Introduction

The Labour Party underwent far-reaching and radical changes to transformitself from a party that was increasingly being considered to be almostunelectable in the 1980s to one that won a landslide election victory in the1997 General Election and a near repeat performance in 2001. Surely one ofthe more difficult challenges that the Labour Party faced was the attempt totransform itself from a party that was traditionally viewed as‘soft’ on crime and ‘soft’ on offenders to aparty that could challenge the Conservatives to the title of ‘theparty of law and order’, not necessarily a desirable title. One ofNew Labour’s most striking successes is in achieving thistransformation so quickly and so smoothly (Charman and Savage, 1999).

The ‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’ slogan wasto be central to all New Labour’s policies. It successfullynegotiated the difficult balance between understanding the causes of crimeyet demanding responsibility for actions – a difficult yet achievablecombination of left- and right-wing thinking on crime and criminality. Whilethe sentiments were sound, the dilemma lay in achieving harmony betweenthose two somewhat contradictory aims. Whether the Labour Party would beable to square that circle when in government is the essence of thischapter.

A legitimate place was being carved out for ‘action’ againstoffenders. It was New Labour’s way of avoiding the old accusationfrom the right that in focusing solely on the causes of crime it was ineffect excusing crime. This was never a justified (orindeed logical) deduction. However, it was an accusation that New Labour wasanxious to deflect. The counter-rhetoric was aimed at neutralising thispotential Achilles’ heel. ‘Excusing crime’ was to lawand order policy what unilateral nuclear disarmament was to defence policy.Scotching this one would enable New Labour to claim, as it did in the PartyManifesto, that “Labour is the party of law and order in Britaintoday” (Labour Party, 1997). But it was always more than politicallydriven rhetoric, for the shift in New Labour’s approach was also aclear acknowledgement that, unlike some other sections of the Left, NewLabour was not prepared to ‘talk down’ crime by seeing crimeproblems as media-led exaggerations of reality, as nothing more than a‘moral panic’.