Longford Lecture 2010 – “Views from a dot com dinosaur”; why the digital disruption hasn’t even started yet

Martha Lane Fox

It was with a decided sense of anticipation that I made my way to the Assembly Hall of Church House on the 16th November last for the Ninth Longford Lecture. It is always a fine gathering of people who care about Penal Reform and building a better society, a lonely furrow ploughed by Frank Pakenham (Lord Longford) whose memory the Longford Lecture commemorates. The anticipation was heightened as the lecture this year was being delivered by one of my heroines, the indomitable Martha Lane Fox who co-founded Lastminute.com. With her business partner Brent Hoberman, Martha came to epitomise the new breed of internet entrepreneurs who appeared in the mid to late 90s. She represented the zeitgeist of the dot Com boom and the media being the media made her the poster girl of the boom, a role she never sought. Unlike many others she caught the wave well and when Lastminute floated in 2000 she trousered a handy £30 Million+ in real cash.

Having stepped down from Lastminute she decided to “get a life” after the years of graft and long hours and then disaster struck. In May 2004 she was severely injured in a car accident in the tourist resort of Essaouira in Morocco when the open 4x4 she was driven in crashed and not wearing a seatbelt she was thrown out of the vehicle and landed heavily on her back on rocks.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/essaouira-morrocos-white-city.html

Brent Hoberman didn’t wait for details but sent down an air ambulance to bring her back to the UK. Only for this, by all accounts she would have died. She spent a year in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford having metal inserts and bone grafts. She is registered disabled, can’t drive, has reduced mobility walking with a stick and is in constant pain. She could be more than forgiven for wallowing in self pity but hell no; MLF is made of sterner stuff!



Martha Lane Fox (born 10 February 1973) is a British e-commerce business woman, charity trustee, board member of Channel 4, mydeco.com and Marks & Spencer. She co-founded Lastminute.com, an icon of the dotcom boom of the early 2000s. She also co-founded Lucky Voice, the karaoke bar chain and is the British Government's first Champion for Digital Inclusion and to head a new cabinet Digital Public Services Unit. Born in Oxford, (See “Oxoniensis” on the Blog sidebar->) Lane Fox is the daughter of the historian Robin Lane Fox. She was educated at Oxford High School, Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where she read ancient and modern history. Indeed her dad is an Oxford Don and an expert on Ancient Greece and has written (amongst others) a major book on Big Al, or Alexander the Great as he is normally called in academic circles;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/oath-of-alexander-great-in-324-bc.html

By coincidence I had seen a programme presented by him the night before (once you get into the Greek thing it is hard to get out; see “Real Greek” on the Blog sidebar->) and he was really good because he just doesn’t “do telly”; Rather he was an academic explaining his great love and fascination with the ancient world and a huge antidote to the inexpert “Muppet” presenters we have to endure on many other programmes. He is also an occasional gardening writer for The Times newspaper. The Lane Fox name is well known in the UK due to the eponymous chain of estate agents founded by Martha’s grandfather. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in ancient and modern history and later became an associate at Spectrum Strategy Consultants, where she met Brent Hoberman. Her clients included the BBC and Canal Plus - handy companies to understand, as Lastminute aimed to extend its service offering from the internet to other channels, such as interactive television. Martha Lane-Fox then worked for a year as business development manager of Carlton Communication's initiatives in pay TV and digital channels. Brent Hoberman eventually persuaded Martha to join him as chief operating officer of lastminute.com.



She is associated with progressive causes as a trustee and patron of Reprieve, a legal action charity, which made the news during its involvement in the release of UK resident Binyam Mohammed from Guantanamo Bay. Lane Fox is also a patron of Camfed, dedicated to fighting poverty, HIV and AIDS in rural Africa through the education of girls and young women. She has been a strong and vocal advocate of progressive causes including human rights, women's rights and social justice. In 2007 she founded Antigone, funded by her own money, a grant-making trust to support charities based in the UK.

In 2005, advertising executive Julian Douglas shared an idea of his with her about launching a Tokyo style private karaoke bar in London. Falling in love with the idea, together with Nick Thistleton she launched a private karaoke company Lucky Voice with a club in London's Soho. The company have five bars countrywide, an online application, and the Lucky Voice Party Box to be used with computers. In 2007 Lane Fox joined the board of Marks & Spencer as a non-executive director. She is also on the board of Channel 4.


Assembly Hall Church House

On 16 June 2009, she was appointed the UK Government's Digital Inclusion Champion to head a two year campaign to make the British public more 'tech savvy'. She has argued that "I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online." On March 22nd 2010 her government role was expanded when it was announced that she would set up a new Digital Public Services Unit within the Cabinet Office. As Digital Champion, Ms Lane Fox is committed to getting nine million people online by 2012. She is working with the Race Online 2012 campaign and the transformation of DirectGov, the Government's online portal for public services. I can confirm as a user DirectGov now works a lot better whereas before it was a clunky user unfriendly disaster. She pointed out that digital exclusion tends to overlap with other forms of exclusion and the unemployed, unqualified and disadvantaged are overrepresented in the nine million in the UK who are not online. She convincingly made the case that people online will get employed faster, achieve a higher salary and are less lonely but tellingly she mentioned that when they started out selling the idea of Lastminute to suppliers they often had the phone slammed down on them. Now internet sales in the UK are over £100 Bn a year.




Post lecture reception and stalls

At the Longford Lecture she threw down the gauntlet to charities, which she urged to do more to use internet services to engage with the people they sought to help. She also said she was surprised to learn that there were 9,000 charities working in the criminal justice sector alone – more than one for every 10 prisoners. Like all of us concerned with Penal Reform she is concerned about the financial and human cost of Prison Policy. The best way to address public concerns is to cut reoffending rates and that is an area where UK Penal Policy can only be considered a failure. She has pointed out elsewhere;

“The prison service currently costs the government around £13 billion a year, but most of this is invested in prison and probation services, i.e. incarceration and custody, with very little left over for support services that address root causes of offending behaviours. Mental health care, drug treatment and helping those leaving prison to find employment and housing is heavily bolstered by independent funding through foundations such as Tudor Trust, Lankelly Chase and the Bromley Trust as well as individuals.”

Martha suggested a properly controlled prison web scheme could benefit thousands of the country's inmates. Speaking ahead of the annual Lord Longford Memorial Lecture, she said couldn't understand why some prisoners were being "excluded from the conversation". She added: "Controlled internet access for prisoners can help in rehabilitation. I don't believe in cutting people out of conversations. Nine million people do not have access to the internet and 80,000 prisoners are just a subset of this group."

She said she hoped Lord Longford would approve of her drive to move disadvantaged groups online. "He believed in giving everybody a voice no matter how unfashionable it might seem," she said. But she conceded she would not be pressing ministers on granting prisoners the right to use the internet, as there were other groups whose claims were more urgent. "This is not a rallying cry and I won't be campaigning on it in my official capacity – it is my personal view," she said. "Such a powerful group of charities could use the internet to work together on so many different levels to help share resources or back office functions to make them more efficient," she said. Ms Lane Fox pointed to the example of Comic Relief, which makes it obligatory to apply for funding online. She said this showed how it was possible to save money for good causes by using the internet to cut red tape.



