If Keir Starmer wants to be braver than Tony Blair, this is how: ignore the neanderthal right on crime

Here’s the question: can a new government led by a highly rational ex-chief prosecutor open up a great honest public debate about punishment and rehabilitation? Crime has declined sharply over the past 30 years, with a near 90% fall in violent crime, burglary and car theft, according to the Crime Survey for England and Wales. Why it is falling across the western world has sociologists suggesting everything from more education and better opportunities, to less drinking and legalised abortion preventing the birth of unwanted, potentially neglected children. Yet the right claims locking villains in jail and keeping them off the streets is the cause – which is hard to stand up when crime has fallen equally in countries and US states with tougher and gentler penal systems.