Jacqui Smith still has a long way to becoming the worst Home Secretary in British history. But she's definitely making progress. Out on his own is still Reginald Maudling (left) whose deft handling of Northern Ireland included internment and Bloody Sunday (which he defended stoutly). He was eventually booted out by Ted Heath in 1972 when he was found to be 'eyebrows deep' in a corruption scandal over multi-million pound building contracts.
Jacqui has, of late, shown she has picked up some of the pure bluster and bold dogmatic idiocy of our Reg. Her Achilles heel appears to be her small-minded, self-certainty. A perfect example was her veto-ing of new Immigration Minister, the barely half-witted, Phil Woolas, from appearing on BBC's Question Time. After two weeks in the job, Woolas had shown little, if any, command of his brief and could only supply journos with tough-sounding but illogical statements on immigration.
Officially, she wanted a Minister with more experience of economic matters to be espousing the Government line and demanded Tony McNulty be Woolas's sub. Firstly, McNulty's expertise is police and security matters. Second, any Minister, indeed any guest, on Question Time is expected to be able to pontificate on any area of domestic policy or world affairs. Third, it is not for Home Secretaries to set the panel on political discussion programmes. The Beeb quite rightly told Jacqs they had editorial integrity to preserve and if she wanted an empty chair then so be it. As it was, Roy Hattersley stood in and showed them all how it's done: with patience and good humour.
It was only the next day, it was revealed the Home Office figures on violent crime had been fiddled to project a much more reassuring view of the risk of violence. Crime has certainly fallen significantly in ten years although the public's perception is the opposite. Any suspicion of creative counting by the Government on crime figures was bound to provoke a big press reaction. But even Jacqus was not quite ready for the Sun's banner headline in 160 point letters, "GBH: Grievous Bloody Hypocrisy."
Ms Smith's has put in a consistently amateurish display in recent weeks. Her response to the Lords' thrashing of the 42-days detention clause by almost 200 votes was poor by her own very low standards. But to shout from the dispatch box, "I, for one, take the issue of security seriously," when many of those who opposed it were former senior officers in the security services, was pretty shameful stuff.
On Tuesday, Jacqui was up in front of the Joint Parliamentary Committee on Human Rights to answer for her speech. Senior Tory MP, Richard Shepherd, could not easily hide his contempt for Ms Smith, particularly as the 'softies' on terrorist included his pal Lord (Peter) Carrington, ex-Foreign Sec and veteran of the D-Day landings. "Why are you as Home Secretary making assertions like this in an important speech?" bellowed Shepherd. "It is an incredible position for a very new home secretary to launch into an attack on people who have been protecting our liberties for a very long time". Her own side called her views merely, "trenchant" while others plumped for the more apt, "offensive."
She made a feeble attempt at defence but had only the refuge of party politics to protect herself with. "My comments specifically were aimed at opposition parties who despite having numerous attempts to engage in a process of bringing us to a consensus has failed to move one jot throughout the whole of the process," she opined. Lord Onslow said she was confusing consensus with people not agreeing with her. Certainly true, but Jacqui Smith also mistakes robust defence with obnoxious arrogance. Just like old Reg.
No comments:
Post a Comment