The Tory plan to dismantle the welfare state will mean more poverty and, of course, an increase in crime.
The 27-point law-and-order package announced by Home Secretary Michael Howard fits into the siege mentality of Major's 'back to basics' speech. But it also clears the way for a massive campaign of terror against the black community and young unemployed.
Howard's proposals are
wide-ranging. Importantly, they threaten defendants' right to silence. By housing prisoners in prison ships, army camps and police cells they aim to send more people to jail.
Jailing more people won't stop crime. The rise in crime is caused by poor living conditions. If people can't get jobs or food, they will steal. If people are made to feel worthless by the world around them then they will take their frustration out on that world. To stop crime we Howard: patrolling the prisons must stop the inequality that causes it. Of course there may be a small connection between the harshness of punishment and the frequency of crime.
Latest Home Office research shows that the prison population will have to rise by 25 per cent to cut crime by 1 per cent.
Does it make sense to make that rise happen?
Howard is preparing to increase the prison population, but not to stop crime. Britain's ruling rich have decided that instead of ending poverty they will build up the state infra-structure needed to repress the growing army of people permanentiy excluded from the labour force.
But like every part of the Tory agenda it is limited by their financial crisis.
Howard wants to save half a billion pounds out of police pay packets by axing overtime and cutting back pay scales. How hard will the police fight to defend the rich if their pay is cut back? How long will their privatised prisons stay open and who will pick up the tab when they go bust or up their prices?
These attacks on our legal freedoms are a sign of the weakening confidence of Major's government. Not just the labour movement, but almost every section of society can be drawn into an alliance that defeats them.