Political lessons from crime rollercoaster

For each $1 spent on investigations, the agency finds $9.88 in evasion – surely one of the best investments in the history of government.

In the early 1990s, before he became British prime minister, then Labour Party leader Tony Blair gave a speech in which he used the murder of 2-year-old James Bulger by two 10-year-old boys in Liverpool as a sign of the decay of society after years of Thatcherism.

The Bulger murder was, he said, a sign of the general social breakdown that had occurred in the UK as a result of nearly 15 years of social dislocation under Thatcher and then John Major.

Years later, in his autobiography A Journey, Blair said to draw such a large conclusion from a single brutal act was a mistake, but he didn’t realise it until near the end of his tenure.

Instead, he said, UK Labour should have targeted young criminals specifically.

‘‘I look back and think that, though the problem was real, the analysis was faulty and this came to have policy consequences . . . I drew the easy but ultimately flawed conclusion that our society had broken down. Of course, it hadn’t as a whole, only in part,’’ he wrote.

‘‘Instead of focusing general social policy on this class of people, they need specific, targeted action.’’

Ironically perhaps, Blair’s speech came as long-run crime trends in the UK and around the world more generally (including New Zealand) were in fact turning downwards already.

It is something that governments of all stripes have benefited from since basically the early 1990s, along with much more widespread globalisation-fuelled economic growth and prosperity.

Among other factors, the economics of crime have changed. As far as thieving goes, far cheaper and better consumer goods have literally made crime pay much less. Remember when everyone was scared their TV or car radio might be pinched?

The key political insight of Blair’s pitch, which was summed up in his phrase ‘‘tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime’’, was that left-progressives had to meet the emotional needs of voters who felt that poverty, joblessness and underprivilege play a big part in crime, while also appealing to those who were the victims of crime and just wanted it sorted.

After all, there is nothing progressive about poor communities being blighted by crime, even if there are lots of underlying reasons for those crimes.

Blair’s move to paint this as a symbol of social disintegration was a political masterstroke and one of the factors that led him to be supported by Rupert Murdoch’s newspapers, including The Sun – an outlet that had thrived and partly bankrolled the rest of the Sun King’s media empire by riding the wave of Thatcher’s reforms.

But in doing so Blair unleashed a couple of decades of punitive tough-on-crime rhetoric and policies in the UK.

This lesson of this was brought to mind by two incidences of the past two weeks: the stabbing of Janak Patel in Sandringham and the report into the governmental failings in the case of Malachi Subecz.

If crime is an issue leading into an election, it is rarely in the incumbents’ favour. And in addition to the economy, Labour is clearly losing the hearts and minds battle.

The UK is not New Zealand. But the political lesson from Blair remains true. In a sense, the New Zealand Labour Party has heeded that lesson.

Partly this is practical: it has

now been in power for five years and, although it still continues to lash National for what it says were years of under-investment, growing inequality and so on, crime now sits squarely at Labour’s door.

It has tried to target its crime interventions on at-risk groups and to do things that make a difference.

Crime is a bit like power prices: it comes into the news only when it increases or is perceived to have increased significantly.

The increase in ramraids – especially in Auckland and ramraid ground zero Hamilton,

where there is about to be a byelection – has put the spotlight on the issue.

And Labour has responded: subsidising fog cannons for dairies and small businesses and instituting tougher penalties for those involved in high-speed chases.

It is trying to demonstrate that it does indeed care about the ‘‘tough on crime’’ bit and is prepared to take measures against criminals.

And it should be said that Labour has tried to boost police numbers and did undertake a gun

crackdown in the wake of the 2019 mosque shootings in Christchurch.

But the problem for Labour is that crime, in a strict political sense, is more about culture and emotion than it is about nitty-gritty policy and solutions.

So the National Party’s idea to reheat a boot camps policy tried twice by the Key-English government was an example of a policy that never really worked, except in the polls. But it signalled to voters a more general attitude towards law and order.

Viewed through culture, crime and law and order are actually more a way of sorting voters into different camps around a more general view of crime and criminals: is it the criminals themselves, or society more broadly?

It can be code for a wider world view. And simplicity is easier than complexity.

This divide has been increasing and has sharpened, with National leader Christopher Luxon talking about crime and truancy and laying blame firmly at the feet of criminals or individuals. He talks about a culture of excuses and taking responsibility.

This is all pretty standard centre-right fare, but the way in which it is handled will be the key.

Luxon has not yet made a big speech on law and order that tried to tie the threads together and paint these crimes as a cultural moment of malaise. Perhaps he will in the new year.

More than anyone, the current situation will be good for ACT and NZ First, both parties with genuine tough-on-crime stances.

All things being equal, National should be expected to win the Hamilton West by-election next weekend.

But more interesting for both parties out of that – Labour especially – will be raking over the issues that voters responded to.

In the same way that Luxon took the opportunity of a record official cash rate hike last week to jettison his promise to reduce the 39% top tax rate, Labour will be looking for reasons and things to cut to get itself match-fit again for an election campaign.

There isn’t any evidence of particular social decay in New Zealand, just as there wasn’t really when Blair was trying to become prime minister. But there are big pockets of disadvantage and sharply competing ideas about how to fix that, and how that fits into what exactly New Zealand is and what it should be.

The political leader who can shape that narrative, and put their opponent on the wrong side of it, will most likely be prime minister come next November.

The problem for Labour is that crime, in a strict political sense, is more about culture and emotion than it is about nittygritty policy and solutions.