Rescuing
Democracy in the United Kingdom from our current Elected Dictatorship
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You will
notice that, since New Labour came to power, not a single
leading Cabinet member or party 'heavy hitter' has appeared
on the programme (BBC's Question Time). Spin, not face-to-face
confrontations with the voters, is the Government's chosen
method of communication. Ordinary
people are dangerous. Ordinary people might ask a question
which throws a politician 'off message'; the Cabinet member
might reveal himself or herself to be a human being like
us, and not a programmed android. Worse still, he or she
might tell the truth.
Ann Leslie - Daily Mail, September
16, 2004
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Michael
Howard calls for zero tolerance policing in Britain, backed by
a major new prison building programme, a tough crackdown on school
violence, and action to restore the nation's self-respect.
In
a keynote speech on law and order, the Conservative Leader unveiled
plans for a radical shake-up in which police forces would be encouraged
to challenge every level of crime and disorder – while their
burden of targets and red tape would be slashed back; people would
be expected to take more responsibility for their actions; and
the stifling culture of political correctness and red tape would
be tackled in the criminal justice system.
Addressing
an audience in Middlesborough, where Ray Mallon – the former
police officer dubbed "Robocop" for his successful no-nonsense
approach to crime – is mayor, Mr Howard blamed "sociological
mumbo-jumbo" for blurring the distinction between right and
wrong, and declared: "It is not public relations that people
want, it is effective policing.”
Read Michael Howard's full speech below.
Restoring Respect – Cutting Crime
“I am delighted to be here in Middlesbrough
with Ray Mallon this morning. Ray has proved that if you
want to cut crime, you can cut crime. He has shown that with decisive
action and clear direction you can begin the process of urban
renewal. And he has demonstrated that when local communities pull
together they can start to improve everyone’s quality of
life.
Rising Crime
This is the reality of Britain today. Parents
are afraid to let their children walk to school. Women fear intimidation
from hooded youths as they walk home at night. And couples stay
in rather than run the gauntlet of the binge drinkers who have
taken over many of our towns and city centres.
Crime undermines the quality of all our lives
– and as with most failings in society it is the poorest
who suffer the most. People living in deprived areas are more
than twice as likely to be mugged as those living in better off
neighbourhoods.
Rising crime has left people across Britain feeling
powerless and insecure. And in many places they worry that the
police have become powerless too – remote and distant, unable
to deal with the issues that concern their neighbourhoods the
most.
Crime Statistics
Criminologists and commentators
frequently try to down play the problem by saying that the fear
of crime is actually greater than crime itself. They appear blind
to the fact that disorder and violence have became a fact of daily
life in many communities across Britain.
Government ministers cite the
British Crime Survey as evidence that there has been a steady
decline in crime over the last nine years. But the BCS excludes
lots of crimes from its calculations – such as murder, crimes
against children under 16, sexual offences, dealing and taking
drugs and shoplifting. It is estimated that around 12 million
crimes a year don’t even make it onto the BCS radar.
The most reliable crime statistics
– those crimes actually recorded by the police – show
that crime in England and Wales has risen by almost 850,000 in
the last five years.
While burglary and car crime have
fallen: gun crime has doubled; robbery has gone up by more than
half; and, most damning of all, violent crime has increased by
83 per cent. Last year it hit the one million mark for the first
time ever. That is 3,000 violent crimes every day – and more
than a hundred violent crimes every hour.
Respect and Responsibility
There are many factors which have contributed
to the breakdown of law and order in Britain today. In many ways
the police, our courts and the prison service are simply picking
up the pieces of other people’s failures.
As a society we are in danger of being overrun
by values which eat away at people’s respect for themselves,
each other, their homes and their neighbourhood.
Most damaging of all has been the dramatic decline
in personal responsibility. Many people now believe that they
are no longer wholly responsible for their actions. It’s
someone else’s, or something else’s fault - the environment,
society, the Government.
Remember the lines from West Side Story, when
the gang of hoods try to excuse their actions: “I’m
depraved on account of I’m deprived” says one. “Juvenile
delinquency is purely a social disease” says another. West
Side Story may have been written by an American at the tail end
of the 1950s, but these attitudes are all too prevalent in British
society today.
These excuses shift the balance away from the
yob, the shoplifter, the joy-rider, the mugger, any criminal,
on to someone or something else. What more harmful message could
we send than to say: “It’s not your fault, it is society’s
fault”?
