Burnham’s Downing Street is in no good mood with officials from the MoJ over exemptions in the early release scheme. It’s falling apart…
Guido understands there is fury at Ministry of Justice officials, who have been accused of incompetence for coming up with changing capacity numbers in the prison estate. They are concerned that the prison crisis which reared its head in 2024 could return – meaning there would be no capacity for prisoners to be sent to prison after conviction…
Officials also advised No10 to exempt convicts based on the lengths of their sentence as opposed to the specific offences. Rejected because the politics of blocking sex offences and so on is more appealing…
Burnham’s strategy of adding exemptions means that he will experience populist drag and find it difficult to resist massive pressure to exempt other offences.
One No10 source describes the MoJ’s Permanent Secretary Jo Farrar as “weak” and suggests new Justice Secretary Alex Norris should turf out the top team. Collective mandarin gulping taking place…
The chairman of the Thames Valley Police Federation, Aileen O’Connor, has told Times Radio today that she’s “incensed” by Downing Street saying it’s “not possible.” She started the petition calling for PC Andrew Harper’s killers to be exempted from early release, which is now at 880,000 signatures…
Downing Street’s argument as of today is that you can’t exempt these manslaughter convicts without exempting all of them. Ever heard of legislation?
Lord Khan in the Telegraph: “I hope, and I say this in a non-pompous way, that the public service I do will bring rewards in this world and the hereafter,” he says. “I’m hoping the work I do is earning me Brownie points.”