Prison works (Rob Stothard/Getty Images)
Perhaps the most shocking thing about the killing of Thomas O’Halloran was how unsurprising it seemed. The details are awful: an 87-year-old man, known for his local fundraising, stabbed to death while sitting in his mobility scooter in a suburb of West London. It made the headlines, but there has been no great national introspection, no sense this was a true aberration. It was just a horrid but ordinary incident in a country where it increasingly feels like crime is legal.
The killing was one of half a dozen or so last week in London alone, where 67 people have been murdered since the start of the year. Beyond these shocking figures, petty crime has become almost unpoliced, while robberies and burglaries are nearly always unresolved. The city’s Metropolitan Police force remains in special measures after a failing to address, or even really acknowledge, the failings apparent in the wake of Sarah Everard’s murder and other longer-standing scandals.
From the outside, the force seems entirely dysfunctional, somehow both unnecessarily authoritarian and impotent. Yet police services around the country seem little better. A further five forces are in special measures, with Greater Manchester Police failing to even record crimes, never mind solving them. Across the country there is a similar picture of forces being overzealous on trivial matters, yet repeatedly failing to deal with the most serious of crimes.
The wider criminal justice system is equally troubled. Overcrowded and crumbling courts cause unbearable delays to prosecutions, hampering attempts to bring criminals to justice. Anecdotally, lawyers tell me that trials are currently being listed for 2024, up to three years after the crime took place. This will be exacerbated by the strike action to be taken by publicly funded barristers, whose income has atrophied over recent years. Quite simply, the criminal and justice system is on the verge of seizing up entirely.
And yet, somehow, neither Liz Truss nor Rishi Sunak seem to recognise this, let alone offer any remedies to fix it. Truss’s recent major announcement on crime was not a strategy, but rather a list of things she wished were true: a promise to bring crime down without any new resources or thinking to do it, repeating a desire for targets and league tables without any sense of how those are met. Sunak, meanwhile, has promised the strengthening of sentences, but little that addresses crime prevention or detection.
For the most part, however, this lack of vision is merely a continuation of at least a decade of Tory impotence when it comes to lawlessness. The increase in police numbers under Boris Johnson’s government, for instance, was little more than a reversal of cuts and did not make up for the experience lost under the austerity-driven exodus. In particular, shortages of detectives have significantly worsened “clear-up” rates, with crimes more likely to go uncharged and un-convicted. As for those cases that pass this stage, they are still likely to linger in a court system which lacks sufficient judges, buildings, and lawyers to run effectively — all problems that could be largely solved by a commitment to spending where it counts.
Beyond that, the Conservatives are reluctant to confront systemic issues within the police. While ministers are keen to criticise the civil service that oversees it, the Tories appear reluctant to intervene in the actual organisation of police, despite the way the many forces fall short of the mark. What interventions have been launched in the last decade have often gone awry. The partial privatisation of the probation service, for example, proved muddle-headed, worsening performance and ending with an expensive bailout of providers. Similarly, the creation of Police and Crime Commissioners has offered little in the way of actual improvement; the office is poorly understood by the public and is notable largely for its scandals. Even the Johnson government’s reforms on sentencing — such as ending the automatic early release of offenders deemed to be a danger to the public — have been undermined by being pushed through in bills which also seek to reduce the right to protest.
Contrast this with the party’s long history of asserting its place as the home of law and order. The Thatcher government largely exempted the police from spending cuts, but also sought reform, passing the Police and Criminal Evidence Act in the wake of the Scarman Report into police search methods. Under John Major, a series of Criminal Justice Acts pushed for a more punitive criminal justice system, culminating in Michael Howard’s famous declaration that “prison works”.
Today, the party offers only soundbites, without conviction or fresh thinking. With the right approach, the Conservatives could combine the popular red meat of increased convictions and tougher sentences with the desire for more effective use of state resources. Yet they seem unable to deliver either, choosing instead to posture as the police fail and the country slips into the depths of lawlessness.
