Blair's crime measures speech is an admission of failure

2.16.00pm BST (GMT +0100) Fri 23rd Jun 2006

Responding to Tony Blair's speech on crime, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP said "This is clearly an admission of failure by the Prime Minister. It is striking that after 10 years in power, the gap between his rhetoric and reality is wider than ever. It is a continuing failure of government policy that is letting people down, not some nebulous 'liberal establishment' or an ill-defined need to 'rebalance' the system. We have prisons bursting at the seams, a judiciary at loggerheads with the Government, a probation service on its knees, falling conviction rates for serious crimes, one of the highest rates of reoffending in Western Europe, and a Home Office in a state of institutional meltdown."

"One speech at the tail-end of his premiership cannot absolve Tony Blair of his responsibility for this dismal state of affairs. The government's feverish battle to sound tough in the newspapers doesn't solve our crime problems - it makes them worse." Said Mr Clegg

In advice published by Downing Street, Oxford University's Prof Ian Loader said some initiatives were "like putting a plaster on a broken leg. Tony Blair's swathe of law and order measures seems to be more about winning elections than really tackling crime." Professor Loader was on a panel of academics and police officers who wrote to Mr Blair to advise him about crime.