Bloody politicians

Bloody politicians

By: Ben Gunn

Ben Gunn believes we should brace ourselves for further knee-jerk reactions as Labour struggles to retain power

You can always tell when there is an election in the offing. The number of prison stories in the newspapers begins to increase, each more distorted than the last, and all of them printed with the sole aim of inflaming the populace. Or more precisely, to get people so pissed at Labour that they vote the Tories back in. To this end the Sun, Daily Mail and Telegraph will all pitch in to twist the truth beyond all recognition. But only those of us in prison will know the reality – their readers will, yet again, accept the lies at face value.

This raises a whole range of issues, one being why a society so prepared to deceive itself is allowed out without adult supervision. The fact that the forthcoming election will, yet again, not permit us to vote in blatant disregard of legal judgements should fill us with contempt. Just why should we pay any attention to the law when our own government treats it with such indifference? The issue that focuses my mind just now is what the election will mean for us poor sods.

Over the next few months, panic will begin to spread amongst the Labour government. They know they are likely to lose, however being venal and power hungry they will do their damndest to cling on to their trinkets and perks. This government has already shown itself to be ultra sensitive to the tabloids. It is as if the editor of the Daily Mail has a leash directly attached to Jack Straw’s scrotum. Each time the Mail tugs, he yelps.

So we can expect even more knee-jerk reactions from Straw; a steady stream of direct political interference in the daily operations of the prison service. Straw has form for this, in his banning of 18 rated Playstation games, restrictions on town visits, and the absurd order that no activity should take place in prison unless it can pass a ‘public acceptability’ test. Note that the test isn’t whether something helps to rehabilitate or reform, it isn’t whether it cuts reoffending; the test is whether ignorant people in the community will bitch about it. The bottom line is that we should brace ourselves for even greater stupidities over the next few months as Labour struggles to keep its grip on power.

Not that we should hope that Labour wins. They have done nothing to improve the lot of prisoners. Sod all. From the word go, they lied and cheated. Before Straw got a big office and car at taxpayer’s expense he swore blind that Labour would get rid of private prisons, kiddie prisons and the prison ship. Straw said that private prisons were ‘morally repugnant’. Strange, then, that as soon as they won the election they abandoned all these beliefs. Just to highlight the petty vindictiveness of Labour’s attitude to us, remember that the Prime Minister himself took time out from running two wars last year to cancel our first pay rise in 15 years. Any idea that Labour are good for prisoners is a belief only held by people who also think that the X Factor is the pinnacle of Western Civilisation.

Odds on, though, the Tories will be in charge of us within the next six months. Most prisoners won’t have had first-hand experience of doing bird with a mad Tory in charge, so may listen to pronouncements of their plans and actually believe what they hear. Don’t! You have more sense than that.

A taste of what is to come is the increasing drip, drip of silly prison stories being fed to the papers by Conservative spokesman Dominic Grieve. Either he is a liar or an idiot, because he reckons that lifers are sent on home leave in order to ease overcrowding. This is typical of a trumped-up charge whose sole aim is to get people outraged and blame the present Government.

The Tories intend building 20,000 more prison places. Given the tendency of judges to fill any places on offer, and then some, this will add about 30,000 to the prison population. Welcome to Gulag Britannica.

They do have one idea that may be interesting. This is to give us proper work with proper pay. It was the Tories who passed the Prison Pay Act in 1996. Alas for good intentions, they then failed to activate it… so this is really a recycled idea that they failed with last time. This time around they propose adding a sting to it in a blatant attempt to kiss the arse of the victims’ rights lobby. If we get real wages, then a chunk of it will be taken and put in a victims’ fund. Count me out; it is down to the Courts to punish me, not some grubby politician thirty years down the line who decides to tack a fine onto my sentence.

Despite Labour having free reign for over a decade, in a real sense the life we lead on the landings is that shaped by the last Conservative government. And are we happy? It was the Tories who introduced volumetric control; the IEP Scheme; MDT; slashed release on license and lumbered us with offending behaviour courses. Add to that a thick layer of security and surveillance and it can only be said that the last period of Tory rule increased the depth and weight of our imprisonment more than any Government in history.

As they are likely to be back in power soon, perhaps I should pretend to think their ideas are good ones? No, sod them all. Both parties have abused us for their own petty ends and that they still spit in the face of the European Court and the Council of Ministers over our having the vote puts them in a very shaky moral position. Even so, we should brace ourselves for the next round of stupidities the new government will inflict upon us.

Ben Gunn is currently resident at HMP Shepton Mallet

Ben blogs at prisonerben.blogspot.com