The same applied to Government policy, where ministers should be putting the internet "at the heart of their decision-making", she added. "My experience of 18 months working in Government and as an observer before is that we are not very good at responding to developments in the internet. The web requires rapid responses but we tend to be rather risk averse in the public sector." She said Government and business could learn a lot from American companies such as Google and Apple, which had succeeded by testing their services and products through learning from their failures on the web.

Now in its ninth year the Longford Lectures have three main aims;

•to provide a national platform for a serious contribution to questions of social and penal reform
•to make significant recommendations to policy makers
•to be written, delivered and promoted in such a way as to engage wide public interest.


Jon Snow

Martha Lane Fox has followed in a distinguished line of speakers who have included Cherie Booth QC, Helena Kennedy QC, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Mary McAleese of Ireland. The broadcaster Jon Snow, who is a trustee, chaired the lecture with his usual aplomb as he missed it last year as he was in Peru. He recounted how Frank Pakenham had given him his first job when he was thrown out of University for “Politicking” on the grounds that this showed he was made of the right stuff. He reminded us of his importance and contribution to politics which is often forgotten. He worked with Lord Beveridge, during the war, in his researches on social security - the ensuing Beveridge Report laid the foundations of the post-war welfare state. After WW11 he was Minister for Germany responsible for the British Occupation Zone and the reconstruction of post-war Germany, he was Minister for Civil Aviation when Heathrow was built and in fact he was a member of various Governments until 1968.

Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham) was from the Anglo-Irish tradition and remained sentimentally attached to Ireland even though he probably broke every tradition of his Anglo-Irish ascendancy family. He was born into a military, Protestant, Conservative and Unionist clan, and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. As an adult, he embraced the Roman Catholic Church and Irish nationalism. His failure to follow his soldier father, who was killed at Gallipoli when Longford was nine, remained an open wound. Longford's memory will live on, if not for the scale of his achievements then certainly because of his courage, tenacity and nobility in trying. He was a man of great intelligence and moral strength and the speakers and themes of the “Longford Lectures” reflect his life’s work.



The Longford Lecture is also the opportunity to present the Longford Award to organisations, often unknown and badly supported, who work with offenders, victims and their families. Lord Longford's courage and sincerity in pursuing unpopular causes in the face of formidable opposition and ridicule were unquestioned. He was described by his biographer, Peter Stanford, (who is Director of the Longford Trust) as the “Outcast’s Outcast” and the composition of the Longford Prize shows how fraught an area this is as the prize was presented to Circles UK, a charity of Quaker origin which works with rehabilitating perhaps the most difficult type of ex-offender, released sex offenders.

The Longford Prize 2010

Circles UK (winner)

The charity was recognised for its work with sex offenders, which the judges said provided "a much greater opportunity for preventing further crime, rehabilitating the offenders, and achieving safer communities for us all". As Peter Stanford wrote;

“There are many myths that the public choose to believe about prisoners - often with the encouragement of certain sections of the press and of politicians. One of the most widespread is that it is impossible to rehabilitate sex-offenders, that once those who have served sentences for such crimes are released they will reoffend, and that it would therefore be better if they were locked up forever.

The facts are rather different, and therefore it was with great pleasure that the judges were able to award the 2010 Longford Prize to Circles UK, a charity of Quaker origin which through a dozen local projects runs 'circles of support and accountability' for newly-released sex offenders.”

Just for Kids Law (highly commended)

This charity was lauded for its work with children on the wrong side of the law at a young age. The judges were impressed by its "holistic approach". One way to stop prisons being full of adult criminals is to stop jailing children?

Peter Kilgarriff (lifetime achievement award)

He was recognised for his impact on the prison-reform sector over many years.

As for Martha Lane Fox’s Lecture her contention that prisoners should be part of the race to ensure everybody is included in digital world it is surely inarguable logic despite all the guff and negative reaction her comments have provoked since. The strap line of the Longford Trust is “Second chances for ex-offenders through education” and surely this is in the interests of society for having held people to account through the Criminal Justice System society’s only further interest is in stopping re-offending, pure and simple. To do this you must put rehabilitation at the heart of penal policy for it is only if you can integrate and give prisoners a stake in society afterwards that you will stop reoffending. Having somebody leave prison with adequate life skills (including computing skills) is in everybody’s interest and is not necessarily altruistic, it is common sense.


Catering at the reception was by “The Clink”, a restaurant in High Down Prison run by prisoners

As for MLF herself, a woman of accomplishment who is still only 37, what is not to like? Despite her near death experience and the terrible physical and mental toll the accident took (She joked that her brain had got smaller due to morphine, I suspect it was only half a joke) including the stroke she suffered she is an amazingly driven character, affectionately nicknamed the “Bionic Vixen”, a play on her last name and a reflection of the amount of reconstruction she has endured.


Two of Lord Longford's daughters - Rachel Billington and Lady Antonia Fraser

Altogether apart from her business achievements she was in good company with the Longford Family and the other campaigners who met for a reception after the lecture, catered for by “The Clink”, a restaurant in High Down Prison run by prisoners. She is a Republican, and has campaigned strongly on human rights, women's rights and social justice supporting and funding organisations in these areas. She is a classicist’s daughter who has used her own money to set up her charity Antigone based on the heroine of a play by Sophocles where “In the Antigone contempt of death enables a weak maiden to conquer a powerful ruler.” Well, she is a heroine herself in the face of the type of adversity which would have crushed a lesser soul and I have no doubt her drive, intelligence (and can I say fey beauty?) will continue to conquer for Res publica, the common good.



There is one further anecdote. After the lecture I put out a few positive Tweets on Twitter

twitter.com/daithaic.

The next day I received an SMS on my mobile;

“Marthalanefox: .daithaic why thank you!”

MLF doesn’t just talk the talk on being digital savvy, she really walks the talk!

For more about the work of the Longford Trust supporting prison reforms see;

http://www.longfordtrust.org

Martha Lane Fox’s website;

http://www.marthalanefox.com

Longford Lecture 2010 – “Views from a dot com dinosaur”; why the digital disruption hasn’t even started yet

Martha Lane Fox

It was with a decided sense of anticipation that I made my way to the Assembly Hall of Church House on the 16th November last for the Ninth Longford Lecture. It is always a fine gathering of people who care about Penal Reform and building a better society, a lonely furrow ploughed by Frank Pakenham (Lord Longford) whose memory the Longford Lecture commemorates. The anticipation was heightened as the lecture this year was being delivered by one of my heroines, the indomitable Martha Lane Fox who co-founded Lastminute.com. With her business partner Brent Hoberman, Martha came to epitomise the new breed of internet entrepreneurs who appeared in the mid to late 90s. She represented the zeitgeist of the dot Com boom and the media being the media made her the poster girl of the boom, a role she never sought. Unlike many others she caught the wave well and when Lastminute floated in 2000 she trousered a handy £30 Million+ in real cash.

Having stepped down from Lastminute she decided to “get a life” after the years of graft and long hours and then disaster struck. In May 2004 she was severely injured in a car accident in the tourist resort of Essaouira in Morocco when the open 4x4 she was driven in crashed and not wearing a seatbelt she was thrown out of the vehicle and landed heavily on her back on rocks.

