His very presence was a complete embarrassment to everyone involved in the fiasco of his release from prison, during which he reportedly made 5 attempts to be readmitted. If I were Home Secretary I would have fined the governor and staff of Chelmsford Prison rather than giving £500 to Kebatu.
Kenneth Clarke was shifted out within 2 years. Think he was 2009 > 2012? something like that. Moved out because they didn't like the soft touch and the "hard on crime" rhetoric was back in force. Kenneth Clarke was quite vocal in saying (paraphrasing from memory) What's the point in these short term sentences. No-one can be rehabilitated in that time. Not something the right of the Tories could stomach for long back then.
Maybe the staff, including the governor, were only acting on paperwork that were completed somewhere else? After all, why the need for an inquiry if it was as simple as a chain of 10-20 people and one of them must be the fool?
This shows the problem we have at the moment. Labour and Tories are stuck in their own version of the Truman show, performing for the bubble but unable to see that the reaction they get from the bubble is not the reaction outside the bubble. Still playing at old school politics of quis in the house and focusing on PMQs which the general public don't care at all about. Farage and Polanski are just going direct to the public online and wherever they can while Starmer and Kemi just perform for seals. The next election is going to be Greens vs Reform and the whole Labour backup (which they were already using a few months into power) of vote Labour or get Tories Reform has gone. If Greens get ahead of them they are done too, just like the Tories. Greens will become the "keep reform out" option and the decision to add 16 year olds will inflate the pull to the reform/Polanski effect. The "extremes" are more appealing to the kids, where the more mature are still a bit more safety conscious hence still holding onto a bit of their support but things look very dark for the big 2 and I think come an election if reform are still polling high Lib Dems will suffer too as tactical voters go for the anti reform option. These big old style machines need a lot of money to run and they are losing donations, membership and activists! Very hard to fight on the ground campaigns with much smaller budgets and they are 10 years behind, still going on about knocking on doors.
I think the parties chosen for the election debates in TV will be fascinating. Currently, i can see no reason to include the Conservatives. Their only right is based on past glories and they will be irrelevent by 2029. Reform will need to have a podium as things currently stand abd have just cause to replace the Conservatives in a sebate between the Big Three. I could see an argument for the main debate beung between Reform , the Greens and SNP. However , i am anticipating Labour ditching Starmer before the next election. I also cannot see Reform avoiding a scandal before then. The Reform councils are performing very badly. I just feel they will be bad enough to put people off.
The Welsh devolved government and Labour Councils performed badly since forever but they kept voting Labour! There is an easy get out when the Westminster government is a different party. Maybe if Reform were in power now you would have a point but while an obviously anti reform party is in charge in Westminster they have the same back up. It will be more interesting to see who decides they aren't a good idea and who calls people out for not saying yes. The debates are rubbish anyway and just 5 folks with a list of slogans and pre prepped jokes they can't deliver that wait for the right moment to try and slip them in. No idea why journos go on about them as if they have always been a thing....or rather I do because the bubble loves them and the commentariat love an hour or 2 of material to snip into out of context stuff or make out their man did so well while only focusing on a 10 second victory amongst an hour+ of nothingness. They are mostly beneficial for the "also ran" parties so in reality probably Labour and Tory would actually benefit from them. The 2 all the focus is on rarely come out as the headline because everyone else is after a slice so we get the "Nick Clegg" bounce despite him saying hardly anything or Sturgeon becoming flavour of the month amongst the left because she was pretty good at delivering her short sharp pre fabbed slogan attacks. But I daresay it would be hard for Farage or Polanski not doing it as it is their realm. They love the spotlight and have too big egos to turn it down IMO.
