Saturday, January 13, 2007

Sunday Papers Spell Trouble for Reid & McNulty

The News of the World and The Observer may make uncomfortable reading for the Home Secretary, Tony McNulty and Joan Ryan tomorrow. The Observer carries a front page story which shows that one of the people on the 27,000 missing files has committed murder. The News of the World says that there was a meeting between ACPO and Home Office civil servants on the files issue and the minutes of the meeting show that it was agreed the Home Secretary would be told of the problems. This is in direct contradiction to both John Reid's and Tony McNulty's public pronouncements.

Commenting on The Observer story, David Davis said tonight...

"This tragedy demonstrates all too clearly the dire consequences of the Government’s failure to carry out its duty. If this man had been under effective close supervision his victim may well have been alive today. The killer would almost certainly have received a longer sentence. It shows why Ministers should have taken this problem so much more seriously when ACPO revealed this fiasco. Had John Reid taken a real grip of the Home Office and had his ‘fundamental review’ done its job, this problem would have been dealt with as a high priority last May, not last week when it was accidentally revealed. This is yet more evidence that John Reid’s tenure has done nothing to fix the serial problems at the Home Office that continue to threaten the safety of the public."

UPDATE: Well the Sunday papers didn't spell as much trouble as some of us were hoping. Nowhere is there a leak of the ACPO letters. Very disappointing!

31 comments:

Anonymous said...

Not defend the Government but how would this man's details being on the ACPO database stopped him committing a crime? As I understand the database is used to make criminal record checks - so unless he killed someone whilst doing a job he shouldn't have been doing how is this a story?

Iain Dale said...

It may or may not have stopped it, but if he was a convicted murderer then possibly they might have at least known he was there and had him under some sort of surveillance. Who knows? If you can't see why this is a story...!

Anonymous said...

This is very important, but I would be very interested to know if there is any sign yet that the contents of the ACPO letter have been leaked, either in part or in its entirety, to any of the papers tomorrow ?

Guess we won't know that until much later, as 'Sundays' like to keep their powder dry on any scoops to avoid the other papers running 'spoilers'...

Anonymous said...

I find it interesting that the spin is that 'no violent criminals' have been cleared to work with vulnerable people - if some of these people have been convicted for drugs offences, then it is a bit of an academic distinction, and not a little disingenuous.

Anonymous said...

Interesting that even the BBC are reporting that despite some musical chairs in roles at the 'home office' NO heads have rolled following Reid's assessment that it wasn't 'fit for purpose'.

Anonymous said...

Just been listening to Tony McNulty's absolutely hopelessly dire performance on 'Any Questions'-'Dead Man Walking' is the phrase that springs to mind..

Anonymous said...

'Numpty' McNulty has got to be a 'victim' himself, he's been set up to take the flak - surely? He's either a willing fall guy or he really is as stupid as he seems. After the immigration fiasco, he gets shuffled sideways - to the POLICE side of the HO, and - 'surprise, surprise', he cocks this job up as well!
He really is a complete chump - and he probably believed he'd make it big one day. The sooner he, and that scarecrow lookalike Ryan are sacked the better. Why don't ministers take responsibility anymore, why don'r some of them do the decent thing? In fact Blair should call a general election tomorrow (or maybe Monday) and at least we won't have to endure Brown. Poor old sweaty, all upset about the 'Union' - he's part of why it's all going down the pan!

Anonymous said...

McNulty will not get sacked anytime time soon - there is a lot more sh*t about to come out of the Home Office, and there is no reason to contaminate a 'newbie' for the moment. When Reid thinks that they have stemmed the flow of the proverbial about to hit the fan then McNulty will got dropped quicker than a hot brick.

Anonymous said...

Why has there been no call for Reids head? When the last major scandal was made public Charles Clarke was pushed from office. John Reid has stated that he was aware of the problems at the home office and should therefore have been more vigiglant than ever. The fact that this has come to light shows that the home office may not br fit for purpose, but niether is Reid.

Anonymous said...

Gordon will be rubbing his sweaty hands with glee tonight, and quite some relief.

The leaks from Brown's cronies which set off this whole episode have succeeded. Reid's leadership ambitions are now toast, though with Mandelson back directing operations it won't be long before another "Blairite" candidate emerges.

Miliband, Milburn, or A N Other?

The Anyone But Gordon bandwagon will soon be rolling again.

Anonymous said...

The Home Office is clearly incompetent. No doubt about that.

However, you have to be careful looking at infrequent events like this.

I think the murder(er) rate is about 1 per 75,000/year, so one committed out of a sample of 27,000 isn't statistically interesting. It makes a good tabloid headline though.


The minutes of the meeting are far more interesting, if it shows that someone has not been telling us the truth.

Anonymous said...

What about immigrants (from the EU and elsewhere) who can work here with "vulnerable" people without checks? As one "scandal" ends others will follow.

Anonymous said...

Time to soak the Home Office in MI5 officers to start digging

Anonymous said...

I think the murder(er) rate is about 1 per 75,000/year, so one committed out of a sample of 27,000 isn't statistically interesting.

oh but it is to at least one family

Anonymous said...

anonymous [8.44 p.m.] I agree, the minutes of the meeting are the real hot potato. How did they get out? Under the Freedom of Information Act or via a disaffected civil servant? I bet it was the latter.

Anonymous said...

McNulty was a laughing stock on Any Question, as was Falconer the day before on Question Time. Have you noticed? New Labour gets the bird on these programmes every week now.

Anonymous said...

anon.8.42 "Miliband, Milburn, or A N Other?

The Anyone But Gordon bandwagon will soon be rolling again."

