The decision by prison staff to walkout yesterday before returning to their posts following a court ruling leads many of the newspaper editorials today. There is some sympathy for the difficult job being done by jail staff – but the papers say that officers leaving their posts isn’t the answer. Elsewhere, yesterday’s Brexit memo which suggested the government’s plan for leaving the EU is in a shambles is also a talking point in the newspapers. Here’s what the papers are saying today:
The Sun says the action taken yesterday by prison staff to walkout was ‘shameful’. The paper says that it’s clear there is ‘dangerous chaos’ in Britain’s jails but ‘crippling prisons’ and ‘disrupting trials’ was no way of dealing with the problem. Instead, the Sun throws its weight behind justice secretary Liz Truss, saying it’s clear from her proposed reforms, including upping the number of guards by 2,500 and offering a ‘£100m injection’, that she is well aware of the task in hand. But prison officers ‘throwing a strop’ isn’t any way to try and resolve matters, the paper adds.
There’s less support for Liz Truss in the Times which says it’s time for the justice secretary to show ‘a little less caution’ and a ‘little more ambition’ in her package of reforms. It says her plans so far are ‘sensible enough’ and that hiring prison officers is a good step ahead. But these piecemeal problems will do little to address the bigger issue: overcrowding. The Times says that the prison population has doubled in the last 20 years, and it says it’s time for Truss to ‘reduce the number and length go custodial sentences’. The paper goes on to suggest that Truss’s predecessors have been guilty of stalling on this front – but it says that if the new justice secretary really wants to tackle this problem once and for all, it’s time to prevent too many petty criminals from ending up behind bars in the first place. ‘In short, we need to lock fewer people up if the system is to cope,’ the paper says.
Meanwhile, the Guardian turns its attention to Barack Obama’s farewell tour around Europe. It says the shadow of Trump is looming heavily over the president as he visits Europe, and that the purpose of his visit is now to ‘calm Europe’s tendency to panic and adopt separate approaches to common problems’ rather than say goodbye to his allies. But it says despite Obama offering welcome words of warmth he will need ‘more than eloquence to reassure Europeans’. Instead, it’s clear it’s Trump’s view on the relationship between the US and other countries, rather than Obama’s, which matters now. And ‘Obama’s grace cannot disguise the fact that this farewell tour to Europe carries with it more foreboding than optimism,’ the paper concludes.
The Times also discusses its front page story yesterday of a leaked memo suggesting the government had no plan for Brexit. It says that despite Theresa May’s willingness to dismiss Deloitte’s ‘unsolicited’ note, the memo’s ‘message of drift and indecision..rings true’ – and ‘Downing Street has only itself to blame’. The paper says that while there are reasons for the government to keep its Brexit cards close to its chest, it seems that the Prime Minister is motivated by ‘habit and insecurity’ rather than her impressive poker techniques. And the Times says that if the government doesn’t do more to clarify its position beyond repeating the line that Brexit meaning Brexit, it’s inevitable that others will set the term of the debate.
The Sun agrees. It says it wouldn’t be surprised if ‘Whitehall IS a mass of headless chickens just five months after the referendum’. The paper points out that there was little preparation taken for a vote to leave and that David Cameron was ‘so complacent’ about the possibility of Brexit that it has ‘set us back months’. But the paper also hits out at the memo, saying its suggestion that 30,000 more civil servants would be needed was ‘unsolicited, self-interested and dubious’. Instead, the Sun says, it’s time to listen to ‘Vote Leave mastermind’ Dominic Cummings and slim down – rather than expand – the civil service.
Comments