FAILING GRAYLING`S ROAD TO AUTHORITARIANISM

The current Lord Chancellor (how long will he remain in post) announced today that the probation service will in effect be re nationalised in 2021.  Thus another "innovation" of the worst of his predecessors and least effective cabinet minister of modern times bites the dust. The probation service pre Grayling was, in my area, a service teetering on the brink of failing those in whom the courts had placed their future hopes of offenders  leading a law abiding future life.  Virtually every group or organisation involved with the delivery of probation services advised Grayling of the pitfalls in his proposals. The due diligence and pilot projects reinforced those predictions but he continued like the proverbial bull crashing into all the china. Not satisfied with what would be a ruinous policy he proceeded to inflict more of his ill considered policies. He removed the rights of prisoners` having books in their cells. Books were to be allowed to prisoners only when they displayed good (compliant) behaviour. To his eternal shame he reduced by tens of £millions the legal aid budget and enforced severe financial cuts on the CPS. Perhaps these two decisions have contributed more than anything else to the calamitous state  of today`s justice system. Arguably his crowning glory was effecting the Criminal Courts Act in 2015 by which the imposition of court charges for all offenders irrespective of their ability to pay or original offence was so iniquitous IMHO that I retired shortly ahead of my allotted date so that I would not have to utter the pronouncement of said additional costs. His disastrous tenure at the MOJ was merely the latest in a line of questionable policies beginning in 2010 when the then Lord Chancellor Kenneth Clarke proudly announced in line with the austerity policies of the Coalition his forthcoming budget cut of 23% for the Ministry of Justice before any of his cabinet colleagues had announced theirs. Graylings lamentable period in his office was from 2012-2015.  Michael Gove who followed Grayling lasted in post for only one year but during that time he abolished the Criminal Courts Act and undid many of his predecessor`s actions re the prison service. From Clarke to Gauke ie from 2010 until the present time there have been six Secretaries of State for Justice.  Is it any wonder that our justice system is in terminal decline?    

The lamentable history above is but a microcosm of what has befallen this nation as a result of the Referendum; a device hastily thrown together to serve the interests only of the Conservative Party.  Grayling`s failings were all and I repeat all approved in cabinet. That miserable collection of incompetents for their own selfish reasons and laterally serving under the most incompetent personally unsuitable holder of the title of prime minister allowed the country to drift politically adrift from all reality.  Grayling as a hard Brexiteer was kept in Cabinet as Secretary of State for Transport where  currently he is continuing to demonstrate his complete and utter unsuitability for office.  Paradoxically his being there is final proof that the government has not only failed the country and its people; he has reduced confidence in the democratic norms we have taken for granted since 1945.  If this country tends to populism and subsequent authoritarianism a route from Grayling in 2012 until today can be directly traced as having nurtured the unthinkable.