By Charlie van Gelderen New Labour's achievements As the general election looms nearer, voters will soon be enticed by posters, all over the country, boosting the government's sucples: • Britain lags far behind the rest of Europe in applying the Equal Pay Act, which requires women to be pard toe same Taies tor tac same job as men.
Women working full time earn an average of 82 per hourly earnings.
Women working part-time got less than two-thirds of holes.
The Equal Opportunities Commission in it's recentiv issued report, JUST PAY, consequences of the pay gap reducing crime. we can do better. are poverts soch exclusion, inadequate pensions. • Britain has the highest prison population in Europe, a telling commen. tary on the success of Jack Straw's tough on crime; tough on the causes of crime ported by blair and policy. London is also the crime capital of Europe.
But Straw wants to deal with this by building more prisons and incarcerating more people. This, despite the fact that official statistics show that most crimes are committed by previousiy convicted people.
he Chich Inspector of Prisons, has described prisgrammaes Stoke Heath young offenders' institution as "hell Blair and Straws's response to this is 2,500 ) more prison places and locking up more unconvicted children as old as twelve. Some of us