Have a Good NEWS

Today George Osborne can show if it 's really brave, stimulated dogma and cutting billions are spent on law and order

Who spends the money? Politicians. Do they always spend as wisely as they know how? Not at all. In many fields politicians of all parties conspire to spend wilfully, knowing full well that they are wasting considerable sums that will do no good to anyone. They hope they are at least buying votes, but there is little evidence that their profligacy even succeeds in this. Law and order and drugs prohibition are just two of many examples where pursuit of populism trumps spending money well.

We shall see today if cuts fall on some of the most useless expenditure. Will George Osborne listen to Ken Clarke's sensible comments on the wastefulness of short prison sentences? Will he listen to the Prison Governors Association calling for abandoning £4bn of prison building? Not many public servants are asking for less. Osborne would do well to study Labour's law and order misspending. Tony Blair, riding to power with his "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime", made sure nobody would ever out-tough Labour. Never mind the evidence â€" all that mattered was what worked politically. But did it? In the end Labour chased its own tail, stirring more fear of crime instead of reassuring.

Labour appears to have done well. When Jacqui Smith boasted there was less risk of becoming a crime victim than at any timesince records began, it is not far away. At Prima labor ', crime has decreased by about 40% of property crimes was two-fold. Last year, violent crime fell by 6%, which marks a 20-year low in the murder.

In Labour's time prison numbers rose by two thirds â€" now at more than 85,000. Re-offending is as high, the time prisoners spend usefully in workshops and training is an hour less than in 1996, while four out of five prisoners read below the 11-year-old standard. No more criminals have been found guilty, but sentences became tougher: in 1995 a first-time burglar had a 27% chance of jail, but that has almost doubled. Labour's Criminal Justice Act in 2003 ordained longer sentences, while asbos and other licences led to more people being jailed for breaching them. Lord Igor Judge famously condemned Labour's creation of 3,500 new offences in 50 criminal justice bills. Politicians love the police â€" and how Labour boasted of 15,000 more on the beat with 16,000 community support officers.

All this was expensive, averaging more than £41,000 per prisoner and with police costs rising to £17.5bn â€" proportionally more than the US. The UK is now among the highest law and order spenders in the European Union.

So was money well spent? Just about any research from criminologists, including the government's own research department, finds virtually no correlation between numbers in prison or numbers of police and amount of crime. Similar countries with more or fewer police and prisons show little correlation with crime rates. Crime has dropped everywhere across Europe, the US and Australia, regardless of policies. The economy and demography proved more powerful than law and order policy. If Labour made a difference, it was the New Deal jobs for the young, more staying on in school for longer, and the education maintenance allowance giving poorer pupils pocket money.

But the law and order wars between parties continue unabated. Lib Dems always call for more bobbies on the beat â€" though they know it makes no difference to crime, nor to fear of crime. Tory election posters accused Gordon Brown of letting prisoners out early on tags: he did, by an insignificant 17 days. Labour has already started to accuse the Tories of cuts that will mean fewer police â€" while knowing perfectly well that police numbers make little difference. Almost everything politicians say about law and order is bogus â€" and pricey.

What would it take to de-escalate crime wars and save the billions spent on political posturing?

On the Nixon-in-China principle, it would take a Tory government with a wise old justice minister like Clarke to start telling the public the truth about what works â€" or at least what doesn't. It would require Labour to grow up and respond sensibly to Clarke's proposals to end short prison sentences, without cheap point-scoring. If Labour expects to return to power, it should encourage rethinking on useless crime policies. If history is a guide, property crime will rise, with nearly a million young people already unemployed: the answer is not more punishment but more jobs â€" and that is where Labour should pitch its tent.

over crass abuse of evidence. Can this government be more rational?

Cuts such as these require real political bravery. There has been talk of a "masochism strategy", but masochism begins at home â€" with cuts that mean risks for politicians, not for others. It would require honesty with the voters, who wouldn't like it. Don't hold your breath, there is no straw in the wind to suggest the coalition has the nerve. But when judging where the cuts fall today remember the monumental sums of money politicians knowingly waste in pursuit of popularity. Labour's experience suggests it doesn't even work.

Have a Good NEWS