The Blair ‘Respect’ speech today is simply astounding. From what he said, you would think that the rule of law itself is being offered up as a sacrifice to the cause of being tough on crime. His whole pitch is that the presumption of innocence until guilt is proved and the whole process of court appearances, appeals and the rest of the criminal justice system is simply ‘too cumbersome, too remote from reality to be effective’. Antisocial offences would henceforth be dealt with by summary offences which ‘reversed the burden of proof’ by dispensing summary justice and with a right of appeal only after punishment had been thus apportioned by the police. So far, so clear and, many might say, so appalling for the police to be given such draconian powers dispensing with the courts altogether.

But then look at what the Home Office actually said and you find that this is all total balderdash. There are no new summary powers at all. There are a few relatively minor extensions to the existing ones, the fixed penalty notices for disorder (PNDs). That’s it. These PNDs, moreover do not reverse the burden of proof; they are merely sanctions accepted voluntarily by the miscreant in exchange for waiving of a prosecution. A fine legal point, perhaps – but one that shows the PM is talking through his wife’s wig. Even the one truly draconian penalty that is proposed, to deprive antisocial neighbours of their houses even if they own them, is not a summary police power but would be enforced as ‘a court order with all the necessary safeguards.’

So all the rhetoric in Blair’s speech about redefining the very concept of liberty in order to get on top of antisocial behaviour is just that – rhetoric. It consists of precious little practical change. It is designed instead to give the impression of tough action while the government continues to ignore or even exacerbate the real causes of antisocial behaviour: the collapse of self-discipline caused by family breakdown, school failure, welfare dependency, the chronic absence of the police from the streets, the collapse of drug law enforcement, the repudiation of jail sentences and the very concept of punishment, the consequent collapse of the authority of the courts, and last but not least the human rights culture which has made discipline – the prerequisite for respect – impossible.

What a scam.