QUESTIONS which need answers from today's news: Why have three Premiership managers now paid money to sign Djimi Traore? Why does anyone feel the need to own a pitbull terrier? And why are people now calling for John Reid's head at the Home Office?
Of the three questions listed above, I think the latter is the most baffling. Question one may well answer itself in time (though I doubt it) and question two probably has something to do with feeling inadequete as a human being wrapped in the answer.
But as for question three, well, here's another question: Is it not becoming abundantly clear that the Home Office's problems have nothing to do with the politican in charge, but those paid handsome salaries to run the place?
From the Criminal Records Bureau fiascos to prisoners escaping, from the scandal that is the asylum system to the current debacle about unregistered criminals in the UK, one thing is adundantly clear: John Reid was stating the bloody obvious when he said the Home Office was no longer fit for purpose.
But perhaps more telling was the point from Jack Straw, a former home secretary, who incidentially was wrongly derided later by his successor David Blunkett - the most disappointing politician of all time.
Mr Straw said, this week, that it is impossible to know everything that goes on in the Home Office until you are made aware of it. He was smart enough to make the point that such a comment was similar to Donald Rumsfeld's famous "there are known knowns, known unknowns but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know." comment about Iraq.
And in a nutshell, the point is this: You can't sack John Reid for something he didn't know anything about. It's different if it later comes to light he did know about it, but I doubt that will happen.
If it proves to be true Tony McNulty, one of his ministers, did receive a letter about senior police officers about the problem, and never followed it up after passing it on to colleague Joan Ryan, who, it is said, did chuff all about it, then both of them need to go.
As do the people inside the Home Office who have let it happen in the first place. This isn't just about an error in the sense that files which should have been processed on to the national police computer when they arrived at the home office were just left to one side.
It's about putting the safety of the public at risk. 500 free of a criminal record in this country. Rapists free to work in schools.
So if Mr McNulty or Ms (Mrs?) Ryan have been, at least, inefficent, they need to go. And the people in the Home Office who made the mistake need to go.
We're living in an age where the 'war on terror' has impacted on all our lives. We're all having to be more cautious, and put up with tougher measures in the name of security.
There needs to be a feeling of terror in the Home Office, too. A knowledge that if you get something so simple so wrong, then you walk. Being in the public sector has many perks over the private sector, but job security when you put the security of others at risk can't be one of them.
And Mr Reid needs too keep looking at the department and decide whether it does need to change. If it is too big to meet the modern-day challenges, then it needs to be shaken up. And he's the man who should be given the time to sort it out.
Because, after all, if Blair is to kick out John Reid because he has failed to get to grips with a massive public sector instution, then surely he has to do the same with the woman hasn't yet turned the NHS around.
And Pat Hewitt has had much longer at it that Mr Reid!
Of the three questions listed above, I think the latter is the most baffling. Question one may well answer itself in time (though I doubt it) and question two probably has something to do with feeling inadequete as a human being wrapped in the answer.
But as for question three, well, here's another question: Is it not becoming abundantly clear that the Home Office's problems have nothing to do with the politican in charge, but those paid handsome salaries to run the place?
From the Criminal Records Bureau fiascos to prisoners escaping, from the scandal that is the asylum system to the current debacle about unregistered criminals in the UK, one thing is adundantly clear: John Reid was stating the bloody obvious when he said the Home Office was no longer fit for purpose.
But perhaps more telling was the point from Jack Straw, a former home secretary, who incidentially was wrongly derided later by his successor David Blunkett - the most disappointing politician of all time.
Mr Straw said, this week, that it is impossible to know everything that goes on in the Home Office until you are made aware of it. He was smart enough to make the point that such a comment was similar to Donald Rumsfeld's famous "there are known knowns, known unknowns but there are also unknown unknowns, the ones we don't know we don't know." comment about Iraq.
And in a nutshell, the point is this: You can't sack John Reid for something he didn't know anything about. It's different if it later comes to light he did know about it, but I doubt that will happen.
If it proves to be true Tony McNulty, one of his ministers, did receive a letter about senior police officers about the problem, and never followed it up after passing it on to colleague Joan Ryan, who, it is said, did chuff all about it, then both of them need to go.
As do the people inside the Home Office who have let it happen in the first place. This isn't just about an error in the sense that files which should have been processed on to the national police computer when they arrived at the home office were just left to one side.
It's about putting the safety of the public at risk. 500 free of a criminal record in this country. Rapists free to work in schools.
So if Mr McNulty or Ms (Mrs?) Ryan have been, at least, inefficent, they need to go. And the people in the Home Office who made the mistake need to go.
We're living in an age where the 'war on terror' has impacted on all our lives. We're all having to be more cautious, and put up with tougher measures in the name of security.
There needs to be a feeling of terror in the Home Office, too. A knowledge that if you get something so simple so wrong, then you walk. Being in the public sector has many perks over the private sector, but job security when you put the security of others at risk can't be one of them.
And Mr Reid needs too keep looking at the department and decide whether it does need to change. If it is too big to meet the modern-day challenges, then it needs to be shaken up. And he's the man who should be given the time to sort it out.
Because, after all, if Blair is to kick out John Reid because he has failed to get to grips with a massive public sector instution, then surely he has to do the same with the woman hasn't yet turned the NHS around.
And Pat Hewitt has had much longer at it that Mr Reid!
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