And while responsibility has declined, rights
have proliferated. “I’ve got my rights” is the
verbal equivalent of two-fingers to authority. There is now a
palpable sense of outrage that “so-called” human rights
have tipped the balance of justice in favour of the criminal and
the w rong-doer – rather than the victim and the law abider.
The decline of responsibility and the proliferation
of rights have left us in an ethical quagmire, which is undermining
our fight against crime. The clear distinction between right and
wrong has been lost in sociological mumbo-jumbo and politically
correct nonsense.
Just consider that phrase “anti-social behaviour”
which we hear so often today. Eighteen year olds out after a night’s
drinking, overturning litter bins, pushing each other around,
intimidating others – in my language, that behaviour is not
just anti-social - it’s wrong. That’s right: it’s
wrong. And people shouldn’t be allowed to get away with it.
Decent, hard working people understand this.
But they also understand that while politicians and the police
must take the lead in tackling crime and disorder, families and
communities have a part to play too. They know that there is a
right path for our society - one based on personal responsibility,
moderation, truthfulness, honesty, and liberty under the law.
Ask these people what they think is at the root
of many of the problems we face in society today, and they will
say obvious things. The things many politicians have been too
frightened to say for far too long.
Why do some parents allow their children out
until the early hours?
How does it help parents instil discipline
if they are told that they cannot smack their children?
Why can’t teachers discipline disruptive
pupils any more?
It is to the people who ask these
questions, who have been resolute but silent for so long –
the backbone of our country – that I am addressing my comments
to today.
Conservatives will stand up for
the silent, law abiding majority who play by the rules and pay
their dues. We will put their rights first.
Like them, I have had enough of
the culture of political correctness – which is designed
to blur the distinction between right and wrong.
And like them, I have had enough
of excuses for poor behaviour and crime.
If we are to tackle crime, we
must begin to challenge these attitudes head on.
Failings in the Criminal Justice
System
But we must also tackle the fundamental
problems at the heart of our criminal justice system.
It’s not just about money.
This year we will spend £19 billion on our criminal justice
system – the equivalent of £316 for every man, woman
and child in the country. Home Office spending has risen by 65
per cent since 1997. Yet crime is still rising.
It’s about culture, belief,
approach. At every step of the way, our criminal justice system
has become overwhelmed by political correctness and paperwork.
Political correctness and paperwork
are undermining our police. The police can only do their job properly
if they are able to intervene, to confront and to take action
against crime and anti-social behaviour. They cannot police our
streets if they have one hand tied behind their back, or if paperwork
keeps them chained to their desks.
So great is the deluge of paperwork
that, for every extra police officer Labour have recruited, almost
one extra bureaucrat has had to be employed. So great is the number
of pen pushers that they will not fit into the new Home Office
that Labour are building.
Mismanagement is rife in both
the Crown Prosecution Service and our courts. Seven per cent of
cases are now abandoned because of errors by the CPS. In London
alone 1,400 defendants went free last year because of delays in
gathering evidence. A fifth of all trials don’t start when
they are meant to.
Labour have downgraded prison
as a punishment with the introduction of their early release scheme.
Since it was introduced in 1999, more than 3,500 crimes have been
committed by prisoners on early release – including nine
serious sexual crimes.
And finally we have failed to
invest in new prison capacity, thereby constraining the ability
of our courts to send persistent, serious and dangerous criminals
to prison.
This is the politics of the mad
house. The first duty of government – any government –
is to protect the public and maintain law and order. But government
in Britain today is manifestly failing in that duty today.
Solutions
Restoring law and order to Britain
will be a priority for the Conservatives.
How? First, rebuilding respect.
Children, especially boys, benefit hugely from
a male influence in their lives. Of course this isn’t always
possible because a large number of men simply abandon their responsibilities
as fathers. But there are many fathers in Britain today who do
want to play their part, yet cannot get access to their children.
Conservatives believe that there should be a
strong legal presumption in favour of both parents having equal
rights in the upbringing of their children. This change to our
family law will mean that fathers are much more likely to remain
involved in their children’s lives even when families split
up.
Discipline in school is also essential if children
are to learn respect for authority at an early age. I suspect
that I am just one of millions of parents and grandparents bewildered
and horrified by the breakdown in discipline in our schools.
Violence in the class room is rising – up
nine-fold since 1997. Yet all too often teachers cannot discipline
pupils, let alone expel them from school. And it is often teachers
- not pupils – who find themselves on the wrong side of the
law. Only recently we had the nonsense of a teacher taken to the
Crown Court to stand trial by jury because she had – in jest
– put some tape over the mouth of a child.
