91Èȱ¬

It’s all to easy to criticise the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary it is arguably the most difficult job in Government and the fact that is constant interference from Downing Street does not help matter ditto the constant criticisms from papers such as the Daily Mail. In my view Charles Clarke has been one of the better and most articulate Cabinet Ministers of recent times. I personally believe the 91Èȱ¬ Office does too much it has to organise the Police, MI5, Prisons and the various organisations such as the Passport Office and Immigration etc. Is it any wonder that things are missed? Perhaps it would be better to take the Terrorism brief away and set up a terrorism department that encapsulated MI5, MI6 and GCHQ. That way the 91Èȱ¬ Office could fully focus on internal matters such as the Police and Prisons.

I do not believe Charles Clarke should resign the current scandal was in operation before he took office as 91Èȱ¬ Secretary and was going on in the time of Straw and Blunkett. What exactly would be achieved by Clarke resigning? Apart from the media getting a prize scalp? I sincerely hope that Clarke stands his ground and the media offer some balanced reporting on this story. Also I believe there was a great deal of truth in some of the comments Clarke made in his speech to the LSE last night and his rebuttal to Carr of the Independent.

Good interview Nick, but like all government ministers Clarke clings on to office with Blair's backing. The only proper apology is for Clarke to resign. What confidence can there be in that man sorting out the shambles over which he has presided and his department tried to cover up?

Good interview, but a little bit more focused on resignation than I would personally have chosen. That's not unusual though, and it's the question we always hear asked. The little game is that the other party leaders ask for an admission of guilt, and an apology. This is of course perfectly reasonable, except move two is to say, in light of the apology, that their position has become untennable.

The sad and worrying thing is that the pool from which to choose cabinet ministers is actually quite small. How many of those who could be chosen are actually competent enough to do this extraordinarily difficult job? I wonder how many of them we've gone through in recent years.

Every time a minister is torpedoed, it does nobody any good (unless they really have been grossly incompetent). The new incumbent will need to get up to speed on a hugely complex department with many serious and difficult issues in-progress. They will no doubt feel they need to make their mark, and will change for change's sake. Not ideal really, if Clarke is actually doing an ok job.

Because there are so few who are at this level of capability in any government, we end up at times with a revolving door; a short period of disgrace then reinstatement elsewhere. Tragically, in some cases we see people who are gifted and passionate about their portfolio returned to the back benches permanently.

In this case, I hope he survives, if for no other reason than continuity.

Am I alone in wondering whether the timing of this disclosure has anything to do with the problems Mr Blair is having with the NHS.

Not being cynical at all, I couldn't possibly assume that this issue has arisen at the very time that the government is trying to keep a lid on the results of their micro-management of the NHS and is looking for ways of bumping it off the front pages...

Oh, look, that's what's happened!

I think there has been implicit xenophobia in the emphasis of the coverage of this issue, and I'm very disappointed to see it in this interview.

Why is there a "real issue of public safety" here, the question posed in the interview? If there was an issue of public safety posed by the people in question, then they should not have been released from prison in the first place. But if they have served their sentence, why are they any more a risk to the public than any British national who has committed murder or rape, and served the sentence for such?

Is there a real risk here, just that nobody will ask questions beyond the snappy soundbites? Are foreigners being given shorter sentences than British nationals for equivalent crimes, under the assumption that they would then be deported? Nobody has said as much.

Or is it just that we are supposed to be more worried about the safety of the British public than of the safety of the public in whatever country these people should have been deported to?

He had the bare-faced (or should that be stubble-faced) cheek to say that he had a duty to the public to stay on and put things right. When Humberside Chief Constable Westwood wanted to stay on to put things right (after the Soham murders), Clarke's predecessor Blunkett overrode the police authority and made Westwood retire using the full force of the law. This government is beneath contempt.

Nick

Have you considered (or did you forget to ask!) that maybe the prisoners in question bankrolled the Labour Party?

Kyle

Nick, I'm not sure I've grasped this story fully. The focus in the coverage seems to be on the fact that 'murderers', 'rapists' and 'paedophiles' are free to walk among us having been released from jail.

But isn't the idea of the justice system that once people have served their sentences they're free?

If the problem is that these people are illegal immigrants who should have been deported, then let's focus on that. Surely our society is riddled with various ex-convicts, the vast majority of them getting on with their lives having served their time.

Does any minister in this government have no shame? Have they never heard of the phrase, 'the buck stops here'?

