Another Saturday, another interview with Ken Clarke. This time, the bruised bruiser has
been talking to the FT and the remarkable thing is that he has managed to say nothing. Not
a sausage. Colleagues were not insulted, Middle England escaped unscathed and the European Court of Human Rights wasn’t even mentioned.
But Clarke conveys his determination to fight. He defends his prison reforms and community sentences, to which the right has now applied the grave term ‘misconceived’. Clarke retorts:
‘We are trying to take 23 per cent out of the budget. I don’t recall any government that’s ever tried to make any spending reductions on law and order – let alone 23 per cent. And second, I can combine that with radical reform. So the two things happily combine. If you just took 23 per cent out of the budget here, you would cause mayhem.’
That’s a very reasonable point, if the reforms reduce re-offending and its associated socio-economic costs.
Clarke also makes a personal point: he doesn’t care about the war that is being waged against by his own party, orchestrated by those who will never forgive him for killing mummy. Clarke’s riposte is insouciant:
‘I’m not here trying to catch the selector’s eye. I am here because I rather enjoy being Lord Chancellor and trying to carry out some essential reform.’
Indeed, but for how much longer? Clarke is the rumoured victim of a Spring reshuffle and the bookies are catching on.
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