Gordon Brown vs David Cameron

17 June 2006

Irwin Stelzer says that the sharp policy distinctions of the past are no more, but that the choice ahead of the voters is still one to relish. This is his audit of the scores so far

Then there are the twin issues of crime and immigration. Brown has demonstrated his priority by starving the Home Office of funds after what one official told me were ‘discussions between the Home Office and the Treasury’. Those discussions resulted in a freeze (in real terms) of Home Office funding, and a capping of prison places at 80,000. It is that cap that has forced the early releases that have done so much to create the mean streets of many English neighbourhoods, and last week prompted the Commons public accounts committee to call for the emergency construction of more prisons.

Whether Cameron will move crime-fighting up the priority list is uncertain, but it is more rather than less likely, since his party is viscerally less sympathetic to perpetrators, and less concerned even than Tony Blair about adding to the woes of criminals with unfortunate upbringings. Will he go so far as to repeal the Human Rights Act, which is, after all, the reason that any pledges to deport illegal aliens are mere talk? Probably not. Still, for anyone concerned about crime, and with elevating safety concerns over those of the ‘rights’ of illegal aliens, the Tories are a better bet than a Labour team composed of a prime minister who, as chancellor, didn’t think this an area worth spending money on, and backbenchers, many of whom see the police as racists and criminals as the unfortunate victims of circumstance.