is accompanied with a powerful image of Chris Grayling looking through a broken window (see image on right).  In a promise to bring New York's zero tolerance to Britain, Mr Grayling explains his strategy:

"If you ask most people in this country what they hate most about crime in our society, they’ll tell you it is the smaller offences — the acts of antisocial behaviour that cause misery to communities..."

Exactly.  He continues:

"...What Bill Bratton realised was that one leads to the other. If you leave minor crime unchecked, then things will deteriorate into something much worse. Yet in today’s Britain the police often don’t have time to deal with the smaller stuff. Too often 999 calls get little response because there are more pressing needs elsewhere. Only a tiny proportion of police time is spent on the beat. So a gang causing trouble will get away with it. And worse will follow."

Plenty of Tories have promised zero tolerance policing over the years.  Over the next year we'll be asking Mr Grayling to show how he'll get rid of the many barriers in its way.

Tim Montgomerie

* © Benedict Brogan

Dominic Grieve announces plan to restore trust in crime statistics

Shadow Home Secretary, Dominic Grieve, has today announced two key reforms to the handling of crime statisics which would be introduced by a Conservative Government.

Firstly, based on the premise that the public do not currently trust crime statistics, he has said that under a Conservative Government, they would no longer be compiled by the Home Office.

Instead, responsibility for compiling and publishing both recorded crime statistics and the British Crime Survey would be placed with the Office for National Statistics, whose work is deemed more trustworthy by the general public.

But there's another reason for the change: to stop the Government from being able to manipulate and spin the figures, as was the case, for example, with the premature release of knife crime statistics last month. Sir Michael Scholar, the chairman of the UK Statistics Authority, criticised the Government for that, resulting in Jacqui Smith having to apologise to Parliament.

So, secondly, the Conservatives would abolish the pre-release access that ministers, civil servants and special advisers have to such crime statistics.

Mr Grieve said:

"Labour have proved themselves serial manipulators of official statistics. Their obsession with covering up, rather than facing up to, problems has meant serious violent crime has only got worse. A new approach is required [which is why] we propose two radical reforms of crime statistics."

Dominic Grieve begins 2009 by calling for a return to "common sense" policing

This time last year, Dominic Grieve would probably have been stupefied at the suggestion that by now he would have replaced his then boss, David Davis, as shadow home secretary. At that time he was, however, the Conservative MP most ConservativeHome readers wanted to see promoted to the shadow cabinet.

And after David Davis's resignation last summer, that is exactly where he found himself and he has made a good start to 2009 by giving an interview to this morning's Independent in which he sets out his desire to see a return to "common sense" policing.

He outlines how he wants to see officers allowed to concentrate on dealing with the crimes that seriously affect people rather than have to waste time on investigating trivial complaints.

He says:

"There is no doubt – the police say that their discretion has been eroded. If somebody comes in to a police station and makes an allegation clearly of the most trivial character they nevertheless have to record it, to investigate it, go through a process of dealing with it which may involve going round and confronting the person against whom the trivial allegation has been made. Equally, the public seem to have become tremendously willing to go running off to the police to bleat about the most minor matters. In part that may be because of the perception that they are so regulated and controlled in every other way that there is nothing they can do about problems and they have got to go to the police to solve them."

Mr Grieve also reiterates the need for the police to support - rather than question - adults who rebuke children:

"The public have also come round to seeing the police as more likely to bite them than do something about the problems in the community around them. They also say: 'Oh well, if I try to stop that, someone will come round to arrest me.' Most of the complaints being made by the public are about quite low level anti-social behaviour issues about children and adolescents. I don't believe these problems didn't exist in the past, but in the past they were controlled because adults felt confident in tackling these problems themselves, not by being vigilantes, but by being sensible citizens."

The Independent states that a new Conservative government would act "within days" to rewrite guidelines in favour of people who stand up for traditional good behaviour.

The report also suggests that Mr Grieve will spearhead a "New Year policy drive aimed at ending the 'conveyor belt to crime', praising initiatives championed by the former party leader Iain Duncan Smith to target children at risk of falling into delinquency".

All very sensible stuff. I look forward to hearing more from Mr Grieve in the coming weeks.