It used to be that if a prison warder left his keys down and prisoners escaped, the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary would resign. Here we have the 91Èȱ¬ Office itself failing to process prisoners properly, and yet who is accountable? Things really are changing!

It's not just that Clarke isn't up to his job, it's the contempt shown to English people who have to suffer these fools and their PC agenda. ALL of these criminals should be deported so they can't rape, rob, or assault another GB citizen. Yes, they've served some time, but that doesn't give them the right to disappear into the night with nothing more than a shrug of the shoulders and a DSS cheque. They came to England for a chance, an opportunity, and they broke the deal. They murdered, stole, dealt drugs, and abused women, children and our hospitality. It's time they left, and took Clarke with them. If they leave on a bike, maybe Cameron can go too.

Hello,
Off topic by a mile I know, but I must have my rant. The red shift away from political choice in this nation state of Britain leaves our politicians just minding the shop. Politics for the people to engage is dead. We are already in the politics of the future, will the only choice remaining be to select the teams colours? (if that?) You and your employer are seen as an integral part of the disengagement process, it seems the only political system left for the people of Britain is the Nepal model.

Release of foreign inmates instead of deporting is not just down to the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary but also down to the Head of the Prison Service and the head of the Immigration Service. These people are senior civil servants on huge salaries and pensions and are virtually untouchable. They should carry the can as they have presided over this problem for longer than the current 91Èȱ¬ Secretary

Apparently, since Charles Clarke first became aware of the situation, hundreds of these prisoners have been released without being considered for deportation.

I like Charles Clarke, I think he speaks of lot of good sense but he has to resign.

A good day for John Prescott to admit he’s been unfaithful to his wife of 44 years?

Hi Nick and your readers. There's no point in shouting about incompetence; the evidence is there for everyone to see. I don't blame Charles Clarke but last night he also admitted it costs taxpayers £380 million per year to keep the 10,000 foreign prisoners in our prisons when many should have been deported. This government seems to be unable to concentrate on the bigger picture and there seems to be so many things they have ignored or got wrong whilst they devote their energies to soundbite politics. Perhaps it is time we the electorate tell them what we think.

You must now link 91Èȱ¬ office competence, and ability to know what is going on with a National Identity Register (NIR).

For a NIR to work (which I don't think it will) you need to update records and keep a database current. Clearly, the government cannot do this, and they are going to spend billions trying.

Finally 500 immigration HR officers and the fact that they cannot sign off their accounts is a farce in fact the whole dept is a farce, and Clarke has to go.

Three things puzzle me over this Clarke story Nick.
1. Does this signal that no minister will ever again have to resign for anything that happens in their department?
2. Will the story change if and when we get a 'Willie Horton' moment - ie "They freed the man who went on to rape me"
3. Is it a pure coincidence that John Prescott's affair story comes out on the same day? Truly a good day to bury bad news.

Nick - surely today (Wednesday 26th April) is the day to say to Tony Blair at his press conference - 'Prime Minister - The NHS; Loans for peerages; The 91Èȱ¬ Secretary 'losing' 1000 potentially dangerous criminals; John Prescott with enough time on his hands to have an affair, etc, etc - surely the government is now in chaos and can't take any more bad news?'

We are told that one of the results of the 'Great Escape' is that these people now offer a threat to society. But they've served their time. Doesn't the same argument apply to domestic prisoners who are released?

I wonder how long it will be before 91Èȱ¬ Secretaries actually have the freedom to act according to their own consciences as opposed to the whims of the media maelstrom.

The truth remains that the British public is still predominantly conservative and 'penal' in respect to its views on criminal justice. The majority still favours penalties which in other European nations would be considered unproductive or even 'backward'.

And I suppose I am one of those backward individuals.

I think essentially people in the UK are fed up with reading more and more stories of criminals getting a comfy ride as a result of the countless loopholes and flaws in our justice system which are abused to the full by canny defence lawyers and the liberal-left.

But then again...with the recent nonsense of freeing foreign criminals by the current administration perhaps it would be more apt to speak not of some conspiracy promulgated by a shadowy bunch of tree huggers but of failings on the part of the populist centre right!

Yours,

David Madden.

The incompetence. The inefficiency. The Quagmire of confusion and bureaucratic fingerpointing. How long must we put up with this lame duck (or, more accurately, grizzly bear) of a 91Èȱ¬ Secretary, in office but not in power?

It is discomforting to think that this man, who clearly has little control over his department, is charged with protecting London from more terrorist outrage.

