TONY Blair is right. There is a growing gap between the criminal justice system and what the public expects from it.

He is also right that politicians and the legal establishment are "in denial" about the need for meaningful action to close that gap.

It sounds like a speech being made by a Prime Minister at the start of his time in Downing Street and, if it was, it would be easier to accept.

But it is a speech being made by a Prime Minister who has had a decade in power and, therefore, has to accept his share of the criticism.

He is, after all, the Prime Minister who famously pledged to be tough on crime and the causes of crime and it is a mantra which has been repeated over and over again.

The Northern Echo has for years argued that there is an imbalance between the rights of criminals and the rights of victims of crime. And, in yesterday's speech in Bristol, Mr Blair accepted that the imbalance is unacceptable.

Far too often, law-abiding people are left trying to work out why the criminal justice system lets them down because sentences don't fit the crime.

The common perception is that it is too easy for the minority of law-breakers to get away with it while the majority live by the rules of society.

Mr Blair is right again when he says that there has been a lack of a proper, considered debate about liberty and human rights. It is a debate which could and should have been held a decade ago.

But there must be much more than mere talk if the gap between the criminal justice system and public expectation is to be closed.