Now it's our loss of faith in justice that needs 'fixing Some politicians - especially on the Left, but also the new breed of Magna Carta Tories who have become disproportionately obsessed by civil liberties - take ill-concealed delight in the discomfiture of the police. The Prime Minister is emphatically not among them. It is too often forgotten that Cameron cut his Whitehall teeth not only at the Treasury, working for Norman Lamont, but also as special adviser in the mid-Nineties to Michael Howard, who redefined and transformed the role of Home Secretary. In Howard's view, it was no longer politically feasible or morally defensible to treat the job as managerial: the Home Secretary had to address the public's growing frustration with the justice system. True Tory modernisers are uncompromisingly tough on law and order. This robustness is the flipside of the compassion at the heart of Cameron's vision of the "Big Society," but has barely been given expression during the Coalition era to spare the feelings of the Lib Dems. The appointment of Ken Clarke as Justice Secretary in May 2010 gave Nick Clegg his "sixth Lib Dem Cabinet member," but was also at odds with the needs of the time. Chris Grayling is much better suited to the role, and was pleasantly surprised on arrival to discover that Clarke had not done as much as he feared: liberal rhetoric had not been matched by liberal action. The task for Grayling and Theresa May, the Home Secretary, is a huge one, made more challenging by the political realities of Coalition and the fiscal realities of 2013. Between them, they must do more with less; make the police more accountable, more visible and more responsive; build more prisons and declare (as Howard did) that prison works; make rehabilitation complementary to, rather than a substitute for, punishment; open up the probation system; and reform the prosecution service. It is a formidable inventory, at least as demanding as Michael Gove's education reforms or Iain Duncan Smith's welfare revolution. At its core must be a campaign of persuasion, and one that will take many years. In all sorts of ways, the citizen has lost confidence that the system operates on his behalf and in his interests. Grayling's announcement at last year's Tory conference that householders will have the right to fight back against burglars addressed at last a deep sense of resentment that the criminal's interests were better protected than his victim's. It is no less important that a black man feels he can walk the streets or drive his car without being stopped arbitrarily; and that the victim of an assault by a celebrity who has the courage to come forward not be told that she will be crushed in court. In some areas, greater toughness is required; in others, much greater sensitivity. At all times, the objective must be to enhance public trust in the system. In several great American cities, this has been achieved by a nuanced combination of zero tolerance and excellent links with community organisations. Small wonder that Cameron was keen to hire Bill Bratton, the former police chief in New York and Los Angeles, to take over the Met - only to be thwarted by Home Office regulations. But the fact that the PM seriously considered the idea shows how keen he is to administer shock therapy. If Cameron gets the second full term that he wants - at the helm of a fully Conservative government - you can count on law and order and the justice system being central to its strategic objectives. The Savile affair has shed grim light on procedures, systems and cultural assumptions that are woefully inadequate. It has further eroded trust in institutions that depend absolutely upon public support and collaboration. What a grotesque irony that a man who made his name supposedly "fixing it" did nothing but break everything he touched. But in the end, the power of celebrity trumped the majesty of the law: that is a bleak admission for any society to make. The nation's jester made fools of us all, identifying and exploiting the weaknesses in the system with ruthless success. In the absence of true justice, the only honourable response - beyond contrition and reviews - is to repair that system, and confidence in it, as if starting from scratch.