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2010/03/essaouira-morrocos-white-city.html

Brent Hoberman didn’t wait for details but sent down an air ambulance to bring her back to the UK. Only for this, by all accounts she would have died. She spent a year in the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford having metal inserts and bone grafts. She is registered disabled, can’t drive, has reduced mobility walking with a stick and is in constant pain. She could be more than forgiven for wallowing in self pity but hell no; MLF is made of sterner stuff!



Martha Lane Fox (born 10 February 1973) is a British e-commerce business woman, charity trustee, board member of Channel 4, mydeco.com and Marks & Spencer. She co-founded Lastminute.com, an icon of the dotcom boom of the early 2000s. She also co-founded Lucky Voice, the karaoke bar chain and is the British Government's first Champion for Digital Inclusion and to head a new cabinet Digital Public Services Unit. Born in Oxford, (See “Oxoniensis” on the Blog sidebar->) Lane Fox is the daughter of the historian Robin Lane Fox. She was educated at Oxford High School, Westminster School and Magdalen College, Oxford, where she read ancient and modern history. Indeed her dad is an Oxford Don and an expert on Ancient Greece and has written (amongst others) a major book on Big Al, or Alexander the Great as he is normally called in academic circles;

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/03/oath-of-alexander-great-in-324-bc.html

By coincidence I had seen a programme presented by him the night before (once you get into the Greek thing it is hard to get out; see “Real Greek” on the Blog sidebar->) and he was really good because he just doesn’t “do telly”; Rather he was an academic explaining his great love and fascination with the ancient world and a huge antidote to the inexpert “Muppet” presenters we have to endure on many other programmes. He is also an occasional gardening writer for The Times newspaper. The Lane Fox name is well known in the UK due to the eponymous chain of estate agents founded by Martha’s grandfather. She graduated from Oxford University with a degree in ancient and modern history and later became an associate at Spectrum Strategy Consultants, where she met Brent Hoberman. Her clients included the BBC and Canal Plus - handy companies to understand, as Lastminute aimed to extend its service offering from the internet to other channels, such as interactive television. Martha Lane-Fox then worked for a year as business development manager of Carlton Communication's initiatives in pay TV and digital channels. Brent Hoberman eventually persuaded Martha to join him as chief operating officer of lastminute.com.



She is associated with progressive causes as a trustee and patron of Reprieve, a legal action charity, which made the news during its involvement in the release of UK resident Binyam Mohammed from Guantanamo Bay. Lane Fox is also a patron of Camfed, dedicated to fighting poverty, HIV and AIDS in rural Africa through the education of girls and young women. She has been a strong and vocal advocate of progressive causes including human rights, women's rights and social justice. In 2007 she founded Antigone, funded by her own money, a grant-making trust to support charities based in the UK.

In 2005, advertising executive Julian Douglas shared an idea of his with her about launching a Tokyo style private karaoke bar in London. Falling in love with the idea, together with Nick Thistleton she launched a private karaoke company Lucky Voice with a club in London's Soho. The company have five bars countrywide, an online application, and the Lucky Voice Party Box to be used with computers. In 2007 Lane Fox joined the board of Marks & Spencer as a non-executive director. She is also on the board of Channel 4.


Assembly Hall Church House

On 16 June 2009, she was appointed the UK Government's Digital Inclusion Champion to head a two year campaign to make the British public more 'tech savvy'. She has argued that "I don't think you can be a proper citizen of our society in the future if you are not engaged online." On March 22nd 2010 her government role was expanded when it was announced that she would set up a new Digital Public Services Unit within the Cabinet Office. As Digital Champion, Ms Lane Fox is committed to getting nine million people online by 2012. She is working with the Race Online 2012 campaign and the transformation of DirectGov, the Government's online portal for public services. I can confirm as a user DirectGov now works a lot better whereas before it was a clunky user unfriendly disaster. She pointed out that digital exclusion tends to overlap with other forms of exclusion and the unemployed, unqualified and disadvantaged are overrepresented in the nine million in the UK who are not online. She convincingly made the case that people online will get employed faster, achieve a higher salary and are less lonely but tellingly she mentioned that when they started out selling the idea of Lastminute to suppliers they often had the phone slammed down on them. Now internet sales in the UK are over £100 Bn a year.




Post lecture reception and stalls

At the Longford Lecture she threw down the gauntlet to charities, which she urged to do more to use internet services to engage with the people they sought to help. She also said she was surprised to learn that there were 9,000 charities working in the criminal justice sector alone – more than one for every 10 prisoners. Like all of us concerned with Penal Reform she is concerned about the financial and human cost of Prison Policy. The best way to address public concerns is to cut reoffending rates and that is an area where UK Penal Policy can only be considered a failure. She has pointed out elsewhere;

“The prison service currently costs the government around £13 billion a year, but most of this is invested in prison and probation services, i.e. incarceration and custody, with very little left over for support services that address root causes of offending behaviours. Mental health care, drug treatment and helping those leaving prison to find employment and housing is heavily bolstered by independent funding through foundations such as Tudor Trust, Lankelly Chase and the Bromley Trust as well as individuals.”

Martha suggested a properly controlled prison web scheme could benefit thousands of the country's inmates. Speaking ahead of the annual Lord Longford Memorial Lecture, she said couldn't understand why some prisoners were being "excluded from the conversation". She added: "Controlled internet access for prisoners can help in rehabilitation. I don't believe in cutting people out of conversations. Nine million people do not have access to the internet and 80,000 prisoners are just a subset of this group."

She said she hoped Lord Longford would approve of her drive to move disadvantaged groups online. "He believed in giving everybody a voice no matter how unfashionable it might seem," she said. But she conceded she would not be pressing ministers on granting prisoners the right to use the internet, as there were other groups whose claims were more urgent. "This is not a rallying cry and I won't be campaigning on it in my official capacity – it is my personal view," she said. "Such a powerful group of charities could use the internet to work together on so many different levels to help share resources or back office functions to make them more efficient," she said. Ms Lane Fox pointed to the example of Comic Relief, which makes it obligatory to apply for funding online. She said this showed how it was possible to save money for good causes by using the internet to cut red tape.



The same applied to Government policy, where ministers should be putting the internet "at the heart of their decision-making", she added. "My experience of 18 months working in Government and as an observer before is that we are not very good at responding to developments in the internet. The web requires rapid responses but we tend to be rather risk averse in the public sector." She said Government and business could learn a lot from American companies such as Google and Apple, which had succeeded by testing their services and products through learning from their failures on the web.

Now in its ninth year the Longford Lectures have three main aims;

•to provide a national platform for a serious contribution to questions of social and penal reform
•to make significant recommendations to policy makers
•to be written, delivered and promoted in such a way as to engage wide public interest.


Jon Snow

Martha Lane Fox has followed in a distinguished line of speakers who have included Cherie Booth QC, Helena Kennedy QC, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and President Mary McAleese of Ireland. The broadcaster Jon Snow, who is a trustee, chaired the lecture with his usual aplomb as he missed it last year as he was in Peru. He recounted how Frank Pakenham had given him his first job when he was thrown out of University for “Politicking” on the grounds that this showed he was made of the right stuff. He reminded us of his importance and contribution to politics which is often forgotten. He worked with Lord Beveridge, during the war, in his researches on social security - the ensuing Beveridge Report laid the foundations of the post-war welfare state. After WW11 he was Minister for Germany responsible for the British Occupation Zone and the reconstruction of post-war Germany, he was Minister for Civil Aviation when Heathrow was built and in fact he was a member of various Governments until 1968.

Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham) was from the Anglo-Irish tradition and remained sentimentally attached to Ireland even though he probably broke every tradition of his Anglo-Irish ascendancy family. He was born into a military, Protestant, Conservative and Unionist clan, and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. As an adult, he embraced the Roman Catholic Church and Irish nationalism. His failure to follow his soldier father, who was killed at Gallipoli when Longford was nine, remained an open wound. Longford's memory will live on, if not for the scale of his achievements then certainly because of his courage, tenacity and nobility in trying. He was a man of great intelligence and moral strength and the speakers and themes of the “Longford Lectures” reflect his life’s work.



The Longford Lecture is also the opportunity to present the Longford Award to organisations, often unknown and badly supported, who work with offenders, victims and their families. Lord Longford's courage and sincerity in pursuing unpopular causes in the face of formidable opposition and ridicule were unquestioned. He was described by his biographer, Peter Stanford, (who is Director of the Longford Trust) as the “Outcast’s Outcast” and the composition of the Longford Prize shows how fraught an area this is as the prize was presented to Circles UK, a charity of Quaker origin which works with rehabilitating perhaps the most difficult type of ex-offender, released sex offenders.

The Longford Prize 2010

Circles UK (winner)

The charity was recognised for its work with sex offenders, which the judges said provided "a much greater opportunity for preventing further crime, rehabilitating the offenders, and achieving safer communities for us all". As Peter Stanford wrote;

“There are many myths that the public choose to believe about prisoners - often with the encouragement of certain sections of the press and of politicians. One of the most widespread is that it is impossible to rehabilitate sex-offenders, that once those who have served sentences for such crimes are released they will reoffend, and that it would therefore be better if they were locked up forever.

The facts are rather different, and therefore it was with great pleasure that the judges were able to award the 2010 Longford Prize to Circles UK, a charity of Quaker origin which through a dozen local projects runs 'circles of support and accountability' for newly-released sex offenders.”

Just for Kids Law (highly commended)

This charity was lauded for its work with children on the wrong side of the law at a young age. The judges were impressed by its "holistic approach". One way to stop prisons being full of adult criminals is to stop jailing children?

Peter Kilgarriff (lifetime achievement award)

He was recognised for his impact on the prison-reform sector over many years.

As for Martha Lane Fox’s Lecture her contention that prisoners should be part of the race to ensure everybody is included in digital world it is surely inarguable logic despite all the guff and negative reaction her comments have provoked since. The strap line of the Longford Trust is “Second chances for ex-offenders through education” and surely this is in the interests of society for having held people to account through the Criminal Justice System society’s only further interest is in stopping re-offending, pure and simple. To do this you must put rehabilitation at the heart of penal policy for it is only if you can integrate and give prisoners a stake in society afterwards that you will stop reoffending. Having somebody leave prison with adequate life skills (including computing skills) is in everybody’s interest and is not necessarily altruistic, it is common sense.


Catering at the reception was by “The Clink”, a restaurant in High Down Prison run by prisoners

As for MLF herself, a woman of accomplishment who is still only 37, what is not to like? Despite her near death experience and the terrible physical and mental toll the accident took (She joked that her brain had got smaller due to morphine, I suspect it was only half a joke) including the stroke she suffered she is an amazingly driven character, affectionately nicknamed the “Bionic Vixen”, a play on her last name and a reflection of the amount of reconstruction she has endured.


Two of Lord Longford's daughters - Rachel Billington and Lady Antonia Fraser

Altogether apart from her business achievements she was in good company with the Longford Family and the other campaigners who met for a reception after the lecture, catered for by “The Clink”, a restaurant in High Down Prison run by prisoners. She is a Republican, and has campaigned strongly on human rights, women's rights and social justice supporting and funding organisations in these areas. She is a classicist’s daughter who has used her own money to set up her charity Antigone based on the heroine of a play by Sophocles where “In the Antigone contempt of death enables a weak maiden to conquer a powerful ruler.” Well, she is a heroine herself in the face of the type of adversity which would have crushed a lesser soul and I have no doubt her drive, intelligence (and can I say fey beauty?) will continue to conquer for Res publica, the common good.



There is one further anecdote. After the lecture I put out a few positive Tweets on Twitter

twitter.com/daithaic.

The next day I received an SMS on my mobile;

“Marthalanefox: .daithaic why thank you!”

MLF doesn’t just talk the talk on being digital savvy, she really walks the talk!

For more about the work of the Longford Trust supporting prison reforms see;

http://www.longfordtrust.org

Martha Lane Fox’s website;

http://www.marthalanefox.com

Longford Lecture 2009 - War is easy — peace is the difficult prize

I don’t spend every evening at a function mixing with an eclectic collection including Sir Hugh Orde the President of APCO, Sir Ian Blair, Lord David Ramsbottom, the good and the great and well, me! However the Longford Trust which was set up to continue the work of the late Lord Longford in promoting prison reform and acting as an advocate for the outcasts in society has a unique way of bringing a disparate but committed group of people together. Indeed so diverse is the roll call of benefactors of the Longford Trust that it includes uber- financier George Soros as well as the noble Lords Archer and Black — both of whom have what might be described as having an intimate inside knowledge of prison life.


Lord Longford

So it was on an otherwise gloomy London night which was anointed with impressive torrential rain we proceeded across the yard behind Westminster Abbey to Church House, Westminster, to the Synod Hall of the Church of England for the 8th annual “Longford Lecture” organised by the Longford Trust and sponsored by the excellent Independent Newspaper which is owned by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media. I forswear from commenting that all this splendour of the Church Commissioners has been paid for by stolen goods during the reign of Henry VIII and augmented from the “immoral earnings” of the Bishop of London’s Estate at Paddington which contains more than a fair share of London’s houses of pleasure. I admire myself for such self restraint and turn towards Frank Pakenham’s legacy and Sir Hugh Orde’s lecture reflecting on his experience of tackling the legacy of sectarian murders in Ireland during the Troubles under the title “"War is easy — peace is the difficult prize: An Alternative Approach to Resolving Unsolved Murders."


Sir Hugh Orde

Frank Longford said often during his life that he would like his epitaph to be 'the outcasts' outcast'. It summed up a long career as a politician, writer and campaigner on social and prison policy which was all about standing up for the unpopular, the unloved, the underdog and those on the margins of society. He was first a minister in Clement Attlee's post Second World War Labour government, where as Deputy Foreign Secretary he played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of West Germany. From 1964 to 1968, he was a member of Harold Wilson's Cabinet.

He started visiting prisoners in 1930 and continued until his death. He was assistant to Sir William Beveridge on his landmark report of 1942 which laid the basis for the Welfare State. In 1956 he founded New Bridge, one of the first organisations in Britain seeking to create links between prisoners and the community, and in 1963 chaired the committee on crime whose recommendations led to the establishment of the parole system. On leaving the government, he launched New Horizon, a charity for young people in need.

