All international crises have a local angle. For Britain and the 9/11 terrorist attacks, it is the infamous ‘good day to bury bad news‘ affair. This was when Jo Moore, a political advisor to the transport secretary, Stephen Byers, suggested within an hour of the second plane flying into the World Trade Center (but prior to either tower collapsing) that this was an opportune moment for the government to hide controversial decisions or difficult news.
The memo was leaked and caused problems for a government that had already cultivated a reputation, not always fairly, for spin. I think it also serves as a ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ in terms of the number of emails, texts and slacks we all send in the heat of the moment that we would hope do not appear in the newspapers.
All this is to say that I am firmly of the belief that recent stories about the slow-motion collapse of two key public services, prisons and the NHS, is not an attempt by ministers or advisers to use the murder of Israeli citizens and the siege of Gaza as a time to bury bad news. There is simply too much going wrong in the public realm (and, frankly, in the world too) for this to be a workable conspiracy.
Yesterday afternoon, The Times reported that judges have been told not to send some rapists and burglars to jail because they are full. As our chief political correspondent, Rachael Burford, points out, the UK’s prison population has grown substantially since the Covid-19 pandemic.
According to the latest figures, there are now 88,016 prisoners locked up. As of October 6, capacity across the whole prison estate stood at 88,667. To spare you the counting of fingers, that leaves 651 places left. I cannot use this newsletter to offer financial advice or encourage illegal activity, but now would presumably be the time.
Only yesterday, a report labelled Wandsworth Prison “unsafe and inhumane”. To dispel any rumours it may be an outlier, the Independent Monitoring Board said that the issues at the prison reflect failings across “the prison system as a whole”. The government does plan to create 20,000 extra prison places by the mid-2020s, but this being Britain, proposals for new facilities have been delayed due to planning issues.
As for the NHS, today’s figures show waiting lists have hit a record high. Data for the health service in England reveal 7.75 million people waiting to begin treatment at the end of August, up from 7.68 million in July. That means nearly one in every seven people is awaiting care.
The figures also show 8,998 people were waiting more than 18 months to start routine hospital treatment at the end of August, a rise of 23 per cent from the month before. Forget the economic implications and the labour market blah, blah, blah. Waiting a year and a half to start routine hospital treatment – can you even imagine? And it isn’t even winter yet.
There is a reason why the Conservatives are trailing so badly in the polls. Sure, Boris Johnson’s ethics and Liz Truss’s economics didn’t help. But people also live in the present where public services are creaking at the same time as the overall tax take is rising to levels not seen since the 1940s.
Sometimes, voters act in mysterious ways. At other times, they simply want convicted rapists jailed and to be able to see an NHS specialist. Ideally, with some money left over at the end of the week for pizza and a movie. On that basis, the government is falling short.
In the comment pages, Ben Judah calls Hamas’s attack on Israel a slice of genocide — and now everything has changed. Chris Blackhurst warns that Sunak’s pledge to halve inflation is now under serious threat. While Robbie Griffiths asks why more of London’s public art galleries don’t stay open past 5pm?
And finally, one to bookmark: Josh Barrie highlights the London sushi joints that cost less than a week’s rent.
