In the first PMQs for four weeks David Cameron returned to a favourite PMQs topic of his for all of his questions, the Home Office. He used the fiasco of not registering proven offenders on police and child protection databases to target the government's inflated reputation for tough approaches to crime. He asked Tony Blair "to guarantee none of these people have worked with children", and reiterated his support for having a Homeland Security minister of Cabinet rank - saying that the size of the Home Office was part of the problem. The Deputy PM appeared to be having fun during the serious debate.
Ming asked how many British troops Mr Blair was considering sending alongside the soon-to-be-announced boost to the American forces, and subsequently if Britain would have to wait for Blair to resign before it had an independent foreign policy. The Prime Minister said that the situation in Basra was different from that in Baghdad - there was no secretarian strife, al-Qaeda operations or Sunni insurgency - and that Britain would not be deploying extra troops.
Lembit Opik rose to cheers. He didn't wish to be cheeky, he said, but was glad everyone was happy for him. He then asked a question on Motor Neurone Disease.
Deputy Editor
Break up the Home Office and transfer functions to Manchester so they can recruit competent people outside London's labour market.
These clowns want to run an ID Card system ? LOL
Posted by: ToMTom | January 10, 2007 at 13:12
Cameron nevers fails to amaze me. If there should be a cabinet rank 'homeland security minister', why isn't the shadow homeland security spokesman in the shadow cabinet?
Posted by: John Wilkinson | January 10, 2007 at 13:17
Mr Reid said an inquiry into the Home Office's handling of the details was expected to be competed within six weeks. Why should this enquiry take six days, let alone six weeks? The clunking culture of the Home Office and all other government departments has to be changed!
Posted by: Mark Fulford | January 10, 2007 at 13:30
It's so 2 dozen officals can lay the blame off on each other so we get a report saying faults on all sides, lessons for the future ect ect. Gives them plenty of time to bury it under something as well.
Posted by: Andrew Woodman | January 10, 2007 at 13:38
I thought the perception panel insights on "Daily Politics" were very positive for DC.
Posted by: HF | January 10, 2007 at 13:41
TomTom is right of course. About the only crumb of comfort to be gleaned from the ongoing Home Office sagas is that every fresh outrage makes the probability of ID cards less likely.
Thought you'd be interested in the Home Office's mission statement:
The Home Office works to build a safe, just and tolerant society, by putting protection of the public at the heart of everything it does
There, doesn't that make you feel safer?
Posted by: Graeme Archer | January 10, 2007 at 13:51
Graeme: the mission statement has been re-written: The Home Office works to build a just about tolerably safe society..."
Posted by: William Norton | January 10, 2007 at 14:19
Hi All
I think the BBC are trying desperately to prevent us from voting in the political heroes... they keep moving the link:
Please cast your vote by going to:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6161847.stm
Posted by: LJ | January 10, 2007 at 14:23
Re LJ's post at 14:23...
I see from the stats that running leader on votes cast is that arch Champagne-Marxist Tony Benn.
If you havn't voted please do so. Address below:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6161847.stm
Posted by: George Hinton | January 10, 2007 at 15:07
John Wilkinson 13.17 - I suspect that the shadow homeland security minister is not in the shadow cabinet because there is no equivalent government minister to "shadow".It is therefore essentially a courtesy title but one which reflects Cameron's excellent judgement that the goverment should appoint someone to this position.
Posted by: Perdix | January 10, 2007 at 15:08
While she was working at the NAO my wife conducted an audit of the Home Office's finances. They genuinely had no idea how many people worked for the Home Office and suspected that there were significant numbers of listed employees who were retired, transferred elsewhere in the Civil Service, had left to go to other jobs or died but there simply was no way of telling.
I wouldn't therefore trust them to have any idea about the true position on anything!
Posted by: Angelo Basu | January 10, 2007 at 15:29
Perhaps next week we can have "Can Gerry Robinson fix the Home Office?" on TV.
"I went down to the records office, only to discover the filing system consisted of throwing papers onto a big pile in the middle of the floor and that no-one was in charge."
Posted by: Jon Gale | January 10, 2007 at 15:43
"The Home Office works to build a safe, just and tolerant society, by putting protection of the public at the heart of everything it does" 13:51
And furthermore Graeme they have six objectives:
To protect the public, we focus on six key objectives:
protecting the UK from terrorist attack;
cutting crime, especially violent and drug-related crime;
ensuring people feel safer in their homes and daily lives, particularly through more visible, responsive and accountable local policing;
rebalancing the criminal justice system in favour of the law-abiding majority and the victim;
managing offenders to protect the public and reduce re-offending;
securing our borders, preventing abuse of our immigration laws and managing migration to benefit the UK.