He attracted much controversy with his (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison; some would suggest she was an unworthy subject of his attention. He attracted criticism for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement and he was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to him being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media.

In 1936, motivated by a gospel teaching that 'those who visit prisoners visit Christ', Longford begins visiting prisoners at Oxford gaol. Subsequently he attempts to visit at least one prisoner every week. After the war, he enters Clement Attlee's Labour government where he is tipped by Attlee as a future prime minister. He gained notoriety as the Cabinet Minister responsible for starting the reconstruction of occupied Germany. Conrad Adenauer hails him among the founders of West Germany; at home he is condemned for being soft on Britain's erstwhile enemies.

Despite his campaigning, Longford took a hard line on what constitutes criminality and was not a supporter of gay Rights. In 2000, during a House of Lords debate on equalising the age of consent for homosexuals, Longford declares: "I regard homosexuality as a sad disorder and handicap and it makes it very unlikely that a healthy family life can be had," adding that, "homosexual leanings are not to be condemned any more than schizophrenia or alcoholism, but they are sinful by Christian standards and those of many other churches."


Rachel Billington & Lady Antonia Fraser - Lord Longford's daughters

The Pakenham Family have roots in both Ireland and England and have influenced both countries over the years. In Dublin they are commemorated in Longford and Aungier Streets and the former Pakenham Hall near Castlepollard in Co. Meath was renamed Tullynally (The Gaelic name) by Tom Pakenham (The current Lord Longford, although he does not use his titles) when he took it over in 1961. Tom Pakenham is himself an author and historian of note as are his sisters, Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Judith Kazantzis. The Longford Trust is headed up by another son, Kevin Pakenham.

Before he took over at ACPO Sir Hugh Orde was Chief Constable of Northern Ireland for seven years and his great task was “How do you tackle 2,000 unsolved murders stretching back more than 30 years?” That was the dilemma which confronted him when he was appointed Chief Constable of the new cross-community Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2002 in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.

The controversial solution he came up with – to provide victims' families with what he calls "maximum disclosure" of everything known about the killings, even if the police could not convict a suspect – could be a model, he believes, both for police work with victims of unsolved crimes, and for other societies with a history of sectarian tensions.



"The question I faced," he said, "were there alternative ways of dealing with unsolved serious crime where convictions are unlikely? In Northern Ireland, they were unlikely because of the lapse of time and the potential for loss or contamination of evidence, or for witnesses to have died or forgotten what they saw. And the longer a crime is unsolved, the harder it is to solve and therefore the less effort is put into it.

"But at the same time I was acutely aware that the families of the victims, who ranged from the widows of police officers and soldiers to the relatives of an IRA terrorist killed by the SAS, have not had satisfaction in any sense of the word. If I was going to move policing forwards, I was going to have to deal with the past first." His lecture also reflected on the general treatment of victims of crime. "What we achieved demonstrates a different way of thinking about victims. Traditionalists might argue that the role of the police is to investigate crime and therefore the sort of work we did was for others to do. I would disagree with that. Victims are a key part of our work. They are citizens first and we have a duty as police to protect citizens and help them get on with their lives. And if this work we did made a difference to them, then it is of value."

The over 3,524 deaths in the modern conflict in Ireland are recorded in the Cain Index (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ ) and it makes for harrowing reading. In the 80’s I was living in Dublin and three of the deaths recorded on the Cain Index touched me personally. In 1983 as part of their “Fund Raising” activities the IRA kidnapped Don Tidey the head of an Irish Supermarket chain and held him for ransom. Four IRA men with their captive were discovered in a hide at Balinamore Woods, Co. Leitrim and in breaking out of the Irish army / Gardai cordon they killed a trainee policeman and a trainee soldier. A person who worked for me was the girlfriend of the young Garda recruit who was murdered in the name of “fundraising” and she had a complete breakdown and never returned to her job. In March 1987 my friend Peter Nesbit who lived in Belfast and was in the RUC Reserve was answering a hoax burglary call on the Crumlin Road when he was blown apart by a litter bin bomb. Peter was a friend through Scouting and part of a mixed (Protestant / Catholic group) in Ballysillan on the edge of the Ardoyne in Belfast who all moved out of the area to be able to stay in touch as Belfast became polarised. He really enjoyed coming down to Dublin as he could leave his personal protection revolver behind. Indeed in the gallows humour which pervaded the North he used to joke how tall the Gardai in Dublin seemed as it was too dangerous to be a tall police man in the North. In September 1987 the brother of a good friend was “lifted” by the IRA from the streets of Dublin and found later shot on a border road in Co. Armagh. My friend had to identify his brother’s body in Craigavon mortuary and I remember to this day the expression on his face when he returned to Dublin having completed this dreadful duty.


Longford Scholar display at the lecture

I use these personal examples of two members of the security forces on either side of the border and of a person who the IRA claimed was a member because I had an insight to the grief left behind and to my knowledge nobody was held to account for these murders through the courts. So there is a huge “Justice Gap” for the families of the victims. Sir Hugh Orde’s Historic Cases Team (HCT) obviously filtered the evidence (for all the right reasons) and dealt with families of the victims on a 1-2-1 relationship basis and left it to these relatives of the victims to decide if they wished to make the evidence public. In doing this he did a great service in providing a measure of closure to the victims’ families for which he deserves full credit. My own feeling is that there is a bigger picture here and that the whole Island of Ireland needs closure, needs to know what happened and needs to move on. Is there a case for saying at a future date (2020?) that ALL the Police Files, ALL the Intelligence Files, NORTH and SOUTH, warts and all, mistakes and all, rubbish and all, need to be put into the public domain in a single searchable archive. This would undoubtedly be a highly controversial event and a double edged sword in the public perception but in the examples I’ve given what had happened to the three victims would be known and the public could make up its own mind about these events. I honestly believe that Ireland needs to endure such a catharsis before it can truly move forward – the past must no longer be a mystery.

The Longford Lecture is also the opportunity to present the Longford Award to organisations, often unknown and badly supported, who work with offenders, victims and their families. Inquest, a charity that has worked for more than 20 years with the bereaved families of those who have died in custody, has been awarded the 2009 Longford Prize, sponsored by The Independent and established as part of a trust in memory of the late Labour cabinet minister and outspoken prison reformer Lord Longford.


A Prison Cell

As well as its work with individuals, Inquest is also a lobbying organisation, recently persuading the Government to adopt many of its proposals for improving the coroners system so that it better serves the interests of all bereaved people. Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, said: "Our small dedicated team is delighted to receive this award for upholding the human rights of bereaved people. We hope that this award brings wider attention to and understanding of our important work."

We appreciated the impact of Inquest and its work at the reception afterwards. We were humbled to speak to a wonderful women they had helped and hear what she had gone through. As part of the strangely titled “Operation Safeguard” when Wandsworth Prison was being renovated her son was transferred to Bedford Prison. The son had been a heroin addict and Bedford could not care for him as it did not have a methadone replacement unit and he killed himself in his prison cell. She could not speak more highly of the help Inquest gave her family and for our part we were humbled by her courage and dignity.

