Britain’s new Prime Minister has already had to reprove one of his most senior ministerial picks after they were caught making light of the early release of prisoners in a hot-mic-moment.
Prime Minister Andy Burnham has said his government ministers sharing a joke about releasing prisoners from jail early to ease overcrowding is not acceptable and it is right those involved apologised. New Minister of Defence Wes Streeting was attending a drinks function for new government ministers after Burnham became the head of government on Monday which was in the view of television cameras but, apparently, without the politicians being aware of the presence of live microphones.
In the footage, Streeting refers to the new justice minister Alex Norris and remarks: “You know he’s the enemy now… he wants to let them all out”.
The early release of prisoners, often those found guilty of serious crimes and considerably before when they would have otherwise made it out of prison, is a major controversy in the United Kingdom and was a matter of serious reputational damage for the previous Labour government of Sir Keir Starmer. While Starmer very quickly came to be considered damaged goods by his Labour party and was replaced by Burnham for a clean break with voters, but just three days into this administration the indifferent attitude towards the early release policy already threatens to import old controversies into the new era.
Thousands of prisoners were released early in the early days of the Starmer government to forestall a prisons crisis. While this was portrayed as an emergency measure at the time, the policy has in fact been formalised since and early release will become effectively permanent from September unless action is taken to change course.
Britain’s The Daily Telegraph notes the remarks by Streeting were — beyond marring the new Prime Minister Burnham era so quickly — particularly badly timed given it comes as concern rises over the pending extremely early release of a pair of cop killers.
Police Constable Andrew Harper was dragged to death behind a getaway car being used by a pair of machinery thieves in 2019, and three men were jailed for manslaughter. Two were given 13 years each and yet, incredibly, already face potential early release.
The mother of the slain officer told the paper: “It makes me feel sick. Andrew’s life doesn’t get to come back. It feels like a slap in the face and an insult. People are getting a free pass for crime in this country. I like to try to be proud of my country, but this isn’t something to be proud of. There’s a lot going wrong.”
The concern over the pending early release, and that coming so quickly after government ministers were overheard joking about the justice system may have combined to force action, and the Prime Minister is now reportedly looking into reviewing the policy.
On Tuesday night, Streeting apologised for the hot-mic moment, and said: “I hope everyone can see there was no ill intent behind this ribbing of the new Justice Secretary – it was a reference to an old May/Clarke joke. But I appreciate these are very serious issues and am sorry for any offence inadvertently caused by this moment of levity.”
The May-Clark joke Streeting cited was a 2017 remark by then-Prime Minister Theresa May, who said of Tory colleague Ken Clark: “When I was Home Secretary and he was Justice Secretary, I used to say that I locked ‘em up and he let ‘em out”.