Jonathan Isaby

David Davis calls for Bob Quick to substantiate his allegations against Tories or be replaced for inquiry into Damian Green

In another low in the relationship between the Conservative Party and London's police, the Met's Assistant Commissioner in charge of the Damian Green investigation has accused the Tories of dirty tricks:

"The police officer leading the Whitehall leaks inquiry has accused the Tories of endangering his family's safety by leaking information about his wife's wedding-car hire business. Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Bob Quick claimed he had fallen victim to dirty tricks in an attempt to sabotage the investigation that led to the arrest of Tory front-bencher Damian Green. But the Conservatives flatly denied the allegation and cast doubt on his fitness to continue as head of Scotland Yard's counter-terrorism squad."

On this morning's Today programme former Shadow Home Secretary David Davis said that Mr Quick should either substantiate his allegation that the Conservatives conspired with the Mail on Sunday for yesterday's story - 'Security scare over wedding car hire firm run from top terror police chief's home' - or another senior officer should be put in charge of the controversial investigation into Damian Green's conduct.  Listen to David Davis here.

Related link: Lessons from the Damian Green affair for Tory strategy.

10.30am from the Press Association: "Tory leader David Cameron has demanded that Britain's anti-terror chief should retract claims that his party had tried to undermine a Whitehall leaks inquiry."

11.15am: Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve MP has issued this statement after Bob Quick apologised: "We accept Assistant Commissioner Quick’s unreserved apology and this draws a line under the matter.”

Time to make the police democratically accountable?

Home Secretary Jacqui Smith has announced via an interview in The Guardian this morning that the Government will not be proceeding with plans to have directly elected police authorities.

She appears to pin the blame on the Conservatives for changing her mind:

"The Tories' behaviour has raised fears that the police were being politicised, making it more difficult to win public support for my proposals for some members of the police authority to be directly elected. Looking at what has happened over the past two months, there has been a fundamental shift in the way people think about the politicisation of the police. I put that down to the London mayor's intervention in the resignation of Sir Ian Blair and the events surrounding the Damian Green affair."

Chris Huhne for the Lib Dems recently cited his party's opposition to directly-elected police commissioners on the basis that such an individual could be a populist "insensitive to the rights and freedoms of minorities in that area".

The Times this morning also seems to suggest that the potential for extremists getting elected to police authorities was another reason for the Government dropping its plans.

But the Conservative position, developed by Nick Herbert when he was shadow police reform minister, remains that  police authorities should be replaced with a directly-elected police commissioner, who would act as the focus for public accountability.

There is strong support for increasing democratic accountability in all kinds of policy areas from the Direct Democracy movement inside the Conservative Party, as championed by Daniel Hannan, Douglas Carswell and others - most recently in their book: The Plan.

Is this not an area where the Conservatives should be highlighting clear blue water between the parties?

Is Labour's position not a vote loser on the basis that they appear to be saying "We do not trust to you vote for the right people"?

11am update - Here's the reaction to today's news from shadow home secretary, Dominic Grieve:

"The Home Secretary only ever paid lip-service to the notion of police accountability. Now she is trying to spin her way out of it. This shows Labour are completely bereft of ideas when it comes to making the police accountable to the people they serve. Jacqui Smith has shown the Government in its true colours.

"The danger of politicisation of the police has come from the complete micromanagement that has been the hallmark of this Government over the last eleven years. Our plans to replace police authorities with directly elected police commissioners are entirely different from those of the Government. They are about both restoring the professional judgement of the police, while making them accountable to and able to work with the public, not Whitehall diktats."

Jonathan Isaby

Exclusive: How the Tories will save one million hours of police time

David Ruffley, the shadow minister for police reform, has exclusively revealed through a piece for the Platform blog this afternoon how the next Conservative Government will save one million hours of police time.

He pledges today that the Conservatives will reverse what he describes as the "bureaucratic madness" of allowing only Crown Prosecution Service lawyers to charge the vast majority offenders at police stations - a power that was taken away from police sergeants in 2003.

By doing so, he explains, the Conservatives will cut back on huge amounts of unnecessary bureaucracy and form-filling and save a similarly large amount of police time.

The comments thread below is closed so that all comments can be left below David's piece on Platform.