Commendations were also awarded by the prize judges to Keyring's Working for Justice project, which supports individuals with learning difficulties in the criminal justice system, and to Junior Smart for his work with gangs to reduce knife crime.
As for Sir Hugh’s other legacy in Ireland? In the few short years following the Patten Commission, admirable strides were made under his leadership in turning a sectarian, divisive police force, with the perception of blood on its hands, into a democratic, accountable police service with the respect of much of the community.

Just as Northern Ireland still has a long journey ahead of it, the police service still faces challenges, and the prospect of further reform, as the remaining Patten Commission recommendations are implemented. Strong foundations have been laid for a solid police service. It is now in the hands of the various players in Northern Ireland to support these foundations, and the continued reform process, to deliver to the people of Northern Ireland a police, at their service. Sir Hugh left Ireland with his reputation enhanced as a “straight copper.” Let me tell you in the Irish context this was no mean achievement.

See also;

2007 Longford Lecture by Professor Mary McAleese, President of Ireland

“Changing History”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/longford-lecture-2007-changing-history.html

2008 Longford Lecture – debate by Sir Ian Blair, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Jason Warr and Phil Wheatley

“We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/longford-lecture-2008-we-cant-build-our.html

For more about the work of the Longford Trust supporting prison reforms see;

http://www.longfordtrust.org/

Longford Lecture 2009 - War is easy — peace is the difficult prize

I don’t spend every evening at a function mixing with an eclectic collection including Sir Hugh Orde the President of APCO, Sir Ian Blair, Lord David Ramsbottom, the good and the great and well, me! However the Longford Trust which was set up to continue the work of the late Lord Longford in promoting prison reform and acting as an advocate for the outcasts in society has a unique way of bringing a disparate but committed group of people together. Indeed so diverse is the roll call of benefactors of the Longford Trust that it includes uber- financier George Soros as well as the noble Lords Archer and Black — both of whom have what might be described as having an intimate inside knowledge of prison life.


Lord Longford

So it was on an otherwise gloomy London night which was anointed with impressive torrential rain we proceeded across the yard behind Westminster Abbey to Church House, Westminster, to the Synod Hall of the Church of England for the 8th annual “Longford Lecture” organised by the Longford Trust and sponsored by the excellent Independent Newspaper which is owned by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media. I forswear from commenting that all this splendour of the Church Commissioners has been paid for by stolen goods during the reign of Henry VIII and augmented from the “immoral earnings” of the Bishop of London’s Estate at Paddington which contains more than a fair share of London’s houses of pleasure. I admire myself for such self restraint and turn towards Frank Pakenham’s legacy and Sir Hugh Orde’s lecture reflecting on his experience of tackling the legacy of sectarian murders in Ireland during the Troubles under the title “"War is easy — peace is the difficult prize: An Alternative Approach to Resolving Unsolved Murders."


Sir Hugh Orde

Frank Longford said often during his life that he would like his epitaph to be 'the outcasts' outcast'. It summed up a long career as a politician, writer and campaigner on social and prison policy which was all about standing up for the unpopular, the unloved, the underdog and those on the margins of society. He was first a minister in Clement Attlee's post Second World War Labour government, where as Deputy Foreign Secretary he played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of West Germany. From 1964 to 1968, he was a member of Harold Wilson's Cabinet.

He started visiting prisoners in 1930 and continued until his death. He was assistant to Sir William Beveridge on his landmark report of 1942 which laid the basis for the Welfare State. In 1956 he founded New Bridge, one of the first organisations in Britain seeking to create links between prisoners and the community, and in 1963 chaired the committee on crime whose recommendations led to the establishment of the parole system. On leaving the government, he launched New Horizon, a charity for young people in need.

He attracted much controversy with his (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison; some would suggest she was an unworthy subject of his attention. He attracted criticism for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement and he was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to him being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media.

In 1936, motivated by a gospel teaching that 'those who visit prisoners visit Christ', Longford begins visiting prisoners at Oxford gaol. Subsequently he attempts to visit at least one prisoner every week. After the war, he enters Clement Attlee's Labour government where he is tipped by Attlee as a future prime minister. He gained notoriety as the Cabinet Minister responsible for starting the reconstruction of occupied Germany. Conrad Adenauer hails him among the founders of West Germany; at home he is condemned for being soft on Britain's erstwhile enemies.

Despite his campaigning, Longford took a hard line on what constitutes criminality and was not a supporter of gay Rights. In 2000, during a House of Lords debate on equalising the age of consent for homosexuals, Longford declares: "I regard homosexuality as a sad disorder and handicap and it makes it very unlikely that a healthy family life can be had," adding that, "homosexual leanings are not to be condemned any more than schizophrenia or alcoholism, but they are sinful by Christian standards and those of many other churches."


Rachel Billington & Lady Antonia Fraser - Lord Longford's daughters

The Pakenham Family have roots in both Ireland and England and have influenced both countries over the years. In Dublin they are commemorated in Longford and Aungier Streets and the former Pakenham Hall near Castlepollard in Co. Meath was renamed Tullynally (The Gaelic name) by Tom Pakenham (The current Lord Longford, although he does not use his titles) when he took it over in 1961. Tom Pakenham is himself an author and historian of note as are his sisters, Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Judith Kazantzis. The Longford Trust is headed up by another son, Kevin Pakenham.

Before he took over at ACPO Sir Hugh Orde was Chief Constable of Northern Ireland for seven years and his great task was “How do you tackle 2,000 unsolved murders stretching back more than 30 years?” That was the dilemma which confronted him when he was appointed Chief Constable of the new cross-community Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2002 in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.

The controversial solution he came up with – to provide victims' families with what he calls "maximum disclosure" of everything known about the killings, even if the police could not convict a suspect – could be a model, he believes, both for police work with victims of unsolved crimes, and for other societies with a history of sectarian tensions.



"The question I faced," he said, "were there alternative ways of dealing with unsolved serious crime where convictions are unlikely? In Northern Ireland, they were unlikely because of the lapse of time and the potential for loss or contamination of evidence, or for witnesses to have died or forgotten what they saw. And the longer a crime is unsolved, the harder it is to solve and therefore the less effort is put into it.

"But at the same time I was acutely aware that the families of the victims, who ranged from the widows of police officers and soldiers to the relatives of an IRA terrorist killed by the SAS, have not had satisfaction in any sense of the word. If I was going to move policing forwards, I was going to have to deal with the past first." His lecture also reflected on the general treatment of victims of crime. "What we achieved demonstrates a different way of thinking about victims. Traditionalists might argue that the role of the police is to investigate crime and therefore the sort of work we did was for others to do. I would disagree with that. Victims are a key part of our work. They are citizens first and we have a duty as police to protect citizens and help them get on with their lives. And if this work we did made a difference to them, then it is of value."

