Earlier today I said what a nice bloke Home Office Minister Tony McNulty is. That's as may be but he's a leading light in a government department which is shambolic and incompetent. So far as I can see its incompetence isn't anything recent - it stretches back a long way, but whatever the situation was in 1997 this lot have had ten years to get it right.
The latest shambles revolves around people convicted of sex offences abroad not being put on the sex offenders register. That's something they can't even try to blame the Conservatives for. It's happened on their watch and they'd better take responsibility for.
In the end this is all about leadership. Jack Straw failed to provide it, David Blunkett tried (I am currently reading his diaries) but in the end failed and Charles Clarke was, in the end, overwhelmed. John Reid will make a statement at 12.30pm today and I hope he will be torn apart by David Davis. This is no time for any pussyfooting by the Opposition. Davis should rip him apart, from ear to toe and then devour him for his lunch.
28 comments:
Want chili sauce with that mate?
Well, we'll see. But if forced to bet the house would go on Reidy. Your boy has a glass jaw.
I agree, Ministers like McNulty deserve it because they choose to serve in an inherently flawed regime.
The root causes of these problems is the fact that each Ministry is driven by Downing Street and the Consultant's agenda and not that department's main responsibilities.
It leads to a culture where "normal activities" get overlooked and "today's big idea" gets all the focus.
McNulty chooses to go along with it and must therefore suffer the consequences.
A lovely idea, but it ain't going to happen. If it was a fist fight then I know who my money would be on - Reid is the smartest streetfighter of them all. And if the fists don't get ya, then 'the heid' will, alright sonny?
Iain: 'David Blunkett tried (I am currently reading his diaries)'
What sort of Leadership would you expect from a man like Blunkett? A serial womaniser, a self-serving, snivelling incompetent with snout and all four trotters in the trough.
Is this fink really a 'Leader'?
As to reading his diaries, well one might do this for the sake of improving one's historical perspective, but only with the smelling salts to hand. Alternatively is this some form of masochism or penance on your part?
I cannot bear to hear or read any more of this man's obscene utterances - unlike yourself. You're obviously a man of steel, Iain.
Why DD might wish to devour any portion of Reid's anatomy is way beyond me...
I don't think The Conservatives will do much.......they are part of this conspiracy to make the public despair........
I also hope Dr Reid gets quizzed on the following.
MI5, the Security Service, part of whose remit is supposed to be giving protection advice against electronic attacks over the internet, is sending all our personal details from the email registrations (forename, surname and email address) unencrypted to commercial third party e-mail marketing and tracking companies which physically and legally in the jurisdiction of the United States of America, and is even not bothering to make use of the SSL/TLS encrypted web forms and processing scripts which are already available to them.
http://thejournal.parker-joseph.co.uk/blog/_archives/2007/1/10/2637047.html
A man reading the Blunkett diaries !
Sounds like a candidate for the 'Scenes you seldom see' cartoon...
Iain, don't read Blunkett's "book" - it's terrible. You'll regret the waste of time and energy which you could save up for your old age.
Once again, another wide-open goal but can the Opposition make capital? What happened to Reid's '100 days' to sort things out? It was just mair shite that he's good at spouting. This is another clear example of Labour's incompetent performance whilst talking a good game. Look at all the departments that they have damaged - health, education, the Armed Forces, etc. The Public Interest is being compromised again, anf HF has hit the nail on the head as to why.
By the way, McNulty might be a Nice Chap, but he gives me the distinct impression that he has reached his level of incompetence, and is trying very hard to maintain it.
Wishful thinking so far..
Somebody,(Dennis Skinner) commented,"That was a damp squib" at the end of DD's first effort, and so it was.
Reid is currently doing a rottweiler on DD, not only using hard facts, but delivering them with calm confidence.
He answered the criticisms substantively and unequivocally, something his leader seems unable to do.
John Reid is still a player,given today's performance, and I would not bet against him joining the leadership race.
Blair dribbled out the usual shite at PMQs and DC sounded stilted and lacking in energy.
I listened to one of the junior Home Office ministers on Radio 4 this morning, it was pitiful stuff. Her shambolic performance merely reflected the even more shambolic goings on in the Home Office.
Should we not wait until we hear the facts of the case? I for one do not believe any criminal justice agency as they are all fighting to stop necessary changes to practice. They all seem to resent a Home Secretary criticising their performance and one wonders about the motives of ACPO?
DD has glass jaw as predicted. No wonder JR scares the bejeezus out of so many Tories.
I favoured David Davis over Cameron for the Leadership and still think he would have been better; but as time goes by I think he is becoming a very much diminished assets in Camp Cameron and I have little faith that the Tories would be any more competent than the current shower.
