Tough at the top
Who on earth would want to be home secretary?
For years, Tory holders of that great office of state would quake when the phone rang late at night, fearing news of another prison break out or a riot. I don't know if prisoners are less revolting these days but Labour home secretaries seem more bothered by immigration rows.
Pity then Charles Clarke as he faces a double whammy - . Wonder too at his bravery or foolhardiness in , on the eve of the announcement.
It's so much easier commenting than governing!
I'm 
Comments
Ahhh, the ever revolving door of "The Media" vs "The Politicians"!
"The Media" create sensationalist headlines and ask impertinent questions so "The Politicians" stick ever more to the talking points and don't even attempt to answer the questions put to them ...
... or is it the other way around?!
Easier, perhaps - but no less important!
What's interesting is the job security enjoyed by civil servants. Let a thousand people out of jail without following correct procedure: no sign of a disciplinary hearing for anyone. Next time civil servants are complaining about their jobs they should remember this: an immunity to any punishment for gross error is quite a benefit.
I've asked my MP for details (without names) of the aftermath of similar scandals. All that I've been told is that ``lessons have been learnt''. For government employees, that means ``we don't care, we're right and you're wrong''.
I'll believe in government reform when I hear of sacking for foul-ups like this. Until then, the civil service is a lovely sinecure.
I've got no sympathy for someone who wants to control our lives via the National Identity Register and thinks anyone who does not want to be a part of his Stasi or Gestapo like database is foolish
How does this bode for the Secretary's love of the rationalisation of police forces and his new anti-terror laws? If the 91Èȱ¬ Office can't manage the current situation lord help us.
How is that that the department don't even know what some of these people were imprisoned for? Surely they'd only need to check the court records or the person's criminal record.
Then again, maybe they're classed as "essential workers" for the black economy!! After all, without criminals we'd have fewer police officers and targets for scaremongering.
I have no sympathy for Charles Clarke. The Executive's grab for power at the expense of our liberties is a disgrace of the highest order. It is typical of this cabinet that when faced with disagreement, and the government can't actually win the argument on its own merit (as with ID cards), they go on the attack. And to accuse the media of lies, spin and propaganda! The irony would be hysterical if the situation was not so serious.
Would it not be more profitable for the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary to concentrate on doing the really easy things that can help reduce crime, like deporting foreign criminals after they have been released from prison, rather than on creating a massive database to follow the rest of us, the majority of whom are innocent of wrongdoing, from cradle to grave using expensive and unproven technology? With the best will in the world, this is much more akin to what went on in the former communist states of Eastern Europe, and it is intellectually dishonest of Charles Clarke to pretend otherwise.
If only Clarke was a tough as he looks! I don't think murderers and rapists will ever be deported because the loony bleeding-heart brigade have a vested interest in keeping them here. They have a whole cottage industry in social services, hand-outs, etc. etc. for these vile creatures. Our money is wasted not only in supporting the rogues, but also in paying the salaries of these official do-gooders. When things go wrong, they whine their usual mantra "It's all the fault of Blair and Bush"!
Lets face it, it's another fine example of a bungling government minister in charge of a mess of negligent paper-pushers... and once again nobody's to blame! Amazing really. Shame nobody in government seems to have the faintest idea what they're doing.
If only Clarke was as tough as he looks. Rapists and murderers will not be deported back to their own countries, because there is a whole cottage industry out there getting salaries just to administer aid, money etc to these rogues. When all else fails, the bleeding heart brigade will bleat their usual mantra "It's all the fault of Blair and Bush"!
Blunkett and then Clarke have wasted no opportunity to preen before the cameras defending policies such as asylum vouchers and the housing of families in detention centres.
Each has been defended as the priority in tackling 'the problem' of asylum and immigration.
Now we learn that over 1,000 people who could easily have been removed (albeit without the opportunity to preen before the cameras) have been released and lost posing a threat to the public.
Does anyone really think Clarke is fit to continue in office?
'Liberal Democrat leader Sir Menzies Campbell said it was "extraordinary" that so many people convicted of serious offences had "simply disappeared".'
Come on man, either the state should be keeping track of citizens or it shouldn't. Which is it?
For a man who decries the media for distorting his statements, all we need to do is look at the facts.
1. Arrest and detention without trial
2. Identity register to be mandatory for all citizens
3. Attempts to bypass parliament for passing and amending laws - assurances that they won't be used disproportionately don't count, see voluntary id cards for evidence on that
4. victims of miscarriages of justice to have compensation removed. The state is never wrong and the individual will get over it!
5. Protesting outside parliament without permission is now illegal
Not sure I really need to continue...
After letting these 1000 individuals free, perhaps our 91Èȱ¬ Secretary is the first candidate for a Dangerous Person Order?
It's about time the 91Èȱ¬ and the rest of the media realised that they were not running the government. The power of the media without responsibility is intolerable. Let our elected representatives have their say unfettered by quangos like Nick Clarke's 91Èȱ¬.
Sympathy? For the man who introduced the most draconian legislation seen in the West since the Nazis came to power, and who then blames the media for rumbling him?
Clarke is a loathesome little bleater who has toadied his way from one job to another. He's only there because he's one of a handful of MPs Blair can still trust. I've seen him achieve absolutely nothing of substance and I'm fed up with his perpetual assaults on my liberties. ID cards, biometrics, no protesting outside Parliament (security, don'cherknow).