The over 3,524 deaths in the modern conflict in Ireland are recorded in the Cain Index (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ ) and it makes for harrowing reading. In the 80’s I was living in Dublin and three of the deaths recorded on the Cain Index touched me personally. In 1983 as part of their “Fund Raising” activities the IRA kidnapped Don Tidey the head of an Irish Supermarket chain and held him for ransom. Four IRA men with their captive were discovered in a hide at Balinamore Woods, Co. Leitrim and in breaking out of the Irish army / Gardai cordon they killed a trainee policeman and a trainee soldier. A person who worked for me was the girlfriend of the young Garda recruit who was murdered in the name of “fundraising” and she had a complete breakdown and never returned to her job. In March 1987 my friend Peter Nesbit who lived in Belfast and was in the RUC Reserve was answering a hoax burglary call on the Crumlin Road when he was blown apart by a litter bin bomb. Peter was a friend through Scouting and part of a mixed (Protestant / Catholic group) in Ballysillan on the edge of the Ardoyne in Belfast who all moved out of the area to be able to stay in touch as Belfast became polarised. He really enjoyed coming down to Dublin as he could leave his personal protection revolver behind. Indeed in the gallows humour which pervaded the North he used to joke how tall the Gardai in Dublin seemed as it was too dangerous to be a tall police man in the North. In September 1987 the brother of a good friend was “lifted” by the IRA from the streets of Dublin and found later shot on a border road in Co. Armagh. My friend had to identify his brother’s body in Craigavon mortuary and I remember to this day the expression on his face when he returned to Dublin having completed this dreadful duty.


Longford Scholar display at the lecture

I use these personal examples of two members of the security forces on either side of the border and of a person who the IRA claimed was a member because I had an insight to the grief left behind and to my knowledge nobody was held to account for these murders through the courts. So there is a huge “Justice Gap” for the families of the victims. Sir Hugh Orde’s Historic Cases Team (HCT) obviously filtered the evidence (for all the right reasons) and dealt with families of the victims on a 1-2-1 relationship basis and left it to these relatives of the victims to decide if they wished to make the evidence public. In doing this he did a great service in providing a measure of closure to the victims’ families for which he deserves full credit. My own feeling is that there is a bigger picture here and that the whole Island of Ireland needs closure, needs to know what happened and needs to move on. Is there a case for saying at a future date (2020?) that ALL the Police Files, ALL the Intelligence Files, NORTH and SOUTH, warts and all, mistakes and all, rubbish and all, need to be put into the public domain in a single searchable archive. This would undoubtedly be a highly controversial event and a double edged sword in the public perception but in the examples I’ve given what had happened to the three victims would be known and the public could make up its own mind about these events. I honestly believe that Ireland needs to endure such a catharsis before it can truly move forward – the past must no longer be a mystery.

The Longford Lecture is also the opportunity to present the Longford Award to organisations, often unknown and badly supported, who work with offenders, victims and their families. Inquest, a charity that has worked for more than 20 years with the bereaved families of those who have died in custody, has been awarded the 2009 Longford Prize, sponsored by The Independent and established as part of a trust in memory of the late Labour cabinet minister and outspoken prison reformer Lord Longford.


A Prison Cell

As well as its work with individuals, Inquest is also a lobbying organisation, recently persuading the Government to adopt many of its proposals for improving the coroners system so that it better serves the interests of all bereaved people. Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, said: "Our small dedicated team is delighted to receive this award for upholding the human rights of bereaved people. We hope that this award brings wider attention to and understanding of our important work."

We appreciated the impact of Inquest and its work at the reception afterwards. We were humbled to speak to a wonderful women they had helped and hear what she had gone through. As part of the strangely titled “Operation Safeguard” when Wandsworth Prison was being renovated her son was transferred to Bedford Prison. The son had been a heroin addict and Bedford could not care for him as it did not have a methadone replacement unit and he killed himself in his prison cell. She could not speak more highly of the help Inquest gave her family and for our part we were humbled by her courage and dignity.

Commendations were also awarded by the prize judges to Keyring's Working for Justice project, which supports individuals with learning difficulties in the criminal justice system, and to Junior Smart for his work with gangs to reduce knife crime.
As for Sir Hugh’s other legacy in Ireland? In the few short years following the Patten Commission, admirable strides were made under his leadership in turning a sectarian, divisive police force, with the perception of blood on its hands, into a democratic, accountable police service with the respect of much of the community.

Just as Northern Ireland still has a long journey ahead of it, the police service still faces challenges, and the prospect of further reform, as the remaining Patten Commission recommendations are implemented. Strong foundations have been laid for a solid police service. It is now in the hands of the various players in Northern Ireland to support these foundations, and the continued reform process, to deliver to the people of Northern Ireland a police, at their service. Sir Hugh left Ireland with his reputation enhanced as a “straight copper.” Let me tell you in the Irish context this was no mean achievement.

See also;

2007 Longford Lecture by Professor Mary McAleese, President of Ireland

“Changing History”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/longford-lecture-2007-changing-history.html

2008 Longford Lecture – debate by Sir Ian Blair, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Jason Warr and Phil Wheatley

“We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis”

http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/longford-lecture-2008-we-cant-build-our.html

For more about the work of the Longford Trust supporting prison reforms see;

http://www.longfordtrust.org/

Longford Lecture 2008 - We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis

Once again on a cold London night we proceeded across the yard of Church House, Westminster, to the Hall for this year’s “Longford Lecture” organised by the Longford Trust and sponsored by the excellent Independent Newspaper which is owned by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media. I mention this as the Celtic Sage has read the Independent and admired its non-aligned journalism (Its original strapline was “A Newspaper, not a Views Paper” – although some, including Tony Blair, would dispute this now) even before it was Irish owned. Tony O’Reilly has long been associated with the Ireland Fund and the support for the lecture is admirable.


Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham)

Lord Longford (Frank Pakenham) was from the Anglo-Irish tradition and remained sentimentally attached to Ireland even though he probably broke every tradition of his Anglo-Irish ascendancy family. He was born into a military, Protestant, Conservative and Unionist clan, and educated at Eton and New College, Oxford. As an adult, he embraced the Roman Catholic Church and Irish nationalism. His failure to follow his soldier father, who was killed at Gallipoli when Longford was nine, remained an open wound. Longford's memory will live on, if not for the scale of his achievements then certainly because of his courage, tenacity and nobility in trying. He was a man of great intelligence and moral strength and the speakers and themes of the “Longford Lectures” reflect his life’s work. Last year’s lecture was on the theme of “Changing History” by the President of Ireland, Professor Mary McAleese, (http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/longford-lecture-2007-changing-history.html ).

This year, as a one-off, the trustees decided to stage a debate, chaired by Jon Snow on the theme “We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis” The four principal speakers were Sir Ian Blair, Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Jason Warr, former Longford Scholar, now a Cambridge criminologist, and Phil Wheatley, director of NOMS, the National Offender Management Service.

This is the latest in the annual series of lectures organised by the Longford Trust on questions of social and penal reform. Past speakers have included President Mary McAleese of Ireland, Clive Stafford Smith, Brenda Hale QC, Cherie Booth QC, Archbishop John Sentamu and Archbishop Desmond Tutu. The Trust also awards an annual Longford Prize to an outstanding individual or organisation working in the field of prison and social reform. It funds Longford Scholarships for ex-prisoners who want to rebuild their lives through education. And it offers financial support to Inside Time, the national newspaper for prisoners.

Offenders sentenced to community punishments should be forced into uniform to restore flagging trust in the criminal justice system, Sir Ian Blair declared last night. In his first public appearance since his resignation a month ago, the outgoing Metropolitan Police Commissioner argued such sentences had to be shown to be effective to win public approval. Sir Ian also called for early intervention with youngsters to deter them from carrying knives and cast doubt on the drive to build more prisons.

