BRITAIN: The Conservatives and Liberal Democrats branded prime minister Tony Blair a failure yesterday as he launched yet another campaign to "rebalance" Britain's criminal justice system "in favour of the decent law-abiding majority".
In the first of a series of speeches entitled 'Our Nation's Future', Mr Blair put himself on the side of the public who, he said, were "right" to think the political and legal establishment "out of touch" and "still in denial" on the issue. However, Conservative shadow home secretary David Davis said Mr Blair failed to recognise that it was he and his government that had failed. "How can a prime minister who has had nine years in office - with some of the biggest majorities in history - accuse parliament of watering down his legislation?" demanded Mr Davis.
"He talks about being beaten by the rules after nine years of setting the rules. As for accelerating justice, we remember his proposed night courts and cashpoint fines for yobs - once the headline passed, so did the political momentum behind them."
Nick Clegg, Liberal Democrats, was similarly scathing. "This is clearly an admission of failure by the prime minister," he charged. "It is striking that after 10 years in power the gap between his rhetoric and reality is wider than ever. It is a continuing failure of government policy that is letting people down, not some nebulous 'liberal establishment'.
"We have prisons bursting at the seams, a judiciary at loggerheads with the government, a probation service on its knees, falling conviction rates for serious crimes, one of the highest rates of reoffending in western Europe, and a Home Office in a state of institutional meltdown.
"One speech at the tail-end of his premiership cannot absolve Tony Blair of his responsibility for this dismal state of affairs."
However, ignoring the advice of prominent criminologists and promising more legislation to increase police powers and summary justice, Mr Blair told his Bristol audience: "It's no use saying that in theory there should be no conflict between the traditional protections for the suspect and the rights of the law-abiding majority because, as a result of the changing nature of crime and society, there is, in practice, such a conflict. And every day we do not resolve it, by rebalancing the system, the consequence is not abstract, it is out there, very real on our streets . . . This is not an argument about whether we respect civil liberties or not, but whose take priority."
Oxford university professors Ian Loader and Julian Roberts had led expert warnings in advance of Mr Blair's speech, saying the prime minister's "redress the balance" argument would produce "a tabloid justice outcome", with another round of legislation akin to "putting a plaster on a broken leg".
But Mr Blair was determined, promising more legislation and calling for change in the entire culture of political and legal decision-making. "It is not this or that judicial decision, this or that law," he insisted. "It is a complete change of mindset, an avowed, articulated determination to make protection of the law-abiding public the priority, and to measure that not by the theory of the textbook but by the reality of the street and the community in which real people live real lives."