1,700 prisoners will be released early. It’s because of prison overcrowding and it’s not like they could have built many prisons since July 4th when Labour got in power, so while this could be all about the previous lot’s failing, Labour have managed to really own this.
Only prisoners given a prison sentence of less than 4 years will be eligible to be released at 40% of their term rather than the 50% stage when they would have been let out anyway. That’s a maximum of 4.8 weeks difference, but they haven’t pushed that angle at all.
Some Gov.uk figures show that around 25% of prisoners reoffend anyway. That’s the normal rate before this scheme was brought in, so there will definitely be some reoffending. But when it happens now it will be all over the newspaper front pages. A story that wouldn’t have even made the newspaper inner pages will be the biggest political story in town. “Labour’s Lawless Legacy” or something like that.
Meanwhile the MPs were busy voting on cutting the winter fuel payments from pensioners, depriving them of between £200 and £300 a year. Today is also the day when the news tells us the state pension set to rise by £460 next year. You don’t have to be a whizz at maths to see how you could spin that story.
Frame the debate as “should ALL pensioners get winter fuel payments” and all you need to do is argue about what the cut off point should be and you’ve won. Using the Pension Credit boundary as the means test is the problem. Somehow Labour have managed to really own this move and let it be framed as them hating OAPs because the old folk vote Tory.
Each year there are tens of thousands of deaths in the winter where cold is considered a factor. Again, not one of those stories would make it into the papers, but this winter as soon as the papers find one case the front pages will be screaming “Cold Keir Killer Crisis” or something like that.
If you are a Labour government you must know that most of the newspaper in the UK aren’t your biggest fans. They’ll be looking for you to slip up so they can write about how bad you are. The problem with thinking you’re doing the right thing is that you can be tempted to simply ignore those who disagree with you. It’s not party political, we could call that The Lizz Truss Effect, but why hand over such easy wins?
» Read the source story
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