Before her swearing-in and King’s speech duties, Shabana Mahmood hit the ground running. In what was billed as a ‘major speech’, the lord chancellor chose the G4S-operated HMP Five Wells in Wellingborough to announce the government’s widely trailed plans for prisoner releases.

Not everyone seems to have been thrilled with Mahmood’s words, however: the transcript of the speech, published only last Tuesday, is headed ‘Political content has been removed from this transcript’.

Given the manifest blunders of recent governments a propos prisons and probation – the spectre of Chris Grayling lingers – it is not difficult to guess what the ‘political content’ might have been.

Presumably ‘Sir Humphrey’ has quietly pointed out to Mahmood that the buck now stops with her.

Topics