Tough on the causes of populism

Yet again, I find myself agreeing with Harry, who seems to remember what the Labour Party used to stand for in some cases:

Look, I was one of those who thought "tough on crime, tough on the causes of crime" was a good slogan. Working class people are the main victims of crime and especially of violent crime.

But when your sole message in an election is about crime, when you have nothing else in the issues section of your website than smashing teen gangs etc and when you are attacking your opponents for considering a policy that probably most of your party's members would agree with (and bringing the memory of Jamie Bulger and the words of his mother into it) then you are going beyond a rejection of soft on crime and entering into the realms of a very unpleasant authoritarian populism.