Disruptive and violent pupils don’t just
ruin their own education – they ruin that of every other
child in the class.
We will introduce enforceable home-school contracts
that spell out both parents’ and pupils’ responsibilities.
And we will give heads complete control over expulsion. If they
decide to expel a disruptive pupil, they will not be second-guessed
by an outside panel.
Next, the police. As with every other public
service, Labour has inundated the police with Whitehall targets,
inspectorates and directives. Of course, the move towards centralisation
did not start in May 1997. It has been happening gradually for
decades. But top down control has ballooned under this government.
Under Labour, the National Policing Plan sets
out five strategic priorities for the police. The Police Performance
and Assessment Framework has 13 headline measures and 36 component
measures. The police are overseen by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate
of Constabulary, the Audit Commission and a new Police Standards
Unit.
As Robert Peel, the founder of Britain’s
police force, said: “The test of police efficiency is the
absence of crime and disorder – not the visible evidence
of police action in dealing with it”.
But David Blunkett’s Policing Performance
Assessment Framework requires the police to: “measure the
victims’ … of domestic burglary or violent crime …
satisfaction with the overall level of service provided”.
But what the victims of burglary and violent crime want is to
see the criminal who caused the crime caught, convicted and punished.
David Blunkett’s bureaucratic framework
also sets out to measure the percentage of local people who think
their police “do a good job”. But people know if their
police are doing a good job by the level of crime and disorder
in their neighbourhood.
It is not PR that people want,
it is effective policing.
Conservatives will give the police a simple, clear
objective: “…. to prevent crime and disorder”.
We need to police our streets – not de-police
them. We need a police force which intervenes, confronts and challenges
every kind of crime and disorder – from graffiti and litter
to burglary and robbery. In short we need zero tolerance policing.
As Ray has shown in Middlesbrough, and Rudi Guiliani
showed in New York, by challenging disorder you begin to claim
ground back from the yob s and hoodlums controlling our cities.
You demonstrate that there is a line people cannot cross –
and as police confidence rises in challenging unacceptable behaviour,
so public confidence rises in the police. By challenging so-called
small crimes head-on, you push back the burglars, car thieves
and drug dealers responsible for so much of the crime in Britain
today.
Conservatives will cut away at the police paperwork
that keeps policemen and women chained to their desks. And here’s
an example of what we don’t do.
The McPherson Report recommended that the police
keep a record of every stop they make – and that anyone stopped
by the police should be able to see a record of that paperwork.
On average, it will take about seven minutes to fill in the paperwork
for each individual stop.
If a police officer saw a troublemaker on the
high street, is he or she more likely to stop him if it means
having to spend seven minutes filling in the paperwork back at
the station? And imagine if it wasn’t just one - but half
a dozen? That’s not just seven minutes – it’s the
best part of one hour. Would that police officer still stop those
troublemakers?
The Government is about to launch further trials
to implement this recommendation. Conservatives would not implement
this recommendation.
And Conservatives will support the police when
it comes to stop and search. Increased stop and search is part
of the solution to rising crime.
Effective policing depends on stop and search.
In response to the 9/11 disaster David Blunkett rightly gave the
police new stop and search powers to deal with terrorism. At the
time he described them as “reasonable and proportionate”.
Not surprisingly the police used those new powers.
But no sooner had they done so than the Government instigated
an inquiry into their use. Politicians in Whitehall need to stop
second guessing the police at every turn.
And Conservatives will put more police back on
our streets. We will massively increase police numbers across
the country. The lesson of Guiliani’s success in New York
is that you need to increase police numbers.
Licensing Laws
Everyone knows that a great deal of criminal
behaviour is fuelled by alcohol. I am all in favour of people
having a good time – and the creation of a café culture
is part of the process of regeneration in our towns and cities.
But in many places what we’re seeing isn’t a café
culture – it’s a yob culture.
The Government claims to have handed control
over licensing to local councils. But as always with Labour, it’s
not real local control. For example, central government guidelines
make it virtually impossible for local councils to turn down applications
if they think there are already too many bars or clubs in an area.
But local people must be able to say through their elected representatives
“enough is enough” if they want to. Conservatives will
give local councils real control over licensing in their area.
