The recent violence in Middlesbrough beggars belief. Nine people have died: seven in a horrific car crash and two - a seven-year-old girl and her aunt - in a house fire.Multiple cars have been rammed into people’s houses, a man was stabbed two miles from that crash site and other cars have been set on fire. All this in the space of a week.These events have been horrifying enough in themselves. But they also raise serious questions about the kind of country we want to be – and, in turn, whether our Prime Minister is up to the job of shaping it.Is Andy Burnham a man of action, prepared to take the tough decisions that will upset his benefits-obsessed backbenchers? Or is he a man of ‘vibes’, who merely wants to make Britain feel better?Readers will be well aware that, last Saturday morning, PC Matthew Blades, 37, and PC Tom Clough, 38, were killed in a head-on crash on the A66. They went out to protect the public and never came back.In the other car were five young men, speeding the wrong way down a dual carriageway. Four of them had criminal records, boasting 37 previous convictions between them including shoplifting, vehicle theft, assaults on police officers and knife possession.As I write, and following the subsequent criminality I outlined above, hundreds of police officers have been sent to Middlesbrough amid fears the disorder might escalate. Yet this crackdown comes too late. Andy Burnham knows how unpopular his government’s plan for the early release of prisonersIf repeat offenders aren’t properly punished, their criminality is only likely to worsen. Simon Clarke, the Conservative ex-MP for Middlesbrough South and East Cleveland, tells me that police warned him for years about young men terrorising estates by riding motorbikes and quad bikes through them at extraordinary speeds.In Hemlington, to the south of Middlesbrough, police told Simon that children as young as ten were running gangs, with even eight and nine-year-olds being drawn into criminality.Behind this everyday lawlessness lurks something far more serious: international organised crime, with Middlesbrough caught up in a drugs trade feeding towns and cities across the North.Yet when I think of Middlesbrough, I think of the docks and heavy industry, Middlesbrough FC and the late writer Rod Liddle, who was so proud of his hometown.And while it’s true that the loss of heavy industry, especially steel-making, has ushered in deprivation to this once-proud region, no one should fall into the trap of suggesting that deprivation could ever excuse criminality.Ben Houchen, who has been the Conservative Tees Valley Mayor since 2017 – winning his historic third term in 2024 – has been calling for years for Cleveland Police to be given the resources they need. Ben has rightly stressed that the solution to the region’s problems is twofold: to deal sharply and swiftly with any criminality and, just as importantly, to back businesses to create jobs.Of these two, crime is the most immediate concern. Middlesbrough needs action – and that is what Andy Burnham should be delivering by putting criminals in jail and more police on the streets.On the same estates affected by joyriding and other crimes, people get up every morning to go to work, often for modest wages. Parents try to keep their children away from gangs and crime.Vicars, local councillors and countless other good people try to hold their neighbourhoods together. Many are frightened: they know who is responsible for the trouble and see what happens to those who speak out.Middlesbrough has, in the words of its ex-MP Simon Clarke, become a ‘slow-burn disaster’. Because it is not a fashionable place like London or Manchester, problems that would have caused a national scandal in those cities have been allowed to fester there. I do not pretend that these issues appeared when Labour came to power. Some go back a long way, to a time when Conservatives were in government, too.There is plenty of blame to go around. But better than looking where to lay the blame is to ask what needs to change now. Is Andy Burnham a man of action, prepared to take tough decisions? Or is he a man of ‘vibes’, who merely wants to make Britain feel better? writes Kemi BadenochThe first thing is to ensure that would-be offenders know that serious crime will be properly punished – and that they will go to prison for a long time if convicted.Andy Burnham knows how deeply unpopular is his government’s plan for the early release of prisoners. He has tried to distance himself from the policy – which could see thousands of offenders let out before serving their full sentences from October – and has discussed pausing the scheme as it is ‘reviewed’.But talk is cheap and a review is a delaying tactic.If we want to know what kind of man Burnham is, let’s see of if he stops Labour’s early-release programme on Tuesday, when Parliament returns.Labour claims that the issue is merely one of overcrowding. In fact, it’s about far more than that.The real question is: who should carry the consequences when the State runs out of prison spaces? Innocent people in places such as Middlesbrough? Victims of sexual abuse who see their attackers freed? The families of men like PC Andrew Harper, killed in Berkshire in 2019 by three teenagers who might now be released early?My answer is simple. When the State fails in areas like this, it’s the State that should carry the consequences.If the choice is between the Government managing overcrowded prisons and ordinary people seeing dangerous offenders released back into their neighbourhoods, I believe the Government should deal with the overcrowding by any legal means necessary. It is extraordinary that there should even be a debate about this.People who live in places already suffering from high rates of crime should not be made to suffer even more risk, just because ministers of all parties have failed to provide enough prison capacity.Unreformed criminals need to remain in prison longer, for the protection of everyone else.Mr Burnham needs to recognise that he is not the ‘Mayor of the United Kingdom’, but the Prime Minister. Mayors enjoy the luxury of being able to focus on minor local issues. PMs do not. If he believes the early-release policy is wrong, he should cancel it and stop faffing about, as he has all summer.Burnham’s main political strength is that he is good at talking about politics in a way that sounds optimistic and reassuring after those grim years of Keir Starmer. There is nothing wrong with optimism: Britain could do with more of it. But optimism is not a plan.As Leader of the Opposition, my job is to hold this government to account on behalf of the country.People will not judge Andy Burnham on whether his announcements cheered them up. They will judge him on whether their streets have become safer and whether the problems they could see all around them have actually been fixed.Middlesbrough is the place for that test to begin. Two police officers, and other innocent people, have lost their lives. Families are grieving. A town already struggling with crime and intimidation has been forced into the national spotlight for all the wrong reasons.The decent majority living in Middlesbrough are precisely the people I am standing up for. They have put up with this sort of misery for long enough.They deserve to know that the law means something and that the criminal minority will no longer be allowed to dominate their neighbourhoods.It’s time for some common sense – and proper consequences for criminal behaviour, before we see even more tragedies like those in Middlesbrough.Andy Burnham wants Britain to feel different: I want it to be different. And that is the plan my team is ready to deliver whenever Burnham calls his early election – as I strongly believe he will.