Leading Article: Tory `Choice' Gave Us Yobs

Beginning of article

THIS TIME LAST year, as the Tory party conference approached, the Prime Minister prepared his "back-to-basics" campaign. It rebounded on him disastrously because he chose to highlight not just crime, but moral behaviour in general, thus laying himself and his party open to ridicule when MPs and Cabinet ministers were discovered in adultery. This year, he has taken more care, choosing to highlight the "yob culture" which causes people to be "jostled, jeered at, made to feel insecure by rowdy or offensive behaviour". The Prime Minister has presumably calculated that he can rely on Tory MPs not to jostle old ladies in the street.

That is about all that can be said for his …