Justice secretary Jack Straw says prisons exist to punish criminals and attacks the “criminal justice lobby [sic] for putting the needs of offenders before those of victims”. Immigration minister Phil Woolas says a tough new points-based system to limit non-EU immigration is needed to make sure the UK won’t reach a population of seventy million. Work and Pensions Secretary James Purnell, a while back said the unemployed should be made to work for their benefits.
Three examples of ragemongering, pandering to the worst instincts of the tabloids. Unlike America where fear and hatred of the stranger seems the paramount emotion driving the rightwing press, in the UK it seems to be anger and rage at everybody getting one over on ordinary, decent hardworking folk. Scroungers getting money for nothing from my hard earned wages, criminals mollycoddled by those leftie lawyers, bloody foreigners coming over here and getting everything handed on a silver platter, those are all tabloid stock villains. Amongst a certain part of the electorate there’s a deep rooted conviction that other people are getting away with murder and a strong desire to see them punished for it. It’s a well conditioned reflex that New Labour has been nurturing ever since they first got in power, by a torrent of ill considered and needless legislation designed to trigger these sentiments. Because if there’s one thing New Labour has internalised is that they need the tabloids behind them to remain in power.
For Gordon Brown it must be slightly worrying that such a big hitter like Jack Straw is engaging in this tactic now, just when Gordon himself is widely praised for his handling of the credit crisis, after such a long period of tabloid dissatisfaction with the Designated Successor. It may just be a sign that Gordon’s political position is not as secure as it seems to be, that Straw is positioning himself for a possible leadership battle in the near future. Ragemongering after all can also be used to raise your own profile, rather than that of the party…