Personally, I am coming to wonder if any political party can sort out the mess which is significantly worse than in 1976 when at least we had a country, British companies, Armed Forces, and no fear of being subsumed into an EU Constitution..........and we had border controls paid for by the Communists
We would love to gear the facts of any case of government incompetence but hell will freeze over before this government admits a mistake or takes responsibility.
They will be lucky to finish third in the next general election.
There is no clear reason to believe that Reid is to blame based on the patchy details from the stories coming out.
The government has no clear way of keeping track of people's identities, so it's not surprising that mistakes like this have happened. I doubt we'd have even known that such things happened when the Tories were in power. The government has a solution in mind that will make identifying and solving these problems far easier (ID cards), naturally the Tories oppose it.
Go figure - one happy Blunkett, one very unhappy (and possibly out of work) publisher.
I'll bet the publisher is Harper Collins and the upfront is payment for all those juicy leaks to News International papers over the past decade
Gringrich got a book bung from News Intl, and it is the usual payoff route for helpful politicos
In my day any conviction abroad was sent to Interpol and automatically registered in the old Criminal Records Office. Then it was done by morse code (honestly) now with telecommunications it apparently is much more difficult.
A "Voyager" gem:
"and we had border controls paid for by the Communists"
Just heard on PM that McNulty knew about the backlog of files. Oh dear.
"Time for DD to Go in For the Kill"
Bit mean - Cameron's not THAT bad and bearing grudges is bad for you.
Is this cos you know that all he'd have to do afterwards is go abroad and they'd never record his details let alone catch him?
There keep being times for the Opposition to go in for the kill; but they don't. Blair's administration seems off limits.
It's not because they couldn't, so why don't they?
The shambles at the Home Office (and Education... Defense... Pensions... and... and... and.....) is the inevitable outcome of replacing a 'Yes Minister' Civil Service with a 'The Thick of It' set of hangers on.
Malcolm, Ollie & Co. have a lot to answer for (not to mention The Godfather - Mandy).
Iain,
We've been waiting for the opposition to go for the kill for over a year now and not just DD. They couldn't have been offered more open goals if NuLabour were replaced by a blind under-twelve side from the special school.
Can anyone tell me when someone is going to get the Big Picture Book Dictionary from the shelf and expain to Mr Cameron et al exactly what the word "opposition" means?
The Remittance Man
ps blogger won't let me sign in properly
RM,
You are right. Further, the Tories couldn't have been less reluctant to shoot if NuLabour were replaced by a blind under-twelve side from the special school and their parents five thousand soft-hearted swing voters were watching.
Scoff.
First the escapees business, and now this. You have to hand it Gordon Brown. Blunkett, Milburn (absurd though that suggestion was anyway), Clarke, Johnson, and now Reid. Who's next, one wonders?
Meanwhile, the promise of restoration as Environment Secretary (let's face it, the Miliband in the Brown Cabinet is not going to be David, is it?) has enticed Michael Meacher to spoil John McDonnell's chances of even getting onto the ballot paper. A Left candidate would always have taken thirty per cent of the vote anyway. Under current circumstances, he might even have managed forty per cent (I myself have heard the Chairman of Sedgefield CLP tell everyone within earshot to vote for McDonnell). But now, no election at all, and Brown in unopposed.
Or, at least, certainly not opposed by Reid.
What more can I say, he who pays the Bob Piper calls the tune...
It's dead sheep time » Permalink | TrackBack (0)
I'll probably surprise no-one by saying that Dr. John Reid is not one of my favourite politicians. It's not just his political slant, there's just something about the man I can't take to. So, having read Iain Dale's call to arms for his hero David Davis to rip Reid a new orifice over the latest Home Office exposure, I thought it would be interesting to see how the old Scots head-the-ball would cope.
Talk about being savaged by a dead sheep! Reid was quiet, disciplined and so, so precise... and he chewed the pretender Davis' testicles up and spat them back across the chamber. It was like watching Joe Bugner take on Muhammed Ali. Bugner knew what he had to do, he had practised all the shots in his bedroom mirror, danced the dance and talked the talk, he had dreamt about the thunderous applause that would meet his victory... and then he fizzled out like a flat bottle of pop when he got under the ring lights. If this is the best the Tory front bench can do after a decade of stumbling blindly in the wilderness, it really is quite embarrassing. Later, on Radio 5, Michael Howard was dragged back from the grave to say the Home Office was perfection when he left it. Oh deary, deary me. Tell us, Michael... "Did you threaten to overrule him?"
Posted by bobpiper on January 10, 2007, 10:25 PM | view comments (0) or add another
Post a Comment