A shoe-fixing, key-cutting radical: why Labour’s new prisons minister is perfect for the job | Simon Hattenstone

James Timpson hires ex-offenders and thinks many prisoners shouldn’t be in jail. His approach could be transformative

For those unconvinced that prime minister Keir Starmer really wants to fix Britain, look no further than his appointment of James Timpson as prisons minister. Timpson, chief executive of the eponymous family business best known for shoe fixing and key making, is not an MP and has been parachuted into the job by Starmer with a peerage and a seat in the Lords.

We’ve seen this done recently, but in a cronyist Conservative way that diminished the reputation of politics. Rishi Sunak lobbed David Cameron into the Lords so he could appoint him foreign secretary. But there is a big difference. Cameron was the discredited former prime minister who had enabled Brexit, helped destroy the country, then “scuttled off” to France to put “his trotters up” (in the words of Danny Dyer).

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