Well That's the Police Vote Gone...

Jack Straw has been doing sterling work for the Conservatives today, accusing the Police of being workshy and lazy.

Justice Secretary Jack Straw has told the BBC he is "sceptical" about claims by some police that they are overworked and spend hours filling in forms. He said some officers "quite enjoy" being in the station "in the warm" and some forces did better than others. Often the difference was due, not to resources, but to the "discipline and culture" within the force, he said.But Simon Reed, vice-chairman of the Police Federation of England and Wales, said the remarks were "irresponsible and inflammatory".

"It wasn't police officers who brought in 3,000 new laws, it wasn't police officers who brought in a 30-page prosecution file and it wasn't police officers who brought in multiple forms and authorities to use a pair of binoculars," he said. "This was all done by politicians. Police officers are not the architects of bureaucracy, they and the public are the victims of it."

Chris Grayling has been quick to react...

What we have now is a group of Ministers who are utterly out of touch with what is really happening in policing. They heap more and more bureaucracy onto our police, leaving them filling in form after form, often with the same information on it, and then pretend that nothing is wrong. It's not police officers who are sitting at their desks in the warm - it's Ministers stuck in their ivory towers. They should get out a bit more and find out what is really going on.

I don't know what proportion of police officers vote Labour. But if any of them heard Jack Straw's interview (click HERE and scrol to 8.40) I suspect the number will have halved.

Jack Straw Fizzes Over New Data Loss Scandal

It must be easier to count the government databases which haven't been lost, rather than those that have. With the news that details of prison staff records have been lost, you have to ask why it took senior officials in the prison service two months to tell Justice Secretary Jack Straw. To his credit he made the news public immediately. He should make an example of those who kept the information from him, and fire them.

Is there seriously anyone now who trusts the Government to securely hold the data stored on ID Cards?

Telegraph Column: Jack Straw is Like Caligula

My Telegraph column today looks at the White Paper on political party funding and in particular the proposal to prevent candidates spending money in advance of an election campaign. Here's an excerpt.

This week, Justice Secretary Jack Straw pledged to commit the biggest act of gerrymandering since Caligula made his horse a senator, yet it received scant attention. Straw wants to prevent prospective Conservative candidates in marginal seats from spending money in advance of an election campaign... Being a candidate in a marginal seat rates second only to being Boris Johnson's diary secretary as the most nightmarish job in politics. It has a potentially enormous long-term reward, but party workers have wild expectations: they demand you buy a house locally, that you generate acres of media coverage, that you spend every waking hour door-knocking and that you single-handedly raise all the money to finance your campaign - or pay for it yourself... Most candidates don't receive a penny from Central Office. If they want to tell the electorate their views or achievements, they have to pay for a leaflet. Even those receiving money through the target seat campaign, which Lord Ashcroft partially funds, have to find at least 90 per cent of the spending themselves...

Labour wishes to silence candidates in advance of an election, but if they are not allowed to spend money, how can they communicate with electors? Many local newspaper editors refuse to cover candidates before an election, partly because they don't wish to upset the MP, with whom they usually want to foster good relations. So without finance to pay for leaflets a candidate is rendered mute.

Incumbents will become ever more powerful. MPs have a "communications allowance" of £10,000 a year to tell the electorate how wonderful they are. Straw's plans would make it impossible for new candidates to compete. This will inhibit political dialogue.

If Jack Straw thinks that donations from one person skew that process, there is a simple remedy. He could take up David Cameron's proposal of capping individual donations at £50,000... He won't. His trade union paymasters won't let him: 92 per cent of Labour's funds are raised from trade unions. A cap of £50,000 on union donations would render the Labour Party virtually bankrupt. Without the good offices of Lord Levy, fund-raising among business has all but dried up. In politics, money follows success.

Read the full article HERE.

Jack Straw - A Modern Day R A Butler?

On Andrew Marr this morning, Jack Straw came out with this...

Gordon Brown is the best Prime Minister we could possibly have

It reminded me of the occasion when R A Butler was quizzed by a journalist about his view of Anthony Eden. He was asked: Is Eden the best Prime Minister we've got? Butler simply answered 'yes'. It said so little, yet so much.