Jonathan Isaby

Nick Herbert defends hate crime legislation

In a speech to the Bar Conference at the weekend, Nick Herbert, the shadow Justice Secretary, took on critics from across the political spectrum to put the Conservative case for retaining hate crime legislation - although he took care to express what he felt should be the limits to such laws.

“Victims of hate crime experience a form of stigmatisation which carries a clear message that they, and their community, are a target, and that they are of marginal value,” he argued. “These crimes also create mental crime maps of harassment for communities. They contribute to creating no-go areas for some people.” 

However, he was quick to add that there should be no infringements to the historic right to freedom of speech.

Boris sets out his plans to tackle youth crime in London

Youth crime recurred as an issue throughout the London mayoral campaign, not least because the tally of young people being killed in the capital continued to rise as Boris Johnson and Ken Livingstone fought it out on the hustings.

It was also an issue which was never going to provide “quick wins” for Boris on his election in May.

But today, after spending a few months taking soundings on the issue, the London Mayor has unveiled an action plan for tackling youth crime, as featured in this morning’s Sun and previewed in last Friday’s Evening Standard.

Flanked by Sir Paul Stephenson, the Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Kit Mathouse, the Deputy Mayor for Policing, and (Liberal Democrat) James Kempton, London Councils’ Member for Children and Young People, Boris announced “Time for Action” in the same community hall in Edmonton in which he officially launched his mayoral campaign back in March.

Should 42 days be a litmus test for the new Met Chief?

We know that most readers oppose 42 days (unlike this blog) but what do people think about it being an issue that stops an otherwise effective police officer from running the Met?  The Sunday Telegraph suggests confusingly that Boris Johnson both "may" and "will" object to a Met Chief that supported the Government on 42 days.  Such a litmus test (if it exists) may discourage police officers from making any statements on controversial issues in future - like drugs, speed cameras or stop and search.  Is that a good thing?

Scottish Tories campaign against plans to criminalise under 21s who use off licences

Scottish Conservatives are direct mailing the postcard below to 10,000 18 year-olds in target seats, highlighting SNP plans to stop under 21 year-olds from purchasing alcohol from off licences.

Murdo Fraser MSP described the Scottish Government’s proposals as "ludicrous, discriminatory and not addressing the fundamental issue." He continued: “Every 18 year old deserves to know what the SNP thinks of them.”

Boris is really beginning to deliver

In the sixth of eight reflections on Tory Conference week Tim Montgomerie notes the rise and rise of Boris Johnson.  The previous entry in this series examined the fact that Conference has "gone corporate".

The week began with the publication of ConHome's survey of Tory members.  The poll found that Boris Johnson enjoyed higher satisfaction ratings than any other Tory in the country - including David Cameron.  The rating followed the Mayor's strong defence of the City from Left-wing attacks.

My guess is that Boris Johnson will have only added to his standing since the survey was completed:

First was his very well received speech to Conference.  You can watch a section here.

Second was his announcement that he'd freeze the Mayor's component of the London council tax.  Having looked at the books he found plenty of economies from the Livingstone era.  As Cameron-Osborne look to bring discipline to UK-wide finances they now have a credible example of restraint to point to.

Third was yesterday's resignation of Sir Ian Blair.  Boris' statement on the resignation was statesmanlike but there can be little doubt that the Mayor's steel (and that of Kit Malthouse) forced the Met Chief out before he would otherwise have gone.  The normally reasonable Steve Richards of The Independent has blown a gasket in response.  But the greatest advance may be to come.  Justin Davenport and Pippa Crerar of the London Evening Standard are reporting that Boris Johnson met Los Angeles police chief Bill Bratton (who oversaw New York's zero tolerance revolution) at City Hall last Friday.  A City Hall source refused to rule out Bratton as a successor to Sir Ian.  Getting rid of Sir Ian was a good start.  Bill Bratton would be a brilliant leap forward for London.

The spirit of hug-a-hoodie lives on...

...and so it should.  The idea that crime has roots in broken families and malnourished lives is true.

In the most poignant words ever spoken by David Cameron, the Tory leader offered these thoughts to yesterday's Conservative Party Conference:

"Come with me to Wandsworth prison and meet the inmates.   Yes you meet the mugger, the robber and the burglar.   But you also meet the boy who can’t read and never could.  The teenager hooked on heroin.The young man who never knew the love of a father.  The middle aged failure where no-one in the family has known what it’s like to go out and work for two generations or maybe more.Miss the context, miss the cause, miss the background and you’ll never get the true picture of why crime is so high in our country."

