,
10 tweets,
3 min read
Read on Twitter
Today’s @Telegraph front page on ‘tough new sentencing’ is a masterclass in poor journalism. Here’s why. THREAD 
The claim that ‘for the first time, murderers of pre-school children will be subject to whole life orders…’ is factually wrong. As @BarristerSecret has emphasised, whole life orders have been the starting point for this offence since 2003 (Sch21 para 4(2)(b) CJ Act 2003)
The claim that the Government will ‘rip up Labour’s policy of prisoners becoming eligible for release at the halfway point of their sentences’ is factually wrong. The Conservative government’s 1991 Criminal Justice Act introduced eligibility for early release at the halfway point
There is no evidential basis at all for the claim by the ‘anonymous government source’ that “most people think all parties and the courts have lost the plot on sentencing”.
There is no evidential basis at all for the claim by the ‘anonymous government source’ that “Parliament does not want to do what the people want on crime”. This is a dangerous lie.
The Conservative Party have been in government for over NINE years. Trying to pitch this story as an attempt to overturn terrible policies of another administration is mendacious.
The ‘toughest’ sentencing of the past 20 years was the implementation of Imprisonment for Public Protection by a Labour administration. This introduced indefinite sentences (equivalent to life sentences) for a huge range of offences and led to huge increases in prison population
The disastrous IPP sentence was abolished (rightly) by a Conservative administration. Thousands are still serving this sentence.
These are not ‘dramatic’ plans unless ‘dramatic’ here means theatrical, showy or ostentatious. They may be described as dramatic in that they are “full of sound of fury, signifying nothing”.
I wrote about Johnson’s dreadful, mendacious journalism before he was “elected” as Prime Minister. It is disappointing to see other @Telegraph journalists continue in this vein. ENDS bylinetimes.com/2019/05/22/bor…
