Michael Gove is a true reformer. Liberals should be cheering him on | Martin Kettle

The justice secretary’s language on prisons is a world away from his tough-talking predecessors’

The first Conservative party conference debate on law and order I covered as a journalist was in Blackpool in 1981. It was the one at which Margaret Thatcher vigorously applauded a delegate from Crewe who called for Tory MPs to be deselected for voting against hanging, and at which a delegate who warned the Tories against flirting with racism was howled down by the audience.

It was also the conference at which, in a moment that will never be forgotten by anyone who was present, Edwina Currie, in those days merely a publicity-crazed Birmingham councillor in search of a safe Tory seat, came to the rostrum, waved a set of handcuffs at home secretary William Whitelaw, aroused a bat’s squeak of desire in the watching Lord Gowrie, and said, to wild applause: “Let me make one thing clear. I’m not concerned about prisoners’ welfare. You know, perhaps I should be, but I’m not.”

Related: Michael Gove should take this opportunity to give prisoners a vote | Joshua Rozenberg

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