The words reminded me of those spoken by George W Bush, in 2000:

"A couple of years ago, I visited a juvenile jail in Marlin, Texas, and talked with a group of young inmates. They were angry, wary kids. All had committed grownup crimes. Yet when I looked in their eyes, I realized some of them were still little boys. Toward the end of conversation, one young man, about 15, raised his hand and asked a haunting question... "What do you think of me?" He seemed to be asking, like many Americans who struggle ... "Is there hope for me? Do I have a chance?" And, frankly ... "Do you, a white man in a suit, really care what happens to me?" A small voice, but it speaks for so many. Single moms struggling to feed the kids and pay the rent. Immigrants starting a hard life in a new world. Children without fathers in neighborhoods where gangs seem like friendship, where drugs promise peace, and where sex, sadly, seems like the closest thing to belonging. We are their country, too. And each of us must share in its promise, or that promise is diminished for all."

Britains Conservatives must stay more focused on our social justice agenda than George W Bush.  We must build the nation of the second chance; a nation that rehabilitates prisoners, mends broken families, gives the long-term unemployed new training and skills.

> Graeme Archer has addressed the same words

> This is the second of Tim Montgomerie's eight conclusions from this week's Birmingham Party Conference.  The first noted David Cameron's rejection of an anti-government mentality.

Iain Duncan Smith condemns Met for for failing to charge George Michael

The Sun reports that pop megastar George Michael was arrested on Friday, near public lavatories on Hampstead Heath, in possession of Class A and C drugs.  Reacting to the Metropolitan's decision not to charge Mr Michael, The Sun concludes that it's "one law for the rich and famous and another for the rest of us."  London MP Iain Duncan Smith issued this statement to ConservativeHome.com:

“If, as we are led to believe that George Michael was caught with class A and B drugs on him, then he should be prosecuted, after all it isn’t the first time. However, the decision not to prosecute George Michael sends the signal to the public that if you are a celebrity in London you come under a different set of laws to everyone else. It also sends a powerful and destructive message to young people who admire George Michael, that drugs are fine, there is no penalty if you take them. After all didn’t the Met let Kate Moss and Amy Winehouse off as well?

The Metropolitan Police seem to be making this up as they go along. The Centre for Social Justice's Breakthrough Britain report showed that in Holland and Sweden where they have much clearer and tougher laws, everyone gets treated the same and the result is that there are no mixed messages and they have proportionately far fewer drug abusers than the UK.

At war with each other in the hierarchy, mired in controversy over the Menezes shooting, beset with accusations and counter accusations about race and corruption and lacking any firm leadership, this last decision by the Met will leave many Londoners asking what has happened to a once proud force that was, years ago, a byword the world over for quality policing.”

Over on The Platform, another London Tory MP - Mark Field - sets out his own wider case against the Met.  Read it here.

'Cameron on Cameron' highlights: Crime and fixing the broken society

Dylan Jones' new book Cameron on Cameron is a series of interviews with the Conservative leader. Throughout this week, ToryDiaries have focused on highlights discussing the economy and taxation, other politicians, foreign policy and public services. The final post in this series has some highlights of Cameron's responses relating to crime and social breakdown.

Society: “Britain’s broken society – that is what is wrong with the country. People can see that society is generally getting a lot poorer, there is family breakdown, drug abuse, alcohol abuse, persistent unemployment, sometimes three generations of families being unemployed… Labour don’t want to admit that there is anything broken about our society at all, even after twenty-seven children were killed in London last year, even after the appalling death of responsible citizens on their doorsteps and in their front gardens, people who have only been trying to protect themselves, their children or their property. Every day there is another murder, another assault, another rape, another front-page horror story.”

The causes of crime: “We’ve had all these criminal justice bills and thousands of new laws, and I think what we need to recognise is that fighting crime is actually about more than passing new laws. Of course you need to have the tough penalties on gun and knife crime and burglary and the rest of it, but unless you reform the police and get them out from behind their desks, unless you get rid of the culture of paperwork and political correctness, unless you deal with the issue of drugs on our streets, unless you have a broader response to crime, addressing the underlying causes, like family breakdown, unless you start saying no to things – to people falling down drunk in the streets, to shops selling booze to people underage, unless you change that then nothing will change.”

