A cut to welcome? A good case has been made for halving prison numbers

It is not often that the Chancellor’s plans to slash a government department’s spending get a hearty cheer from a liberal or left-of-centre corner. But George Osborne has found an unexpected, not to say unlikely, ally in the shape of the Howard League for Penal Reform, which says that cutting the prison population by about half would shave at least a quarter off the justice ministry’s budget, neatly meeting Mr Osborne’s financial target for non-ringfenced departments.