London - Tory leader Mr William Hague yesterday clashed with the Lord Chief Justice over penal policy, saying combating crime demanded a higher prison population.
Lord Woolf urged politicians to avoid playing the "prison card", promising ever greater use of imprisonment as a crime fighting measure.
He said custodial sentences were not always in the public interest and community-based sentences could be more effective.
But Mr Hague laid out the case for even greater use of prison sentences, attracting criticism also from other parties and penal reformers.