So farewell then Home Secretary, Jacqui Smith. She held her final Departmental questions yesterday before facing the inevitable boot down to Work and Pensions or Communities next month.
It was a strangely muted and rather empty session of HO questions, rather like an end of season match between two mid-division teams. No-one could get much of a steam up as the major event, the Speaker's statement, was to follow immediately after.
John Gummer, looking more and more like his own ghost, asked Home Sec why our signs at the borders were the "rudest" he had ever seen. Apparently immigration officials have seen fit to remove 'please' and 'thank you' from notices for those entering the country, obviously in line with our 'no-nonsense-tough-talking-approach' to keeping the buggers out.
Jacqui said, without irony, "the right hon. Gentleman makes an important point," and then went on to justify, in purely emotional terms, the decision to ban US 'shock jock' Michael Savage from UK.
The apt named Mr Savage incidentally has never expressed any desire to travel to the UK; to ban him from the country is like a spoilt girl at school, running round the playground, telling kids she doesn't know, they're not invited to her party.
John Stewart's Daily Show dealt with this official idiocy last week. Gets a bit silly.
At times Jacqui seemed to be affecting a 'posh' accent, surely not preparing herself for elevation to the Lords? No, it was her trying out a new idiom.
She was never going to be much of a Home Secretary. Her decision to wear all black, today, was particularly apposite.
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