Chris Grayling

Labour should stop whipping up fears about our prisons. They created Britain’s only recent prison crisis

From our UK edition

Sadiq Khan, the Shadow Justice Secretary, took to these pages earlier to claim that ‘This Government’s disastrous prisons policy is putting the public at risk.’ He’s been trying to claim for months that we have a prison crisis, and it is quite simply not true. Let’s start with some simple truths. The figures published yesterday showed that prison overcrowding is falling. And it’s much lower than it was under Labour. That the amount of practical work, often with employers who will give a job to those prisoners when they are released, is rising steadily. And it’s far higher than it was under Labour. That the number of people who self-harm in prison is lower than it was two years ago. And it’s lower than under Labour.

Ed Miliband’s union bosses would change Britain for the worse

From our UK edition

Trade unions have an important role in any decent society, but their stranglehold on the Labour Party is something we must fight against. I will never forget walking the streets of Poland back in 1981, when martial law was in force, and there were armed soldiers on almost every street corner. There it was a trade union, Solidarity, which brought authoritarian Communism to its knees. In the UK Margaret Thatcher recognised the importance of trade unions in society. Indeed one of her first roles in politics was as chairman of Dartford Conservative Trade Unionists. But the battle in British politics today is nothing to do with the work done by local union officials or workers struggling for political freedom.