helen gilbert

[Stuey Beef 🇬🇧🏴󠁧󠁢󠁥󠁮󠁧󠁿 @stuey_beef]

Ministers are supposed to defend the Prime Minister in public even when they disagree in private — that's the deal.

What we're watching instead is the reverse: a Prime Minister letting his own department's anger leak into the press rather than owning his mistake.

Burnham said one thing, reversed it a week later, and left Norris's team to manage the fallout while anonymously venting to journalists.

A government where the Justice Secretary's own aides are angrier at No10 than the opposition is a government that's already losing the plot.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@mcdermottkc_ Not his strength. He is a people pleaser. Exactly the wrong person to be Prime Minister. I cannot believe the Parliamentary Labour Party removed @Keir_Starmer for this total lightweight.

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

Tom Wheatley, the head of the Prison Governors' Association, says there are significant issues with Andy Burnham's proposals to reduce the number of people in prison

1. Repatriating foreign offenders

Burnham wants to accelerate the removal of 10,134 foreign-citizen offenders in Britain’s jails, of whom just above 6,000 are eligible for removal

Wheatley says that this is difficult when they don't want to go; many foreign prisoners are undocumented so it is unclear where they came from; there would have to be reciprocal arrangements, with Britons having to take back prisoners. 'It's difficult to do. If it was easy to do I am confident it would have been done by the home secretary many years ago'

2. Women prisoners

Burnham wants to convert women’s prisons to make them suitable for male inmates, releasing some female prisoners in the process. There are about 3,500 women jailed in England and Wales, representing about 4 per cent of the prison population.

But Wheatley says that the women's estate is at 90% occupancy. It is deliberately geographically dispersed so they can send female offenders to court. If women's prisons are converted to male prisons it will become more difficult

3. Releasing those on IPP sentences

Burnham wants to release some of the 2,271 prisoners on indeterminate sentences, which Burnham views as a “long-running injustice”. Those who receive such sentences face the prospect of being detained indefinitely. Officials are combing through each individual case to establish who is eligible to be freed, but it is far from straightforward

Wheatley said that the approach carries significant risk. Some of those on IPP sentences have been in prison for a long time and are more dangerous now than they went into prison.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@thomasforth You are either so up his backside or you haven't bothered to listen to him. Ego Andy is truly awful.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@Steven_Swinford He is such a fecking lightweight. The PLP have ousted a Statesman for a cartoon comic wannabe. He has no grasp of the big issues. Just wants to put out crap tik-tok shite about things that no-one is interested in. His desperate need to be a people pleaser will bring him down.

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

Chaos and anger in government as Andy Burnham attempts to get to grips with the sheer scale of the challenge posed by the early release scheme in the first major test of his authority:

There has been a significantly shift in Burnham's position. 11 days ago he signed off on plans that he was told explicitly would lead to the early release of PC Harper's killers, prompting a huge backlash while he was on holiday

Burnham kept coming back to the issue and on Monday evening told Alex Norris, the justice secretary, to come up with a solution. No 10 moved so quickly that it took the MoJ by surprise. Alex Norris, the Justice Secretary, was jetting off for his summer holiday when Burnham came to the decision

There is said to be anger within the Ministry of Justice, where some officials feel they have been unfairly blamed for simply doing their jobs in spelling out the pros and cons of each policy option to the prime minister

One government source claimed that Burnham appeared to be “trying to be nice to everyone” and failing to understand the trade-offs involved. “The Ministry of Justice is totally demoralised,” they said. “They never said anything was impossible — they simply spelt out the risks involved.”

This characterisation was rejected by another government source, who said that officials at the Ministry of Justice were “getting their heads down and getting on with the job”.

But the frustration in Downing Street with the options presented to Burnham is real, with accusations that officials were not creative enough in coming up with solutions, given the huge sensitivities involved

Burnham says he is 'increasingly confident' that a solution will be found to keep PC Harper's killers, but what that is remains unclear. Norris has until September to come up with one. The concern is that whatever he does will inadvertently undermine the government’s efforts to relieve pressure on Britain’s overcrowded prisons

https://t.co/71YNDPDme3

[Chris Daw KC @crimlawuk]

Word to the wise, Andy.

No politician ever came out well of trying to directly influence criminal cases as a political stunt.

Whether you succeed or not, you will have already undermined the office you occupy.

There are laws in place to test and challenge the release of PC Harper's killers.

They were convicted of manslaughter for an awful and heartbreaking and fatal act, at the age of 17.

The jury found them not guilty of murder.

The jury accepted there was no intent to kill or even to cause really serious harm.

Murder, manslaughter or negligence - the consequences for PC Harper do not change.

The consequences for his family do not change.

I have listened to and heard their agony and their call for a longer period in prison.

Their anger and their frustration and their agony and their loss is palpable.

As a father and a son the loss of either my dad or - especially - my sons is beyond imagination, gut wrenching, visceral.

But those emotions, and the headlines they create, should not influence the course of justice.

Hard cases make bad law.

High profile cases make even worse law.

For a crime of criminal and deadly recklessness, not of cold-blooded murder, sentences of 13 years on children were extremely severe. An adult would have got 20 years plus, even for manslaughter.

The system was not "soft".

The law was followed to the letter.

The early release scheme is a public good and should not be disrupted by an understandable desire of the new PM to be on the right side of a politically volatile issue.

Have some courage.

Have some substance.

Have some gravitas.

Have some longevity.

Tell the truth.

I urge you to say this on the steps of Number 10...

"This is an awful case and the pain of the Harper family is unimaginable, raw and is a life sentence for them with no opportunity of parole, ever. As it would be for any of us, faced with such criminal and wanton acts, leading to his death.

