Blair's crime measures speech is an admission of failure
Responding to Tony Blair's speech on crime, Liberal Democrat Shadow Home Secretary, Nick Clegg MP said: "This is clearly an admission of failure by the Prime Minister. It is striking that after 10 years in power, the gap between his rhetoric and reality is wider than ever. It is a continuing failure of government policy that is letting people down, not some nebulous 'liberal establishment' or an ill-defined need to 'rebalance' the system. We have prisons bursting at the seams, a judiciary at loggerheads with the Government, a probation service on its knees, falling conviction rates for serious crimes, one of the highest rates of reoffending in Western Europe, and a Home Office in a state of institutional meltdown."