Will Burnham fix our barbaric prisons – or cave to rightwing populism? The answer is a tragedy | Simon Jenkins

England and Wales’s prisons are overcrowded, drug-infested and barbaric. Labour has halted a once-in-a-generation effort to change that sorry state Andy Burnham’s “pausing” of the Starmer government’s prisoner release scheme and the resignation of its architect, James Timpson, are disasters. They indicate a Downing Street that puts populism ahead of policy. England and Wales’s prisons are a total disgrace. Timpson was the first justice minister in 15 years prepared to handle them. Now he has…