But if I were to stick my nose into or - worse - try to influence an individual criminal case, where would that end?

Should I decide when everyone goes to or gets out of prison? Myself?

Just because I lead the largest party in parliament?

Of course not.

That would be an abuse of my office, whether I did it for PC Harper's family or anyone else.

There are laws. They can be challenged in court.

These decisions are made for reasons and overturning them because I personally disagree with this decision would be the worst kind of aura farming (look it up).

For me to ignore the rule of law would be an insult to PC Harper, who died for all of us, upholding the rule of law, not finding a way to cheat it, as I am being asked to do.

I invite PC Harper's whole family to come to Downing Street, for a meeting, where I will listen anything you want to say, about the sentence or the early release or why PC Harper died.

But I cannot and will not try to overrule the due process of law, just to be a bit more popular.

Andy Burnham, Prime Minister"

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@BenKentish Only if the said minister is competent. But then, as we know, Ego Andy doesn't do details.

[Clare Hepworth OBE @Hepworthclare]

I don't think I've ever been so troubled or so concerned about Labour as I do these
After 14 Tory yrs which inflicted so much damage - we elected a Labour Govt.
Yes KS may have appeared boring - but he had gravitas.
We now have candyfloss & political spray foam & told to move on.

[Joshi Herrmann @joshi]

There’s something uncomfortable here. The Harper case is absolutely dreadful but there are thousands of awful domestic abuse cases that can’t attract a public campaign for obvious reasons. So those violent men get let out early because their victims have less of a media profile?

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@AliceSLondon @Steven_Swinford Exactly. He is just a man who can't say no.

[Steven Swinford @Steven_Swinford]

Andy Burnham has now staked his personal authority on blocking the release of PC Andrew Harper's killers

This is how events of the last 10 days have played out:

July 1st-2nd

Burnham is presented with three main options for blocking early release of offenders - block all those who have been sentenced to more than 10 years, all those sentenced to more than 7 years, or block release based on type of offence ie rape, child sex offences, grooming gang offences

Other options - converting a holiday camp into a prison and MOD housing into a prison - are discounted on grounds of both cost, impracticality and the fact a solution is needed this Autumn

There is no good choice. Officials tell Burnham that if he goes for options one and two - sentence length - PC Andrew Harper's killers will remain behind bars but many rapists, sex offenders and those who have committed grooming offences will be released

Burnham goes for option three - barring release by type of offence - but continues to push for a solution to be found for barring the release of Harper's killers

Tuesday, August 4th

Andy Burnham announces his plan to block the release of those who have committed rape, serious child sex offences and other grooming offences. He says he has 'pushed to the very limits of what it is possible to do' and that there is 'nothing more' he could have asked for without the prison system collapsing

The failure to exclude those convicted of manslaughter means two of the killers of PC Andrew Harper will still be eligible for release in January. It provokes criticism from both the police and the victim's families

Friday, August 7th

Burnham has continued to push for solutions to keep PC Harper's killers behind bars while he is on holiday. He alights on one of them - barring the early release of those who have killed emergency workers

Sunday, August 9th

The Times reveals that Burnham has been told by officials that the plan to exempt emergency workers is a 'non-starter'

They say it would would be subject to a legal challenge that the government would lose, meaning all those convicted of manslaughter would be barred from early release. That's hundreds of people, with a huge impact on prison capacity

Monday, August 10th

11.30: Downing Street confirms The Times's report. It says it is 'not possible to simply exclude one or two offenders within that group'. 'You'd need to exclude the whole manslaughter offence'

21.45: The Times reveals that Burnham has told his justice secretary to come up with a solution to exempt the release of PC Harper's killers. He has 'never accepted' that he must choose between releasing 'perpetrators of rape, grooming and the killers of police offices'

Tuesday, August 11th

The nature of that solution remains unclear. We've been told that the favoured option is still the exemption for the killers of emergency workers, despite the warnings of officials that it will backfire

There are risks here - legal risks, risks for prison capacity, risks of a backlash from the victims of other offences who are seeing offenders released

But Burnham is refusing to take no for an answer and has decided to stake his personal authority on barring the release of PC Harper's killers. We'll get a better view of how it will play out in coming days

https://t.co/qaqjsDzbci

[Gwynoro Jones @Gwynoro]

As Burnham is about to tour the country to find out what troubles people! Ipsos polling indicates he has some troubles of his own to sort out.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@TomK_Brit1993 Utterly deluded from an ex labour party member.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@realBenBloch Just can't bear to say no, can he.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@Kate_Dearden @biztradegovuk @andyburnham @jreynoldsMP Great idea by Keir Starmer. Why didn't you promote it at the time? Were you part of the coup?

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@RachelD1892 Just feck off and bring Keir Starmer back. A serious politician for serious times. Not a tik-tok wannabe. The membership rejected him twice. He is only leader & PM because we were deliberately sidelined with this fake coronation.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@StephenMorganMP Why are you announcing this as though it's Ego Andy's idea? Keir Starmer announced it earlier this year. Also, what's with the branding. Ashamed of the flag are we? Has @UKLabour been renamed the Andy party? As a now former member, this sickens me.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@AndyMcDonaldMP Congratulations to @Keir_Starmer for introducing this policy.

[helen gilbert @heleng2026]

@andyburnham You mean you are trying to pretend @Keir_Starmer initiative is your idea. Which of course it isn't & we all know that. Instead of crap tik-tok videos, going on holiday & swanning around the country on a pointless tour, why don't you put in some hard work & actually do the job.