Introduction

To an extent ‘law and order’ policy has presented New Labour with one of its biggest challenges. Labour may have had to fight extremely hard to establish itself as a Party seen as capable of managing the economy, or as being held to be reasonably sound on defence, but particular difficulties applied when it came to policies on crime, policing and criminal justice. After all, it has had to compete with the Conservatives’ apparently natural status as the ‘Party of law and order’. Traditionally, the Conservative Party has been able to point to its ‘tough not tender’ approach to law and order as evidence that it, not Labour, is to be trusted with waging a war on crime. Conservative policies in the years running up to the 1997 General Election were notably more ‘tough’ in the accepted sense than at any time in the post-war period. At the very least, this presented New Labour with an uphill task.

Seen in this light it is difficult to deny that Labour has, by some standards, been remarkably successful. Labour managed to enter the General Election having at least neutralised the Conservatives’ identity as the natural Party of law and order. As the key elements of its crime policy began to unfold in the early years of office, it could claim not only to have gained the backing of senior police officers and senior prison managers (‘Editorial’, Prison Service Journal, May 1998) but also to have won over some of its former critics on the Left (see below). This was no mean achievement. On the way, spearheaded in opposition first by Shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair and then by Jack Straw, the Party had decided to break from tradition and throw down new gauntlets.