Oh for the days when Michael Howard was 91Èȱ¬ Secretary...

Probably going off on a tangent here, but I wonder if the Human Right Act allows the automatic deportation of foreign inmates?

This governments incompetence knows no bounds,eventualy whatever government is in power they are going to have to listen to the British people.Especially when it concerns imigration and asylum and the criminal element that comes with it.

Mr Speaker,
I think it is important that the right honorable gentleman for Norwich South leave with no stain of impropriety against him whatsoever. He has performed his job under circumstances which, frankly, would have daunted the rest of us.
Thank You.

So he does think it's a resigning matter it's just that Tony doesn't!

Mind you, you can see Tony's problem - who of any talent in the Parliamentary Labour Party would want to join his rotten and sinking cabinet?

The game looks just about up now.

Isn't there a further point to this scandal that has so far been missed ?

It is said that most of these ex-prisoners cannot presently be found. Given that some at least of these individuals must have been released on some form of licence under one or other of the early release/parole schemes shouldn't these individuals be subject to the supervision of the Probation service and so capable of being found without difficulty ?

If they can't be found isn't this yet another serious failing ?

Good grief, after reading the full story of John Prescott's flirting activities in The Mirror there is one GLARINGLY obvious question. He must have little time left over for work - what is he paid for???

On the topic of ministerial resignation, I tripped over a OPDM document (www.odpm.gov.uk/index.asp?id=1143524) which was the report of a working party on the Crichel Down Rules.

To my total lack of surprise, once the civil service mandarinese was stripped away, the report boiled down to "these guidelines stop us doing what we want to do, we should be rid of them."

Generally our Civil Servants do a good job and I have worked with some in HSA and DfT whom I have really admired. And the Civil Service must not be placed at risk from political whim.

But when there are failures, action needs to be taken quickly.

Remember Doug Smith who "had been moved on from CSA" and how surprised we all were to see him still there "handing over" months later?

If the 91Èȱ¬ Office cannot be trusted on this, how on earth can we trust them to run the ID card scheme and national register?

So Nick is predicting the downfall of Charles Clarke, just as he predicted the resignations of Tessa Jowell and Ruth Kelly.
I remember his grinning face on the 91Èȱ¬ news every evening, telling us all that they could not survive, it was a matter of time. And here we are this time with Charles Clarke the subject of Nick's attentions.
Well Nick, your judgement was spectacularly wrong on the last two occasions. They did not go, in spite of your strenuous efforts to help it along.
So we will see him this evening, with his boyish presentations, appealing to the school teacher that his homework is worthy of a gold star: the minister must go says Nick.
You've been wrong twice now, and iI think you will be again, although I can just imagine your grin if, this time, you have got it right.

I think Joseph has raised some interesting points (about the perception of foreign prisoners being released into the community, as opposed to British prisoners; also, the issue of rehabilitation of offenders).
I don't really understand though how the various departments within the 91Èȱ¬ Office managed to cock it up so badly for so long. Surely if a prisoner is foreign (and this must be known to the authorities), it should be on one's records so deportation becomes automatic (unless, I suppose, an appeal is pursued).

Given that the problem of foreign prisoner release has been known about for some time, via various inspector of prison reports and select committee hearings. Surly the opposition has to ask themselves why the subject was not raised by them at PM questions or the many opportunities to question the 91Èȱ¬ Secetary. They are as guilty as Charles Clarke of taking their eye off the ball.
David Davis makes great play of the number of 91Èȱ¬ Secetaries he has shadowed why was he not aware of the problem.

Lots of Labour Ministers will not be entitled to vote in today's English Local Elections, since they live in Scotland under a totally different Parliament and local authority system. This surely highlights the ongoing injustice that they CAN and DO vote on exclusively English policies in Parliament.

This institutional injustice seems of little interest to our political classes.

Should Gordon or Ming be Prime Minister of the UK, tainted as they are by this democratic deficit?

What I cannot understand is that we are repeatedly told that we live in a democracty. Does anyone really want ever increasing taxes and unfair council tax. I think the vast majority do not but the polititians keep forcing them on us. Polititians do not want to comment when things go wrong. It is their job to comment as that is what they are paid for. If my boss asks me about his businss I have to account. Polititians are looking after our business and should account to us not themselves. Blair appears to consider he is a law unto himself. Let us hope it pays dearly for his arrogance at the polls tonight. It is about time we got rid of these. The sleeze, the incompetence, the corruption. These make the Conservatives look like amatures when it comes sleeze and spin.