By Sam Macrory - 8th December 2010
A new wanted poster is appearing on billboards across Britain. Staring back are the distinctively lived-in features of Ken Clarke, a man charged with the crime of wanting Britain to have an ever-so-slightly smaller prison population.
More discretion to judges and a bigger focus on rehabilitation forms the crux of Clarke's vision for sentencing. Straightforward stuff, but a confusing territory for Labour MPs, who once swaggered under the banner of being "tough on crime", and those Tories of the right who bask in being members of the party of law and order.
Clarke's plans have left them with terrifying visions of murderers and rapists rampaging through their constituencies. As their complaints - "siren calls of populism" said Tory backbencher Paul Maynard - began to mount, the justice secretary, a man who rarely looks anything other than supremely relaxed, found his patience tested.
Edward Leigh doesn't think the pressure on prisons needed easing. "I'm sorry, but communities deserve a break. They deserve a break from being burgled", he announced as his usual hint-of-crimson complexion turned deep scarlet. At this point Clarke was still swaggering. Don't worry, he told the Tory backbencher, he really did think "prison is the best form of punishment."
Philip Davies, who got the loudest ironic cheer of the day as he launched into his regular contribution from the right, asked Clarke "how on earth" he could accept "the figures that too many people got to prison?
"Most of the people in this country would conclude that it's too few."
Trust the judges, Clarke told him. Davies began drawing up the posters.
Speaking up for the opposition, shadow justice secretary Sadiq Khan said little at length in an exhausting flurry of little information. His attempt at humour deserved the type of robust sentencing that Philip Davies would applaud. Clarke, Khan announced to groans and furrowed brows, had "been bluff on crime, and bluff on the causes of crime." Budgets must be tight in Labour's speech-writing team if that one slipped through the net.
With matching expressions of consternation, three former secretaries of state oozed concern but contributed little. David Miliband said nothing, David Blunkett flagged up his own achievements, while former home secretary Jack Straw simply wailed that Clarke was not giving enough credit to Labour's approach to law and order.
Attempting to quote Newt Gingrich, Clarke declared that "prison spending is the proverbial sacred crow" - a less disastrous slip on a word starting in C than yesterday's dramatic outbreak of four letter abuse. Straw jabbed his fingers up and down a great deal. It wasn't very effective.
Finally, after 45 minutes of panicking questions, the justice secretary told tell MPs what he really thought. "Sometimes I feel like I'm having a Looney Tunes debate", Clarke blurted out after Priti Patel asked him if he thought "dangerous criminals, such as paedophiles, will receive demanding and robust punishment in prison."
"I believe that serious criminals should be in prison. I have never met a sane person who wishes to disturb that," Clarke impatiently told a stunned-looking Patel, but he should prepare for an onslaught of hurled anvils, ill-prepared ACME-explosives, and falling grand pianos.
His opponents, in a cartoonish way, will try again, and again, and again to get their man. "I am obviously being particularly obscure today", Clarke later sighed at another question, but for the doubters on both sides of the House, Clarke's performance was bad news.
The justice secretary is, in their eyes, beyond rehabilitation, while the prospect of any sort of punishment leaves him far from afraid. Ken Clarke is not going to budge on this one.
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