Gordon Brown's Perfect Storm?

The Sunday newspapers are full or stories about Gordon Brown's leadership - or lack of it - and the mutterings among Labour MPs about a leadership challenge. The Independent on Sunday's excellent new political editor Jane Merrick predicts that Charles Clarke will put himself forward as a stalking horse and has enough names to run. The Sunday Times has a graphic (not online) of all the runners and riders in any putative contest to succeed Brown, depicting them all as jockeys.

The consistent them in all the articles in the suggestion that Jack Straw would be a caretaker leader. Strange that all the newspapers follow the same line. Surely friends of Mr Straw haven't been briefing?! It is also pointed out that Straw is unhappy with the 42 days anti-terror proposal.

Gordon Brown is in danger of creating a 'perfect storm' for himself, a matter of days after being pictured with the star of the Perfect Storm movie, George Clooney. Within the space of a few weeks he will get a drubbing in the local elections, lose a vote on 42 days, suffer a rebellion over the 10p tax rate and a further one on welfare reform. And who knows what further crises will rear their heads in the next two months? The usual way to resolve this is to bang a few heads together among backbench rebels and have a Cabinet reshuffle. There are two reasons why this won't work. There are very few talented Ministers waiting in the wings to join the Cabinet and it is not obvious who Brown could sack without losing face. After all, it was only nine months ago he appointed them in the first place. Secondly, the Labour rebels are now way beyond the usual suspects of thirty or forty serial rebels from the left. They now include a whole host of MPs in marginal seats who are afraid of losing them. The latest YouGov poll in the Sunday Times shows another 16 point Tory lead and very unflattering figures on Brown's performance. No wonder they are bricking it.

But let's take a reality check. Newspaper journalists appear to believe that a leadership challenge in the Labour Party is as simple to hatch as in the Tory Party. The rules are unclear. The odds are stacked in favour of the incumbent leader in a way in which they are not in the Tory Party. I think we are a long way from Brown being ditched. At least I hope we are. He's the best asset the Tories have got.

Herbert Scores Triumph in Prisons Policy Announcement

Now THIS is the sort of policy announcement every Conservative can get behind. Well thought out, properly costed and an initiative which actually does something to address the problem. Nick Herbert has played a blinder today, totally outfoxing Jack Straw. Indeed, so desperate was the Justice Secretary to scupper the Tory announcement that he got his Special Adviser to try to set up a spoiling exercise over the weekend. The only trouble was, the poor little SpAd couldn't quite pull it off. So when that didn't work they resorted to the tried and tested tactic of saying the Tories were copying Labour's plans, and then followed it up by accusing them of proposing uncosted policies - which was a bit of a tactical error, in that if they were copying government proposals how could they possibly be uncosted? Oh dear. Herbert 3 Straw 0.

Bye Bye Lord Falconer

The Sun speculates that Gordon Brown will make Geoff Hoon the new Secretary of State for Justice if he becomes PM. John Reid made clear yesterday that the holder of the office would need to come from the House of Commons, so it's bye bye Charlie Falconer. The gossip around the House of Commons yesterday was that Jack Straw would be favourite for the job.

Of course the big question is how long John Reid will stay in his job. He thinks he's going to be the long term National Security supremo. My prediction is that his tenure in the job will last a matter of weeks.

Straw Backs Down on Lords Reform Vote

Well done to Jack Straw for backing down on the preferential voting system on House of Lords reform. More HERE. His proposal would have set a dangerous constitutional precedent. As Theresa May says: "A preferential ballot would have taken us into murky constitutional waters. It is a fundamental right of Parliament to reject Government proposals should it wish to do so, and the preferential system of voting would have removed that right."

Jack Straw Gives it the Business

I've just been flicking through Private Eye and happened upon this little snippet...

Every Thursday in the Commons, at 11.30am, Tory frontbencher Theresa May -
she of the snazzy shoes - asks the Leader of the House of Commons, Jack Straw,
about the coming week's agenda. The exact formula May uses is: "I wonder if the
Leader of the House can give me the business." Give me the business? It's a
brave woman who says that to raffish Jack!

What can it all mean?