Capital punishment: “[I]f someone murdered one of my children then emotionally, obviously I would want to kill them. How could you not? But there have been too many cases of things going wrong, of the wrong people being executed, of evidence coming to light after the execution, and sometimes there is just too much of an element of doubt. And I just don’t honestly think that in a civilised society like ours that you can have the death penalty any more.”

Economic and social conservatism: “Obviously circumstances have meant that I’ve had to spend more time addressing economic issues and the credit crunch and the cost of living. But the Conservative Party’s problem wasn’t that we were insufficiently pro-business or pro-markets, our problem was people didn’t think we had a good vision of society, of what constituted good public services, of how you actually improve the quality of life and well-being. It’s quite clear that sorting out the economic mess we inherit from Labour will be a major undertaking. But equally we have made clear that social policy will be the focus of our reforms. The focus on those social aspects of modern Conservatism was right and they’ll be a very big part of my premiership if I get elected… I’m going to be as radical a social reformer as Mrs Thatcher was an economic reformer, and radical social reform is what this country needs right now.” 

Marriage: “It’s not the only way that couples come together and stay together, but it helps people, the sense of commitment, the fact that you’re standing there in front of friends and relatives and saying it’s not just about me any more, it’s about us, it’s about us together, we have commitments to each other, I think it’s a really important thing. I am unashamedly pro-marriage… Some people will say, you’ll sound a bit old-fashioned – I don’t care. I think it’s important.” 

The influence of government: “In the end people are not going to get married for a tax break, and people are not going to suddenly stop separating because we change the benefits system. I’m not naïve. But it seems to me that if we need a change in culture that is more pro-commitment, more pro-family, more pro-marriage, the very least the government can do is make sure the benefits and tax systems are not going in the opposite direction.”

Dominic Grieve to make it easier for police to conduct surveillance

The Guardian reports that Shadow Home Secretary Dominic Grieve is to propose amendments to the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act so that it is simpler for the police to conduct surveillance on those suspected of non-terrorist offences.  The article quotes Tory concerns that one police officer recently spent thirteen-and-a-half hours filling out paperwork in order to follow a burglar with three previous convictions.

According to The Guardian Mr Grieve wants the police to have automatic rights to:

• "Use covert video or listening devices in premises or vehicles.
• Watch premises to identify or arrest suspects.
• Conduct visual surveillance of public locations.
• Patrol, in uniform or plain clothes.
• Use thermal imaging and X-ray technology.
• Conduct surveillance using visible CCTV cameras."

Earlier in the summer the outgoing chair of the Local Government Association, Sir Simon Milton, highlighted local authorities' use and misuse of surveillance powers.

Mr Grieve's is the second announcement of a week that is dedicated to crime in the Tories' summer media grid. Yesterday's announcement was from Nick Herbert on stricter bail conditions.

Nick Herbert plans tougher bail conditions

One year ago Gary Newlove was murdered by a suspect on bail.  It seems an appropriate time for Shadow Justice Secretary Nick Herbert to make a commitment to toughen both bail conditions and the punishments for those who break those conditions.  Mr Herbert's proposals are summarised in the graphic on the right.  They are the first announcements in a week that the Tories have identified as 'crime week' in their summer grid. David Cameron has returned from holiday today and is expected to play a part in this themed week.

Nearly 13,000 people were fined for breaching bail conditions last year but the average fine was just £61.07.  Latest data says that 13% of defendants charged with murder, and 85% of manslaughter suspects, were on bail.  Commenting Mr Herbert said:

“The current system is not working – bail is too easily granted, frequently breached and improperly enforced.  Public confidence is undermined when bail conditions are routinely breached, offenders hold the criminal justice system in contempt, and new victims of crime are created unnecessarily.  It is time to tighten the bail laws and put public safety first.”

Speaking on Radio 4 this morning, Mr Herbert pointed to similar reforms already enacted in Scotland.  These had included a consideration of "public safety" in the decision to grant bail and had enjoyed cross-party support.  They also seem to be consistent with the European Convention on Human Rights.