interviewed by Jon Snow on Channel 4 News last Tuesday evening. He would resign, he said, if he was shown to be personally culpable for the failure to consider deportation of over 1,000 dangerous criminals who are now at liberty to commit further offences in this country. That is the right test.
A few hours after his interview with Jon Snow, Charles Clarke admitted that he had failed that test. He told Jeremy Paxman on Newsnight that what had happened was the result of a "shocking failure'' on his part and others.
Put those two answers together and only one conclusion follows. If this Government had an ounce of honour left, Mr Clarke would no longer be in his job. But he is still there even though we now know that at least five of the prisoners concerned have gone on to commit further serious offences. And he and the Prime Minister have advanced a completely novel argument to justify this. He must stay, they say, because it is his responsibility to put right what has gone wrong. On this basis, no minister would ever resign for a failure for which they were culpable. Indeed, as my colleague Crispin Blunt pointed out in the Commons on Wednesday, the new doctrine of ministerial responsibility according to Mr Blair, means that the bigger the shambles the more essential it is for ministers to stay in office to sort it out.
It is worth setting out the full extent of Mr Clarke's culpability. In her annual report for 2002/03, the Chief Inspector of Prisons pointed out that: "The Immigration Service... was not monitoring those liable to deportation, and making arrangements for this to take place.''
In her report for 2003/04 she said: "In spite of the growing number of foreign national prisoners, there is still no national strategy.''
In May 2004, the Prison Reform Trust said: "The Prison Service should notify the Immigration Service about all foreign national prisoners... There is a lack of accurate data on the exact numbers as the Prison Service does not record this information.''
In July 2005 the National Audit Office warned: "Action on criminal cases was not being initiated until a late stage, allowing insufficient time to make preparations for removal before the end of sentence.''
Yet Charles Clarke maintains that it was not until the autumn of last year that he became aware of the problem. What on earth was he doing before then? Indeed, what on earth was he doing afterwards?
For, as David Davis has pointed out, the rate at which prisoners potentially liable for deportation were released into the community actually increased after the Home Secretary admits he knew about the problem. During that period, no fewer than 288 prisoners were released. This was the number described by Mr Clarke on Tuesday evening as "very, very few''. What is more, he admitted on Wednesday that when he made that statement, he knew the number was 288.
Even on the tarnished precedents of this Government, that deliberate, grossly misleading statement should be enough to cause Mr Clarke to resign. It is, after all, not very long ago that another Home Office Minister, Beverley Hughes, was obliged to resign after making a similarly misleading statement in a television interview.
How could this fiasco have been avoided? What is needed is something that has been conspicuously absent from Mr Blair and his ministers - a readiness to get down to the actual business of government. This is not rocket science, but neither is it the stuff of eye-catching initiatives or tomorrow's headlines, with which Mr Blair and his ministers are obsessed.
This is what I would have done. I would have read the reports which contained the warnings. So in 2003, if not before, I would have gathered together the officials responsible for these matters, in both the Immigration Service and the Prison Service, and asked for action to be taken to deal with the problem. I would have required monthly reports on progress. And I would have insisted that whatever was needed to be done, was done.
This would not have attracted the warm glow of favourable publicity. It would not have led to any favour-currying headlines. It is simply the necessary, often tedious, grind of government. It is something Mr Blair and his ministers have never understood.
Tony Blair was the most brilliant Leader of the Opposition this country has ever seen. His knack for knowing how to get favourable coverage for himself and his party, and hostile publicity for the Government he was opposing, was quite beyond compare. The tragedy for him and the country is that he never made the transition from brilliant Opposition leader to competent Prime Minister.
Mr Blair and his ministers have never taken the trouble to understand how government works. Instead of rolling up their sleeves and applying themselves to the often difficult task of bending the bureaucracy to their will, they have set up Delivery Units, Performance Units, Co-ordination Units and a host of other gimmicks that have, for the most part, just created confusion and chaos, and made things worse. That is what lies at the heart of the failure to deliver that we see across government. It is the common thread that links the chaos in the Home Office to the failure to deliver in health, education and so many other vital areas.
Charles Clarke was personally culpable for the failure to consider the deportation of those dangerous criminals whom he set free. That is why he should resign. But his failure is not a one-off. It is symptomatic of a systemic failure that runs through this government like a fault-line. And for that systemic failure, one man must bear the responsibility. That man is Tony Blair.
Michael Howard was Home Secretary from 1993 to 1997 and is Conservative MP for Folkestone and Hythe
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