Low and behold they also have values:
The values we developed in consultation with our staff and stakeholders, underpin how we will achieve our objectives, and guide our everyday behaviour:
we deliver for the public
we are professional and innovative
we work openly and collaboratively
we treat everyone with respect
Some of you might now be so inspired as to want to update the Home Office's Objectives and Values. ;)
Posted by: Paul Kennedy | January 10, 2007 at 17:03
Those values should be prosecuted under the Trades Description Act.
Posted by: HF | January 10, 2007 at 17:27
Hi All
Time is running out.... please Vote, the BBC keeps moving the link in the hopw that us Tories wont find it and vote.... so cast your Vote please.
Follow thew link::
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/politics_show/6161847.stm
Posted by: LJ | January 10, 2007 at 19:53
"Thought you'd be interested in the Home Office's mission statement:
The Home Office works ....."
Nobody could start a sentence with thse three words and maintain a straight face.
Posted by: Andrew | January 10, 2007 at 20:02
I should think everyone at the Home Office has been so busy spending gazillions of my money doing up Queen Anne's Gate to double de-luxe grades that they really haven't had time to do any work.
Bless.
Posted by: sjm | January 10, 2007 at 23:58
DC right to keep pressing the Home Office. The message is getting across that Labour are useless,
Matt
Posted by: matt wright | January 11, 2007 at 00:11
The Home Office is renowned for getting the Civil Servants rejected elsewhere........under Straw it went on an employee-hiring binge to boost numbers of ethnic minorities etc to make quota for NuLab ideologues. It is just possible that it has dross at all levels through failing to have a lean organisation run by skilled and flexible intelligent human beings................instead creating a giant bureaucratic structure to control low-grade staff and having everything flounder.
Posted by: TomTOm | January 11, 2007 at 07:45
The hiring of ethnic minorities as nothing to do with the Home Office incompetance as ethnic minorites are no more liable to be incompetant as anyone else.
The real reson for incompetance is that ministers themselves have been incompetant and incapable of running the department properly.
As with everything else with this government whenever anything goes wrong we get the same old response from ministers that it was everyone elses fault but them.
We should not keep blaming civil servants for these scandals and put the blame at the door of those who really deserve to be blamed.Ministers!
Posted by: Jack Stone | January 11, 2007 at 12:03
Of course Ministers should take the blame because it happens on their watch, but it's pretty obvious that there has been individual incompetence at civil servant level. Does Jack Stone suggest that this should go unpunished?
When the next Conservative government takes over Reid and Co will be gone. It will then be our duty to get rid of incompetent timeservers in the civil service or exactly the same will happen to us.
Fussing about ethnic minority quotas and other forms of PC is exactly the type of nonsense that is resucing the Service to its present shambolic level.
Posted by: Ian | January 11, 2007 at 12:31
Maybe the Home Office needs to become more like the Treasury perhaps with a National Security Supremo and a sub Department run by another cabinet minister for Migration & Citizenship (Immigration and Nationality) and a seperate cabinet minister for Justice (Police, Courts and Prisons).
Other Government Departments could be merged or culled, the Department of Health, dfes and DCMS could be run by Boards under the Cabinet Office (rather returning to the way these things were run at the turn of the 20th century) with no cabinet minister except for the Cabinet Office minister; the DWP and economic functions of the dti could be transferred to the Treasury with most regulatory bodies and rules in the dti being scrapped and many Benefits administration and Tax administration bodies being merged, leaving a Department of Science & Technology. Perhaps it could be left to Local Authorities as to whether they provided Jobcentre facilities and Jobcentre Plus either broken up or privatised with a low level Universal Benefit along with scrapping the Welsh Office, Scottish Office and Northern Ireland Office and having those areas having powers equivalent to those of the Scottish Office and similar powers at a more local level in England such a growth in Security Functions could be more than offset by changes elasewhere. Spending on Immigration & Nationality, Police and Security Services should be at least doubled and Police and the Security Services need far greater powers and not to be hampered by so called "Human Rights" legislation. A national biometric ID Database, restoration of Capital Punishment and rights to detain anyone considered to be dangerous whether they have committed an offence or not while they are considered to remain a danger.
Posted by: Yet Another Anon | January 11, 2007 at 12:46
There was an assumpton earlier on in a posting that civil servants from ethnic minorites were to blame for any incompetance by civil servants which I thought was of course rubbish.
Any civil servant who is incompetant should be sacked of course but please lets not continue this nonsense that immigrants are to blame for everything going wrong in this country. Its offensive and wrong.
Posted by: Jack Stone | January 11, 2007 at 15:29