Ken Clarke on Question Time – live coverage

Follow live updates as the show comes from Wormwood Scrubs, with the under-fire justice secretary on the panel 11.06pm: A prisoner criticises the lack of rehabilitation and support on offer for people leaving prison under the last Labour government. Straw make a gaffe by getting the name of the prison wrong, confusing Wormwood scrubs with Wandsworth, until David Dimbleby correct him. 11.02pm: Straw says prison does work and accuses Clarke of being motivated by cost cutting. “He [Clarke] says this is designed to help victims and that is frankly not true.” 11.00pm: One former probation officer offered his support to Clarke. He described Ed Miliband’s comments in the Commons yesterday as “some of the worst instincts of New Labour in terms of a personal attack.” “I think Ken Clarke is going in the right direction and should be supported,” the audience member added. 10.58pm: A member of the audience asks the panel whether they agree with former Tory home secretary Michael Howard’s famous comment that prison works. Chakrabarti, unsurprisingly, says no. 10.56pm: Clarke says a reduced sentence would apply if people pleaded guilty when first charged. 10.52pm: Melanie Phillips criticised Clarke’s injudicious use of language: Through his own provocative behaviour he deserves anything he gets. She also says she thinks the main purpose of the government’s proposal to reduce sentences for those who plead guilty early is to save money, a view shared by a prisoner officer in the audience. 10.49pm: Clarke says he would quite like to see the 12-month rape sentences Victoria Derbyshire referenced on her programme, contending that most sentences for the crime are much longer. 10.47pm: Clarke added that he spent yesterday touring the TV studios because it was “let’s face it, a media brouhaha”. He added: “I’m not going to deny the reaction made it quite obvious I should not have phrased it the way I did.” Clarke said his sentencing proposals, which are understood to have been delayed until next month, would apply to “every crime”. Asked what he meant by an early guilty plea, Clarke said he was referring to offenders who admitted their guilt at the first possible opportunity to enter a plea after being charged. 10.45pm: Clarke now responds to the question: I obviously upset a lot of people by what I said and I’m sorry if I did, by the way I put it. All rape is serious. It’s one of the gravest crimes. My choice of words was wrong. It’s because I got bogged down in a silly exchange. As a politician I made a mistake by allowing myself to get drawn into a great long argument about exactly what the gradations of rape were. I phased it very, very badly because I upset a lot of people who want to give more priority to rape. Referring to yesterday’s row, Clarke said: “I was trying to point out that rapists get much longer than she was saying. The average is eight years. My reform proposals don’t affect the sentencing framework for rape or any other crime.” 10.43pm: Former home secretary Jack Straw said he would have been forced out of his job had he made similar comments while in government: If this had happened to me, the fury, not least from the Conservative benches, would have been such that I would have been moved on to a different job. If you get into that situation you need to deal with that very quickly. I would have apologised. If you’re in politics at the high level, there are going to be days when the words don’t come out properly. Asked if Labour leader Ed Miliband was right to call for Clarke to be sacked, Straw said: “My leader is always right.” 10.37pm: The first question to the panel is “was the justice secretary clumsy, wrong or misconstrued” with regards to his comments on rape. Chakrabarti offers her qualified support to Clarke: “All rapes are horrific but some are particularly aggravated.” She said some rapes are particularly aggravated by the use of weapons or multiple assailants and that should be reflected in sentencing. 10.35pm: PA has more details on the eight prisoners who participated in tonight’s show. These included six prisoners convicted of drugs offences, one serving time for theft and another who was jailed for a driving offence. None of the prisoners, who sat in a group in the audience surrounded by guards, were serving sentences for violent offences. 10.32pm: Before Question Time starts you may want to read Guardian columnist Simon Jenkins’ take on the row, which he likens to trial by media . It is the oldest trick in the book. You snatch a politician’s mildly controversial remark. You eradicate context and qualification and invite rent-a-quote to be subject of the verb “to slam” or object of the verb “to infuriate”. You then get the leader of the opposition to demand a sacking, and stake out the victim’s house to see how he takes it. Ken Clarke’s spot of bother over rape sentencing this week has been a classic. His suggestion that not all crimes within a category are necessarily identical is almost trivially obvious. But who cares when the political heat is on and the mob is running hotfoot to the guillotine? It does not want obvious, it wants blood. 10.23pm: PA reports Clarke did not receive a hostile reception and “even appeared relaxed as he laughed and joked with host David Dimbleby in the run-up to the show, asking him and the audience if he looked good and if his tie was straight.” 10.06pm: Some of Clarke’s comments on the rape row have emerged in advance of the broadcast. He told the Question Time audience that he made a mistake by getting “bogged down” in an argument about the different types of rape, admitting that his comments about the differences between “serious, proper rapes” and others had “obviously upset a lot of people”. But he stopped short of offering a full apology and insisted the government was still considering plans to halve sentences for all criminals who admit their guilt at their first chance to enter a plea after being charged. Just a reminder that the Guardian’s leader column on Clarke’s comments said Cameron “should back him not sack him”: He was right that more rape suspects – and suspects of all kinds – should be encouraged to plead guilty, in part because the protection of rape victims from the second ordeal of a court hearing with its sometimes traumatic cross-examination is important. And while rape is indeed rape, and Mr Clarke was silly to dispute it yesterday, it is also right that there is a scale of serious sentences, with aggravating and mitigating factors, which are properly applied to different cases, in rape as in other crimes. In that sense, some rapes are indeed particularly serious. 9.59pm: Security on Question Time will be tighter than ever for tonight’s edition, which is being broadcast from Wormwood Scrubs . For the first time, prisoners will join the audience to quiz the panel along with members of the public. Ten inmates have been chosen and vetted to ask questions of the panel , which also includes former home secretary Jack Straw, Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips and Shami Chakrabarti, director of civil rights group Liberty. A spokeswoman for Wormwood Scrubs said there was no additional security due to Clarke’s comments. But tonight’s episode is being filmed slightly earlier than usual to give extra time to the BBC to edit the show should there be any problems. 9.31pm: Welcome to this special live blog on BBC1′s Question Time where under-fire justice secretary Ken Clarke is expected to further clarify his stance on sentencing for rape . Before tonight’s programme, here’s a recap of the row, which sparked calls for Clarke to resign. •In a live radio interview on Wednesday, Clarke gave the impression there were “serious rapes and other categories of rape”. Politicians and commentators from the left and right condemned the government for apparently failing to understand the gravity of the crime. •Clarke, who had initially refused to apologise in a round of TV interviews, wrote to a victim of attempted rape who had broken down in tears when she confronted him on the Radio 5 Live show over his “disastrous” plan. •The row came after both Clarke and his minister, Crispin Blunt, gave the impression in the Commons on Tuesday that a proposal to introduce a maximum 50% sentence discount in return for an early guilty plea to all crimes, including rape, had been given the go-ahead. • Labour leader Ed Milliband demanded that David Cameron sack Clarke over the row during prime minister’s question time on Wednesday. •But following the row over his remarks about rape, the justice secretary said he would look at the proposal again . Kenneth Clarke Jack Straw Prisons and probation Rape David Batty guardian.co.uk

Posted by on May 19, 2011. Filed under News, Politics, World News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.