Tough questions on crime for Labour Party leadership hopefuls
Labour contenders quizzed on whether prisons are working – and how to build a just society
Published: 30 July, 2010
by SIMON WROE
FOUR contenders for the Labour Party leadership faced questions on Asbos, prison reform and alternative sentencing at Islington Town Hall last Wednesday.
Ed Balls, Diane Abbott and Ed and David Miliband were quizzed about how to create a “Just Society”, the subject of a debate chaired by Frances Crook, director of the Howard League for Penal Reform (HLPR).
Hazel Blears stood in for the fifth would-be Labour leader, Andy Burnham, who was unable to attend because of a family illness.
The panel were largely behind shorter prison terms for young offenders, early intervention in schools to prevent youngsters turning to crime, keeping drugs illegal and community service for less serious crimes.
But they were less comfortable when asked about civil orders and the expansion of the prison system – both key tenets of the former Labour regime.
The answers to one question – about “whether prison worked” – were closer to Kenneth Clarke’s recent criticisms of custodial sentences than Jack Straw’s claims that they had been a success
Asked if she would continue to stick with Asbos as a form of punishment, Ms Abbott, the MP for Hackney, said: “The Labour Party I would lead would be aware of a rhetoric that criminalises young people.”
Ms Abbott was cheered later in the debate when she told the crowd: “All the other candidates, who were in the cabinet, have talked about how we lock up too many people… I can only assume they were off sick when these decisions were taken.”
Several members of the audience in the packed council chamber described themselves in their questions as “disaffected Labour voters” and at times the debate sounded more like an autopsy of the New Labour government than a way forward.
David Miliband, the former Foreign Secretary, said the party had failed in the general election “because the weaknesses weren’t addressed and the strengths thrown away”.
Ms Blears admitted that Labour had “lost big-style”. She added: “We got disconnected from our public and to some extent from our party.”
“We need to move on as a party from the in-fighting and the Mandelson years,” Ms Abbott told more than 500 spectators in the packed council chamber.
The debate in the “red heart” of Islington, which has 36 Labour councillors to 12 Lib Dems, touched on how female offenders should be punished and if drugs should be legal – a notion the panel all dismissed
The Islington Town Hall hustings, sponsored by Tribune magazine, the HLPR and NAPO, the probation workers’ trade union, was the latest in a series of staged events to decide the leadership of the Labour Party.
On the same evening, at a meeting across the borough, the Islington North Constituency Labour Party gave its vote to Ms Abbott.