Why don't ministers ever take responsibility for their departments anymore?
If he was the Chief Executive of any of the Government agencies; or of a major PLC he would have resigned at once.
John asks whether or not the state should be keeping track of citizens. Whether or not it should be keeping track of citizens, it should be keeping track of criminals who were due for deportation, none of whom were citizens of the UK.
This is a resigning matter - why should we trust a 91Èȱ¬ Secretary to look after our private data, as he wishes to do, when he cannot even look after a group of people who are safely under lock and key?
I have no sympathy whatsoever for either this home secretary or the government.Only they can take ultimate responsibility for this debacle .To try a nd shunt responibility off to junior officials is just unbeleivable,but what we've come to expect of this increasingly dishonest corrupt and incompetent government.
I hear that the tories say Clarke should not resign because it was a situation that did not develop under his 'watch'.If that is the case then should the question we are all asking not be 'should the prime minister resign'?
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.
Pity the home secretary. But I bet the health secretary's having a good day.
Well, since he's said that he's not resigning I take it that it is only a matter of time before he does (as per Mandelson and Blunkett).
There was a time when the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary's own sense of honour, and that of the responsible officals, would have led them to resign. It seems that the spineless, shameless crew are determined to hang on to power, despite having loosed over a thousand murderers, thieves and rapists into our society. In these cirsumstances, Tony Blair should sack them,NOW,in order to maintain his own credibility. But I doubt that will happen either.
Dear Nick
Mr Clarke is famous for saying that there should be no limit on immigration, so I guess his reluctance to deport is consistent, although dangerous to the public in the case of 1000 criminals.
On this topic, 91Èȱ¬ Central News Oxford reported this evening that an immigrant has been jailed for importing his clan members into the UK, then classifying them as asylum seekers, then housing them at £350 per night per family. This is over the cost per night for the poshest Oxford hotel, and was paid unquestioningly by the authorities. He is now worth some £25 million, and got 4 years - so out fairly soon?
One wonders why this astonishing story did not make it to the national news? No one apparently is being deported.
I can remember the last government that started blaming the press... About nine or so years ago.
Nick: When did the home secretary KNOW about these accidental releases? For how long has he been covering this up?
Well, the obvious solution would be to make all foreign prisoners carry ID cards (they can sew postbags while in jail in lieu of the standard charge).
Then this could never happen.
kim
"Come on man, either the state should be keeping track of citizens or it shouldn't. Which is it?"
This is an easy question to answer. You see, according to Labour, anyone who refuses to be tracked by the state MUST be a criminal with something to hide.
Therefore we will have these prisoners back in no time
It is just another example of the gross incompetence of this administration. In 1997 with a huge majority, Blair had a once in a lifetime chance to properly reform public services - but he flunked it! Instead, Blair will be remembered for sleaze, incompetence and Government waste on an heroic scale. Surely the electorate now know what message to send the Government on May 4th.
This is a man who insists that we should trust him with the most valuable details of our lives: our identity.
How are we to trust him with that when he is unable to carry out what seems to me is the basics of his job?
I have lost faith not just with Clarke but this government.
John, you do realise these people aren't citizens don't you? If they were citizens, they wouldn't be foreign.
A different argument altogether.
Mr Clarke says it is important that he remains in post to sort this mess out. I, however, think it is about time we had someone vaguely competent in charge to deal with the twin issues of immigration and the Prison Service. Clearly we don't at the moment and he should clear his desks.
Prisoners dont have to be less revolting these days. Just wait a few weeks into you sentence and Labour home secretaries will let you out!
No wonder they seem more bothered by immigration rows!
Clark should not resign unless he made personal mistakes. If the Civil Service made the error then they should get the chop. The idea of resigning when other's have made mistakes belongs to another century. The 91Èȱ¬ Office is not run by Mr Clark but by the Permanent secretary and his assistants. The same man who had told the House of Commons committe that the situation conserning these prisoners was being dealt with.
Unlike many of your contributors by e mail I have every sympathy with Mr Clarke as I had with Mr Blunkett
Being 91Èȱ¬ Secretary is an extremely difficult job and the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary has been let down by his civil servants and the person/s responsible for the lapses from time to time should face a public grilling and not leave the 91Èȱ¬ Secretary to stew in Civil Service juice
I continue to be a proud Labour Party individual member and support Blair and his ministers.in their tough jobs
The key statement in all this mess was made at lunch time today.
Each of the Departments concerned in this fiasco are "Agencies".
From past experience, various departments of government protect their territories against all comers.
I imagine "independent" Agencies within a department do this in spades!
Who was it that talked about "joined up government"?
Charles Clarke has been hoist by his own petard.
He moans about the unfairness of the media, but if it wasn't for the same said media, we the electorate, would not have found out about the scandalous release of the aliens; rapists, murderers, drug trafficers and violent criminals who have not been deported on their release from prison. In all probability not having served the full term.
Schadenfreunde.
In all the protestations over the John Prescott affair that it is a private matter surely one truth is missing.
We elect our politicians to use good judgement in the management of the country, whatever their ministerial brief. Where that judgement in whatever arena is shown to be flawed does that not bring into question their right to represent us?