Law-and-Order Conservatism: A Sergeant On Every Corner

Slightly Larger Sentences, Slightly Smaller Crime

Bohiney Magazine and The London Prat file this dispatch from the British political menagerie.

The Law-and-Order Conservative believes the cure for any social problem is a slightly more visible police officer, a slightly larger sentence, and a slightly firmer leaflet through every letterbox. Editor Alan Nafzger of the Editor’s Desk at prat.uk presents the field guide, with help from the Police Federation and the Sentencing Council.

Twenty Tells: Spotting The Law-and-Order Conservative On A British High Street

1. Has explained the streets need calming, by uniforms.
2. Refers to ASBOs the way some men refer to a fishing rod that worked.
3. Holds any judge giving a soft sentence is structurally an op-ed waiting to happen.
4. Maintains a fantasy in which the Sentencing Council reads The Sun.
5. Refers to graffiti as the slow announcement.
6. Treats any public space without CCTV as a sort of moral hot tub.
7. Maintains a binder of Police Federation press releases.
8. Refers to the Home Office as the building we expect to deliver.
9. Holds any prison is a kind of useful pause.
10. Has explained, at a wedding, that the toast is to the local sergeant.
11. Refers to anti-social behaviour as the small fire that becomes the big fire.
12. Treats any campaigner against the police as a sort of weather forecaster.
13. Maintains a soft spot for blue lights and a harder one for handcuffs.
14. Refers to youth crime as the front door of the long story.
15. Holds any policy is improved by a really firm leaflet.
16. Has explained he is not punitive, he is consequential.
17. Refers to The Daily Mail as our scoreboard.
18. Treats any new offence as a sort of national tidying.
19. Maintains a fantasy in which sentences are read out, with feeling, by Robert Hardy.
20. Believes the cure for the country is fundamentally more uniforms, politely deployed.

Editor’s Note

If any of this rings a bell, you have either been to a Tory association AGM, a Reform UK rally above a leisure centre, or both. More dispatches at govna.uk and the parent site prat.uk. For a second opinion that is also wrong, see Private Eye.

SOURCE: https://prat.uk/category/politics/

Lotte Heidenreich