Speaking at the annual Longford lecture he said: "One of the things we are going to have to do is move towards is the very unpalatable situation where community punishments are visible.”They are in uniform, on the streets, doing jobs and people can see people are being sentenced to community projects that do not seem very pleasant." He explained that the public needed to see that community punishments were not a soft option. He added: "If they don't understand it's happening they will want people locked up."


Sir Ian Blair

The Commissioner asked: "Why do so many people think prison is the only answer? An element of the media and political community argues that the only good thing is to lock them up and everything else is namby pamby." Sir Ian, who leaves his post on 1st December, refused to discuss the background to his departure or shed light on his plans. Turning to the spate of knife murders in London, he said: "We can't arrest our way out of this. The only way we can stop this is to stop young people believing they have to carry a knife for their protection."

The Government has drawn up plans to open another 10,000 prison places, with up to 7,500 in three "Titan" jails. But Sir Ian suggested prison should be reserved for violent and persistent criminals. The public had to be confident fines were paid and bail bandits were punished by prison, Sir Ian argued. They should also be informed about the outcome of local court cases.


Church House, Westminster

The Labour peer Baroness Kennedy, a leading human rights lawyer, attacked "Titan" jails plans, saying that large prisons were less effective than smaller jails at rehabilitating offenders and tackling suicide and self-harming among inmates. She condemned the booming prison population as a "shame" on the nation, stating that Britain had more prisoners per head than Libya. Lady Kennedy said: "There is no way we can build our way out of a prisons crisis. It is a shame on society that we have as many people in prison as we do. Since 1992 we have doubled the number of people in prison. We are the prison capital of Western Europe. We have seen a Dutch auction between the political parties about who is tougher."

Baroness Helena Kennedy QC

Phil Wheatley, director general of the National Offender Management Service, said he had no direct influence over the number of people behind bars. He argued that the size of prison estate was the result of politicians' and judges' decisions. But he acknowledged that the public tended to take a hard-line view on dealing with offenders and politicians had to take that into account. Before the lecture, Grendon Prison, near Aylesbury, Buckinghamshire, received the annual Longford Prize in recognition of its work in rehabilitating violent offenders through intensive group therapy.


Frank Longford said often during his life that he would like his epitaph to be ‘the outcasts' outcast’. It summed up a long career as a politician, writer and campaigner on social and prison policy which was all about standing up for the unpopular, the unloved, the underdog and those on the margins of society. He was first a minister in Clement Attlee’s post Second World War Labour government, where as Deputy Foreign Secretary he played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of West Germany. From 1964 to 1968, he was a member of Harold Wilson’s Cabinet.

He started visiting prisoners in 1930 and continued until his death. He was assistant to Sir William Beveridge on his landmark report of 1942 which laid the basis for the Welfare State. In 1956 he founded New Bridge, one of the first organisations in Britain seeking to create links between prisoners and the community, and in 1963 chaired the committee on crime whose recommendations led to the establishment of the parole system. On leaving the government, he launched New Horizon, a charity for young people in need.

The Pakenham Family have roots in both Ireland and England and have influenced both countries over the years. In Dublin they are commemorated in Longford and Aungier Streets and the former Pakenham Hall near Castlepollard in Co. Meath was renamed Tullynally (The Gaelic name) by Tom Pakenham (The current Lord Longford, although he does not use his titles) when he took it over in 1961. Tom Pakenham is himself an author and historian of note as are his sisters, Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Judith Kazantzis.


Tom Pakenham


Lady Antonia Fraser


Rachel Billington

The plight of the underdog motivated Frank Pakenham throughout his life and although he is associated in the public mind with his campaign to free the Moors Murderer Myra Hindley, many would argue she was an unworthy focus of his attention and obscured his wider message about penal reform, a concern which is even more pressing today when Britain, despite the evidence of failure, locks up proportionately more of its population than any other European Country.

In its bid to establish itself as the party of law or order, Tony Blair’s Labour government introduced a series of draconian measures, including a tougher sentencing policy for petty offenders. The fact remains that in the UK so many prisons are bad and most prisoners are not re-educated or rehabilitated but come out more corrupted and go onto re-offend. Of the current prison population of over 80,000 shamefully it is estimated that over one in eleven prisoners are ex-service personnel who have developed mental, alcohol or drug problems after leaving the forces and 8% are foreign prisoners. A high proportion of the convicts interviewed in the study had suffered some form of post-traumatic stress disorder after leaving the forces. Often their convictions were for drug- or alcohol-related violence. Ex-services charities said the findings highlighted the difficulty which many former soldiers face in making the transition to civilian life. The National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO), which carried out the research, called on the Government to do more to tackle mental health problems suffered by people who have fought in war zones. It said that around 24,000 veterans are either in jail, on parole or serving community punishment orders after having been convicted of crimes. They make up around nine per cent of the prison population.

The relative number of women prisoners is rising even more sharply than that of the male inmates—more than doubling since the mid-1990s. Twice as many women are jailed for their first offence compared to men, while few female offenders pose any threat to the public. The frequent imprisoning of mothers has an enormously disruptive effect upon their children and family life. One third of women imprisoned in British jails have children under the age of five.

Prison Inspector reports in some prisons show eleven per cent of inmates claimed to have been assaulted by officers at the jail and one mentally-disturbed prisoner had been denied a wash or change of clothes for weeks because staff thought he was faking his illness. The Prison Officers Association has said that because of understaffing at many prisons “they have been unable to provide the basics, like showers, clean clothes and mail, on a regular basis." They said this had also led to high levels of sick leave among officers. Their General Secretary commented; "At the end of the day cash is king and while there are votes in health and education, there are no votes in prisons, which means they will continue to be under-resourced," he said.

So the cause that Lord Longford espoused and which his charity and the Longford Lecture seek to remind us of is even more relevant than ever and Britain as a society remains challenged by the disconnect between cause and effect in its Penal Policy. As for Frank Pakenham himself we should remember the quality of his humanity and commitment to the underdog best, and affectionately, summed up by his daughter Judith Kazantzis in her introduction to the Longford Prize;


Judith Kazantzis

“While he had his strength, he never failed to answer the prisoners, often despairing and lonely, who appealed to him for practical help or just friendship. When I think back over the years to countless phone calls from unknown men, ringing to ask for Frank, or for Lord Longford, maybe to report progress on their case, or just to confide, I see how he was an inspiration from my student days, in the deepest sense: in his belief in equality and justice, those two pillars of a truly free society.

No one is less free than the prisoner. How simply I heard my father put this: how irrefutably. He said that society cannot go on punishing and punishing the prisoner, who is already punished with the loss of his freedom, with the key thrown away. The prisoner must be treated with human dignity. He or she absolutely must be offered the chance of a new life after prison.

My father drew every day until he died from the teachings of Jesus Christ. The prodigal son was a story we read to him on his deathbed. He himself was prodigal in his prison visits, often in the worst of weathers, seeing complex, long incarcerated people at the end of exhausting journeys. He was prodigal just as much in his public speaking out for reform of our prison system. I believe he had it right: to work for the individual, to fight for the wider change, like one hand holding the other hand.”