Cometh the hour, cometh Nick Clegg. The Independent reports that the Deputy Prime Minister is to announce that
first-time offenders convicted of looting but not given custodial sentences will be forced to do community service in the very streets that they ransacked. The government hopes to ensure that
community sentences are robust, inculcating a sense of responsibility in first-time offenders and insulating them from malign criminal influences. The Probation Service already oversees
similar community service programmes and will do so with this one, which Clegg is calling ‘Community Payback’.
Clegg’s views also allow him to reposition the Liberal Democrats to an extent. The moisture that often characterises his rhetoric has dried on this occasion. He will say this morning:
“Victims of crime are only truly protected if punishment leads to criminals not committing crime again. That’s why those people who behaved so despicably last week should have to look their
victims in the eye.”
It’s a bald statement, backed with a constructive policy that penalises wrong-doing and offers some hope of rehabilitation in the community. A casual observer would be forgiven for thinking
Clegg to be a traditional Tory, or indeed a Blairite.
Clegg is the last party leader to join the post-riot soul-searching and he can paint the Liberal Democrats as being tough on crime. It also provides him with an opportunity to distance himself from the Conservatives in coalition, a favourite objective at present. The Independent also reveals that Clegg is brokering a deal between Ed Miliband and the government over a public inquiry into the riots. Cameron is apparently opposed to an inquiry on grounds of cost, but is more ambivalent about a small-scale independent investigation. Clegg is proposing to establish a Victims and Communities Commission to examine Britain’s broken communities. If that happens, Miliband would have scored a limited success and Clegg would have indicated that he can work with the Labour leader.
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