The great law and order u-turn begins

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http://www.economist.com/blogs/blighty/2011/06/government-and-crime/print

The government and crime
The great law and order u-turn begins
Jun 8th 2011, 16:57 by J. G. | LONDON

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DAVID Cameron's "conversation" with Ken Clarke yesterday over sentencing policy is all over the press today. That was not Downing Street's intention, but the leak nevertheless marks the start of what could be a whole summer spent toughening up the government's position on law and order, after a year of vaguely liberal noises that has alarmed voters.
As well as today's signal that the justice secretary will not be allowed to halve prison sentences for defendants who plead guilty early, which has been coupled with intimations that the justice department's tight budget might be more "flexible" than was previously thought, there will be at least one set-piece speech from the prime minister about crime in the coming weeks, possibly two. And policies will be attached to the tougher rhetoric.
Mr Cameron and George Osborne, the chancellor of the exchequer, were never likely to tolerate indefinitely a situation that at times has seen their party outflanked on the right by Sadiq Khan, the former human rights lawyer who is now Labour's shadow justice secretary. But also instrumental to the change of approach has been Andrew Cooper, who joined Downing Street as a strategist earlier this year. He has been worried about the growing gap between the Tory message and the public's views on crime. To give you a sense of the popular mood, a poll commissioned recently by Lord Ashcroft, the Tories' former deputy chairman, found that 3% of the general public regard sentencing in Britain as "too harsh". That's 3%. Of the general public, including Liberal Democrat voters. Mr Cooper, a former pollster, has a very spare political strategy: go with the numbers. On the issue of law and order, they are unambiguous.