Why didn’t they do it during their 14 years in government? Do your writers have selective amnesia?
From May 2010 to April 2024, net operational prison capacity increased by just 482 places, about 0.5%. By comparison, capacity grew by thousands of places over comparable periods in previous decades, and by 27,830 places between 1997 and 2010.
So yes, the Conservatives appear to have produced one of the weakest prison-capacity records of the post-war era, and now we’re supposed to forget all that because they’ve suddenly discovered a plan for 50,000 places.
The public are not goldfish.