DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The Tories' plan to create 50,000 extra prison places puts the Prime Minister to shame

Published: 19:59 EDT, 2 October 2026 | Updated: 20:04 EDT, 2 October 2026 Even before he started throwing open jail doors across the country this week, Andy Burnham’s attitude to the penal crisis appeared decidedly offhand.Although he has promised ‘the fastest prison building programme since the Victorian era’, we have seen little more than an unconvincing plan to provide 14,000 extra spaces by reconfiguring laundry rooms, office space and storage areas.The contrast with the Conservatives’ new blueprint could hardly be starker. According to shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy, the Tories are committed to delivering 50,000 new prison places through a £2billion-a-year programme funded by cuts to foreign aid and Whitehall budgets.No right-thinking individual will disagree with his remarks about the need ‘to return consequences to the criminal justice system’. It is undoubtedly the case that shoplifting (and other so-called petty offences) soared in recent years because the culprits were confident of escaping any meaningful punishment.There are other problems, including trial backlogs, that hinder justice being served. But ensuring that custodial sentences handed down by the courts are served in full is perhaps the key factor in tackling the crime epidemic.Whether the Prime Minister and his Left-wing acolytes care to admit it or not, taking offenders out of circulation benefits society on a number of fronts. As Mr Timothy puts it: ‘Prison works.’ According to shadow justice secretary Nick Timothy, the Tories are committed to delivering 50,000 new prison places through a £2billion-a-year programme funded by cuts to foreign aid and Whitehall budgetsOf course, this is just the latest example of the Tories giving the Burnham government some basic lessons in how to run a country. Kemi Badenoch has already unveiled detailed strategies to reduce the benefits bill and alleviate the wider tax burden.But the prison plan carries particular weight this week following the egregious sight of hundreds of convicts being released before serving their time. That tens of thousands of more serious criminals, including sex offenders and domestic abusers, will also be freed early over the coming months is a sickening prospect for law-abiding citizens across Britain.And a reminder that Labour’s ‘soft justice’ is no sort of justice at all.Alienating an allyFor Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to describe the Burnham government as acting ‘like a rogue state’ illustrates the abysmal state of relations.The remarks by Mr Netanyahu - who also accuses the Labour administration of ‘mind-blowing hypocrisy’ - are unsurprising and, in many respects, perfectly understandable. In Tel Aviv and beyond, there has been widespread anger following Foreign Secretary Ed Miliband’s decision to impose sanctions on Israeli businesses in the West Bank last month.Critics have said the move amounts to Britain effectively interfering in this month’s parliamentary elections in Israel. The grim irony is that the sanctions are an entirely cynical manoeuvre by Labour to win back the Muslim bloc vote, which was largely lost due to the conflicts in Iran and Gaza.Speaking to the Daily Mail, Mr Netanyahu revealed that the sanctions announcement came shortly after Israeli intelligence chiefs tipped off British authorities about a suspected terrorist plot at RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire. ‘I don’t know how many lives we have saved giving Britain information about impending attacks,’ he said.It is bad enough that Messrs Burnham and Miliband have chosen to alienate our most important ally in the Middle East in the self-serving pursuit of electoral gain. But it is even worse that they have done so at a time when we need all the help we can get to counter the global terror threat.