Tony Blair is popular in all the polls; and he has a 60 plus majority over all in the House of Commons. Perhaps we should believe him when he says he intends to serve a full term - after all, the electorate voted Labour on those terms.

Anonymous said...

1) It's not murder but manslaughter.

2) The papers have been crawling over this story desperate to find a crime which has been committed by one of these people. They haven't found one yet.

I'd say the situation was not nearly so bad as you'd like it to be. But maybe it's being so cheerful as keeps you going.

Anonymous said...

A big problem is that Tony Blair is either too weak to sack anybody or doesn't care. His PR group are either swamped with other bad stories or looking for other jobs.

None of the Ministers will resign and Tony won't sack them. Tony's mind is on setting up well paid speaking tours and taking lots of long-haul polluting flights to countries that don't know what a shallow little twit he is.

... and finally Gordon is plotting in a dark corner to keep his dark past a dark little secret.

Anonymous said...

Over the past ten years, the home office has been flooded with recruits that match NuLab targets.

Unfortunately many of these new recruits are not fit for purpose but are "untouchable" under NuLab doctrine.

This is why this government office has fallen apart.

Anonymous said...

What I am most surprised at is that we expect MPs to be able to run these departments. Joan Ryan, for instance, did a degree in Sociology at Liverpool College of Higher Education,an MSC at South Bank Polytechnic and then worked as a teacher. How would this make her capable of running such a diverse and complicated department as the Home Office ?

Anonymous said...

javelin said...
... and finally Gordon is plotting in a dark corner to keep his dark past a dark little secret.

Gordon's dark little secret(s) won't stay secret forever now that Bobby's back in charge of operations.

Anonymous said...

Bobby ?

Anonymous said...

No doubt a copy of the ACPO letter is in Gordo's grubby little mitts, awaiting a more opportune moment for it to see the light of day...

Anonymous said...

The man they've appointed to head the 'inquiry' is Air Commodore F F 'Dusty' Amroliwala OBE, a lifelong RAF man who is now the Director of HR Services at the Home Office. Work that one out if you can.

RAF Man to Head Home Office Enquiry

Anonymous said...

As I understand it, the files were not missing they were just ignored by Reid on the ground that it would have cost money to read them and put the information on the computer system.

British citizens convicted abroad are not subject to licence conditions imposed in this country. Its a peculiarly British thing, which was started by the Home Office, to monitor released lifers in the community, to reassure the public that they are safe.

The Criminal Justice Act 2003, extended the licence to cover those determinate sentence prisoners who serve part of their sentence in custody and the remainder out in the community.

There are two things here, the offender needs to have the desire not to re-offend; and the police need to police more for there to be a general deterrent effect.

I fear that both you and David Davis are not seeing the wood for the trees. You are watching a fight between the National Association of Probation Officers (NAPO) and John Reid, and have missed what started the fight. Might I suggest that you read Probation Circular ref.no.03/2005, http://www.probation.homeoffice.gov.uk and the document which the circular relates to Joint National Protocol on the Supervision, Revocation and recall for Prisoners on Licence. This document was produced by the National Probation Service, H.M. Prison Service and ACPO.

In effect, the Home Office guidance renders the system unworkable. Because John Reid claims that the probation service is not fit for purpose, he wants to hand it over to the private sector. Whether this would be a good or bad thing only time will tell. But it does explain why so much shit is hitting the fan of late, and why NAPO is throwing it. Meanwhile, are the public getting protection from the National Offender Management Service (NOMS)?

Anonymous said...

The real issue is who is behind the stitch up. The police have every reason to detest Bliar after his cowardly performance on defending them and for putting them in an impossible situation over terror.

The evil mind would say the police (er and the Home Office) have known about this for a while so why now?

In my fantasy world the police have done adeal with Brown to Blow up Reid and give Gordo a clear run. Brown can then axe Bliar and blame him for everything. The distancing becomes more important if Bliar is ouit, Brown is no friend and no Bliarite to ruffle Gordons accession. Then they can file charges........ oh well worth a thought.

They are totally bang to rights on a cover after Falconer and McNulty's laughable attempts to wiggle last week.

Police are confirming some story about re-offenders not being on teh computer tonight according to Sky.....

Anonymous said...

The man they've appointed to head the 'inquiry' is Air Commodore F F 'Dusty' Amroliwala OBE, a lifelong RAF man who is now the Director of HR Services at the Home Office. Work that one out if you can.

and whose son reads the teleprompter at the BBC

Anonymous said...

Can you believe this Government's insolent contempt for democracy and freedom ?
In the wake of the Home Office database fiasco comes this despicable, Stalinist proposal for a super database of all our personal details:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/14/ndata114.xml
Whitehall moves to create 'super-database'

This is a diastrous and terrifying idea.

Anonymous said...

"It may or may not have stopped it, but if he was a convicted murderer then possibly they might have at least known he was there and had him under some sort of surveillance. Who knows? If you can't see why this is a story...!"

Iain I saw David Davis wheel out this exact point this morning on Sky. Is he (and you) seriously suggesting that the Police routinely surveil murderers who have been released for several years like Miller had been?

I also note that the Home Office have now suspended a handy scape goat - I thought the Labour Party didn't like hunting with dogs?

Anonymous said...

Considering that McNulty recently was (maybe still is?) the head of the Cobra team investigating terrorist threats to the airlines and whatever, what faith can one have in him when he is so little proactive as not even to ask (of his own initiative) 'What about British Nationals convicted abroad?'
The Home Office denials simply show that they sit on their behinds as regards asking many of the most obvious important questions for the security of Britain. All the crucial work seems to be delegated, and given to incompetants. It is a disgusting scandal, and worse yet - McNulty has got away with it because some Civil Servant took the heat off him! But the responsibility clearly lies with this M.P. for Harrow.