[Tubby Isaacs]

Some interesting stuff about rehabilitation/ probation here. I worked in the Prison `Service when Home Detention Curfew (aka electronic tagging) was taking off. IIRC it wasn't the big money saver one might have hoped. It became a sort of a joke when (very rarely) footballers would play matches with tags on.

No doubt the tech has moved on in the last 25 years, and (hopefully) probation gets better at recognizing the sort of offender for whom tagging is effective and cheaper than imprisonment. The numbers in this thread sounds more promising. I see that more probation officers have been recruited. As ever, we can criticize government comms, but to me this is what (starting to) 'fix the criminal justice system looks like on a tight budget. I've got no sense at all from the prominent commentary on criminal justice, lots of which amounts to) "why doesn't Labour just fix it?".

[Tubby Isaacs]

From the Guardian, who do at least report this.

Pre-budget lift for Rachel Reeves as UK business confidence rises
Despite concerns about economy, poll shows optimism about trading prospects at highest level since 2014

Still worries of debt costs etc, but I've never seen a wider determination to talk the economy into a recession.