'Welcome to the Monkey Tennis era of government straight out of Alan Partridge'

05 August 2023 , 19:33

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This is the Monkey Tennis era of government (Image: © BBC)

Remember Alan Partridge’s desperate, ill-fated ideas for TV programmes? That’s where we are now. Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to the Monkey Tennis era of government.

I thought nothing could be more bizarre than Suella Braverman’s mass buying of tents for migrants. Then we have two statements that just… well, I dunno what to say. I really don’t.

If you think about it for a second, you don’t want to be modelling your act on Norman Tebbit’s infamous speech from 1981. For Work and Pensions Secretary Mel Stride to tell over-50s to get on their bikes and – updating Tebbit’s seminal work with a 21st century twist – deliver takeaways was the second most insane thing in a very odd week.

A sketch for Mirror shows the depiction of what Keir Mudie reckons is a rather complex system of public services

I mean, people climbing on the PM’s roof, Mr Trump facing a long, long, list of criminal charges, and that bear in a Chinese zoo that people thought was a bloke in a suit. (The bear, incidentally, is called Angela and issued a denial. Which made the whole thing even better.)

But most bizarre, and an indication of how much barrel-scraping is going on, was Transport Minister Richard Holden saying shoplifters should be jailed. He added: "If we need to build more prison places for them, then so be it." I can’t say this enough. What we learn more and more is that prison is not working. Like with any crime, we need to be talking about the underlying causes.

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Yep, there are career shoplifters. There are also people who can’t feed their kids, can’t buy nappies, all the rest of it. They don’t need prison. They need help. We need a grown-up conversation about crime. There were some encouraging noises from Labour but they seem, like everything else, to have tailed off.

Here are the stats: 15% of the population have no qualifications – compared to 47% of prisoners. Two per cent of the population were taken into care as children – 24% of those in prison. Less than 1% of the population have been excluded from school, compared to 42% in prison.

We are seeing the results of years of underinvestment in education, training, rehabilitation, probation… you name it. If you want to tackle shoplifting, you are tackling a symptom, not the underlying illness.

But that’s a grown-up conversation – not something anyone has an appetite for at the moment. Here’s another one: If you’re prepared to build extra prison places for these low-level crimes, where are the cells for the bankers, PPE fraudsters and corrupt MPs? Then I’m with you, and forget rehabilitation. Throw away the key.

Keir Mudie