Punishing Offenders
When it comes to punishing offenders, we need
to send a clear, unequivocal message to criminals – if you
break the law you will be punished.
Cautions should be for first time offenders -
community penalties for less serious crimes. But persistent, violent
and dangerous criminals should be sent to prison. The public needs
protection from them.
A hard core of criminals commit most of the crime
in Britain today. If they are behind bars they cannot commit more
crime.
Prison
Under Labour, prison building has not kept up
with the rise in the prison population. As a consequence our prisons
are over crowded. Prisoners are now being released early to cope
with the problem – and the courts are increasingly unable
to sentence persistent offenders to prison.
As if this wasn’t bad enough, Labour have
set an arbitrary limit on the prison population in the UK. Ministers
have said it must not rise above 80,000. This is an extremely
dangerous approach - which will on ly store up problems for the
future.
Yes prison building costs money – but it
is the first duty of government to protect the public. The best
way to do that is to put serious, persistent and dangerous criminals
behind bars. And it sends a powerful to message to those outside
prison – crime doesn’t pay.
The cost to society of failing to take action
is far greater than the cost of prison building itself.
Conservatives will also end the
Government’s dangerous early release scheme.
It’s not a question of if we build new prisons
– it is a question of how many new prisons we build and what
kind of prisons they are.
And zero tolerance should apply just as much
inside prison as on our streets. We will drug test all prisoners
on arrival – and test them regularly throughout their sentence.
Recent reports from Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Prisons
suggest that drug testing in prisons is not being effectively
implemented. And how many people know that when prisoners commit
crimes against other inmates, they are rarely prosecuted. Why?
If prisoners commit crimes they should be prosecuted. Failure
to do so brings the law into disrepute.
Finally, drugs. Despite increasing drub abuse,
there are only 2,000 rehab places in the entire country. That’s
right just 2,000. All the evidence shows that people with a drug
habit are more likely to kick it if they receive intensive treatment
in a secure, residential clinic. So we will increase the number
of rehab places to 20,000 – enough for every hard drug addict
aged 16 to 24.
Addicts will then face a choice – rehab
or prison. And if you drop out of rehab you go straight to prison.
There will be no second chances. If we are to get young addicts
off the conveyor belt to crime we will need to be firm but fair.
Conclusion
On 20 November 1996 Ray Mallon was appointed
Head of Crime Strategy for the Middlesbrough Division of Cleveland
Police. That same day he pledged to cut crime by 20 per cent within
eighteen months or else resign. Ray exceeded his target within
six months.
Crime is still falling in Middlesbrough today.
But across Britain crime is rising. People today
fear crime. They know that the criminal justice system is moving
in the wrong direction and that as a society we are under attack
from values which put rights before responsibility.
We need to make clear the difference between
right and wrong. We need an end to the excuses for poor behaviour
and crime. We need to stand up for the resolute, silent majority.
Our society needs more discipline, decent values
and respect. Respect for people, respect for property and respect
for the neighbourhood. Today crime is out of control and, under
Labour, it will only get worse. By cutting police paperwork and
political correctness, and putting more police on the beat, we
can and we will make our streets safer.
Why should people believe me any more than any
other politician when I say this? Because I have some experience
when it comes to cutting crime.
Last month Tony Blair boasted that it was time
to end the 1960s consensus on law and order. But the truth is
I ended that consensus when I became Home Secretary in 1993.
My approach was simple: to give the police the
powers they needed to catch criminals; to give the courts the
powers they needed to convict criminals; and to give our prisons
the space to take persistent, serious and dangerous offenders
out of circulation altogether.
That approach worked. By 1997 when I left the
Home Office, almost one million fewer crimes were being committed
each year. I am proud of my record cutting crime.
I did not accept then and I do not accept now
that rising crime is an inevitable fact of modern life. With decisive
action and clear leadership, we can cut crime. But although I
have a track record, I know that, to the silent, resolute and
decent people who may read or hear these words, that will not
be enough. Talk is cheap.
People have had enough o f personal crusades
that last as long as a news bulletin. They want to know that,
for a change, a politician means what he says, and will be prepared
to take the rap if he fails.
My fight against crime will not
last for a news bulletin. It will last for five years.
After five years, I will be happy
to be judged on my record.
As I showed when I was Home Secretary - and Ray
Mallon has shown in Middlesbrough and Hartlepool - if you are
resolute, if you are determined, if you have the will, you can
cut crime.
We are resolute, we are determined, we have the
will. We will cut crime.”
