Clarke: We must stop our crazy Right-wingers
WATCHING Ken Clarke in meetings was like seeing a grandparent who has lots to recall from earlier in his life and doesn’t get out much. He and I discussed a proposal by Justice Secretary Chris Grayling to introduce massive increases in fees charged to people who are prosecuted in court.
Ken didn’t beat about the bush: ‘Look, David, we have got to stop Chris’s completely dotty plan. He just wants a good headline in the papers. The only people who will pay will be middle-class motorists who probably vote Tory.
‘It’s so crazy even Theresa
[May, the Home Secretary] disagrees with it – and that’s saying something!
‘My Conservative colleagues often come up with ludicrous Right-wing policies. Take Theresa’s crazy policy that anyone who killed a police officer should be jailed for ever, while someone who shot a traffic warden should get a much lighter sentence. Lunacy.’
I could see Ken’s civil servants looking nervous. But he continued: ‘She only came up with it because she had to make a speech at the police officers’ conference, and was worried about getting booed. As a former Home Secretary, I could have given her some good advice, if only she had asked me.
‘The way to avoid being booed at the police conference is to make your speech in the morning session. They haven’t had any booze, so you get an easier ride. Don’t get booed, leave and avoid having to cook up mad, dangerous and expensive policies.’
Even the civil servants were now chuckling. I tried to bring the conversation back to Grayling’s plan, but this was a red rag to a bull.
‘As the last Justice Secretary, I can answer that: close down hundreds of unnecessary magistrates’ courts. It’s terribly wasteful. But Conservative MPs never want to lose their local court, though the public couldn’t care less. I tried it and had a lot of push back from David [Cameron] – just because some piffling court in his Oxfordshire constituency was at risk.
‘Every time I got to speak to him about it in No10 I had a terrible counter-reaction from that strange bloke in shorts [Cameron’s policy guru Steve Hilton] who burst in on us and blathered on about the Big Society. This is crackers. We need sensible advisers in No10 but I’m not holding my breath.’