Without clear action from a new prime minister, this stagnation will not be reversed. The police will remain a discredited organisation, derided for a preoccupation with offensive words and an inability to catch villains, while at the same time tainted with an internal culture of misogyny and lingering issues around racism. Meanwhile, the courts will continue to lack the resources to push through convictions, and prisons will remain violent and dangerous holding pens which do too little to stop future offending.
With an economic crisis looming, it’s hard to believe that crime rates, already at a 20-year high, will improve of their own accord. If nothing meaningful is done to stop this slide towards chaos, a bleak winter could easily spill into widespread civil disobedience on a scale not seen since the 2011 riots. The perception of crime, and particularly the feeling that the police service cannot deal with it, eats away at social trust. It’s a pain felt in every unlit walk home, every catcall, and every tale of a friend being mugged. And it won’t be healed by platitudes.
So, with two weeks to go, as they glide around the Tory shires looking to win their final votes, Sunak and Truss would do well to remember that crime isn’t a party issue, but one that haunts the country as a whole. And when we become numbed to attacks such as the one on Thomas O’Halloran, when an 87-year-old man can’t leave his home for fear of being stabbed, law and order can’t be said to have any meaning. Society becomes a vacuum, with anarchy threatening to fill the void. And there is nothing conservative about that.
John Oxley is a corporate strategist and political commentator. His Substack is Joxley Writes.
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SubscribeI have had many Jewish friends tell me they are not “religious Jews”, but are “cultural Jews”. I wonder if lapsed-Christian atheists, such as myself, should start identifying as cultural Christians?
You’re welcome back, you know
What is a cultural Christian? Someone who says “Merry Christmas” instead of “Happy Holidays”? Someone who believes in Christ’s do unto others message but rejects vicarious atonement, the crucifixion, death and bodily resurrection of the Messiah? Who believes really that the Gospels are interesting “Just-so” stories with no basis in fact?
I do not see how a cultural Christian would be a martyr, or believe in much above or outside herself.
I seriously doubt that if such a phenomenon exists, it would last long. Or be very deep rooted. Kind of like the sower’s seed that fell among the thorns. When persecution comes they fall away.
Ayaan’s pro-Christian arguments are mainly related to how useful Christianity is as a unifying force for Western civilisations, and why we should defend it on those terms. She also invites us to the interesting thought experiment of – if you could design your own God, what would he look like – and asserts, reasonably, that the Christian God would be a good first draft. But none of this crosses the final bridge – what makes her actually believe the scriptures and accept Jesus as who he said he was? So I’m missing this final step.
Stay tuned. I think she is on a spiritual journey that, for all of us, must eventually recognize the problem of personal sin and the recognition that Jesus Christ is the answer to that problem. As I hear what she is saying, she loves the cultural fruits of Christianity, but she has not described the biblical account of how that fruit is germinated and grown in the life of an individual and then into society at large. Perhaps she is already there, as Christ describes in John 3, but has just not yet publicly expressed it in those terms. That’s why i say, “Stay tuned,” her journey may or may not have already reached that point. We will see.
Isn’t the over emphasis on sinfulness exactly what weakens Christianity in any face off with an overly aggressive religion like Islam .It’s the thing that makes identity politics and de -colonialism so attractive to Justin Welby . Our Muslim fellow citizens are planning Jihad against the infidel while Welby is planning a world tour of bad behaviour sites of the British Empire where he can hurl himself into the dust crying ‘beat me beat me’ as the self -appointed representative of the white male oppressor .
Primed to feel sinful he has no defence against chancers urging that he represents an especially sinful and oppressive historical culture .
Christianity emphasizes the love of God and your neighbor.
Christianity has potential as a unifying force but isn’t it also the origin of woke with it’s need to find things to feel guilty about . Taking an inventory of your own faults may be a good idea but Welby seems to want to take an inventory of all the supposed faults of the British with regard to everyone else , and that is deeply corrupting .He wants to luxuriate in his own holiness in pointing out the wickedness of the rest of us , as heirs to colonisers and slavers .
I’d love to hear Ali and Dawkins sit down together to discuss Ayaan’s conversion.
But Dawkins, would again be empty of actual content in any discussion with a true reasonable Christian.
Dada