Background to Blairism

After 18 years of Conservative rule, an incoming Labour administration (old or new) might reasonably, on past record, have been apprehensive of any clipping of its left wing policies by a traditionally conservative-minded judiciary, a feeling further induced by an outcrop of judicial activism over the previous two decades of incremental growth in judicial review. In the immediate pre-election period of 1996–7 there had, in particular, been concern among penal reformers that consideration of criminal and penal policy would stray even further from the norm of moderately liberal policies towards crime and punishment. The United States had already shown the tragic and counterproductive results of mixing conservative party politics with such policy debates, thereby inflaming public prejudice.

The Blair administration, first-time round, showed no disinclination from following the US experience in the penal field, much in the fashion of standing shoulder-to-shoulder with the United States in the international arena. During the last decade of the twentieth century there was nothing to distinguish policies between the two British main parties; each was vying with the other to assuage the perceived punitiveness of the public. Policy has been over-driven by party political considerations that have led to short-term initiatives, excessive legislation in criminal justice, imbalances, and at times the pursuit of contradictory objectives. The Blair watchword, to be tough on crime and the causes of crime, conceded nothing in reality to a policy which aimed at offenders, and resulted in an almost unrelenting increase in the daily average prison population, to a record high of 76,227 as at 1 July 2005.