Not fit to run the proverbial whelk stall. I really cannot add anything to this !

I really cannot add anything to this !

   xxxxxxxxxxx cs
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DAILY MAIL   23.8.08
Not fit to run the proverbial whelk stall
  COMMENT

A Home Office still unfit for purpose, an embarrassingly bad minister 
in charge, jaw-dropping incompetence over the loss of sensitive 
material, attempts to pass the buck, political cowardice... this is 
misgovernment at its most discreditable.

You would have thought the Home Office might learn from the 
scandalous litany of Whitehall security blunders, including the loss 
of personal information on 25million Britons. Not a bit of it.

Just examine how the department responded on Monday, when it was 
discovered that a memory stick containing information on every 
convict in Britain had been lost.

Such material could cause mayhem in the wrong hands, not to mention 
saddling the taxpayer with vast compensation bills if anyone were 
harmed because of it.

But did Home Office politicians or bureaucrats come clean? Hardly. 
They tried to keep it under wraps.

When the news leaked anyway, they mounted a black propaganda 
operation to pretend it was nothing to do with them by blaming PA 
Consulting, the private firm they had entrusted with the information.

This contemptible game of 'not me, guv' continued yesterday when - 
after lying low all morning - Home Secretary Jacqui Smith emerged 
briefly to point the finger at everybody but herself.

Meanwhile, her department claimed ludicrously that 'there is no 
reason to think that the Home Office was at fault here or that the 
taxpayer would be required to pay compensation.'

Do these people have the slightest notion of what the public thinks 
of such smug, self-serving spin?

To begin with, they should have moved heaven and earth to limit the 
damage, instead of protecting their own backs.

Moreover, the Home Office has a long involvement with PA Consulting 
and has paid it around £100million for other work. Indeed, the firm 
has contracts worth nearly £250million across Whitehall - including 
the controversial ID card scheme. It is virtually part of Government. 
If ministerial responsibility means anything, the buck stops with Ms 
Smith.

But will she acknowledge it? In your dreams. Will she sack the 
principal culprits? Forget it.

If you want to know the true character of this most useless of Home 
Secretaries, consider her supposed 'crackdown' on paedophiles to 
coincide with Gary Glitter's scheduled return home.

She must have known her promise was largely meaningless, since police 
have scant powers to restrict Glitter's activities in the way she 
suggested.
Still, she had achieved some positive headlines ahead of any adverse 
publicity in the memory stick affair. Wasn't that what her 
grandstanding was really about?

But there is a more serious point here. Ministers want to foist ID 
cards on us at a cost of countless billions and take powers to lock 
up terror suspects for 42 days without charge. Yet why should we 
trust this bungling administration?
I really cannot add anything to this !

   Christina
====================
DAILY MAIL   23.8.08
Not fit to run the proverbial whelk stall
  COMMENT

A Home Office still unfit for purpose, an embarrassingly bad minister 
in charge, jaw-dropping incompetence over the loss of sensitive 
material, attempts to pass the buck, political cowardice... this is 
misgovernment at its most discreditable.

You would have thought the Home Office might learn from the 
scandalous litany of Whitehall security blunders, including the loss 
of personal information on 25million Britons. Not a bit of it.

Just examine how the department responded on Monday, when it was 
discovered that a memory stick containing information on every 
convict in Britain had been lost.

Such material could cause mayhem in the wrong hands, not to mention 
saddling the taxpayer with vast compensation bills if anyone were 
harmed because of it.

But did Home Office politicians or bureaucrats come clean? Hardly. 
They tried to keep it under wraps.

When the news leaked anyway, they mounted a black propaganda 
operation to pretend it was nothing to do with them by blaming PA 
Consulting, the private firm they had entrusted with the information.

This contemptible game of 'not me, guv' continued yesterday when - 
after lying low all morning - Home Secretary Jacqui Smith emerged 
briefly to point the finger at everybody but herself.

Meanwhile, her department claimed ludicrously that 'there is no 
reason to think that the Home Office was at fault here or that the 
taxpayer would be required to pay compensation.'

Do these people have the slightest notion of what the public thinks 
of such smug, self-serving spin?

To begin with, they should have moved heaven and earth to limit the 
damage, instead of protecting their own backs.

Moreover, the Home Office has a long involvement with PA Consulting 
and has paid it around £100million for other work. Indeed, the firm 
has contracts worth nearly £250million across Whitehall - including 
the controversial ID card scheme. It is virtually part of Government. 
If ministerial responsibility means anything, the buck stops with Ms 
Smith.

But will she acknowledge it? In your dreams. Will she sack the 
principal culprits? Forget it.

If you want to know the true character of this most useless of Home 
Secretaries, consider her supposed 'crackdown' on paedophiles to 
coincide with Gary Glitter's scheduled return home.

She must have known her promise was largely meaningless, since police 
have scant powers to restrict Glitter's activities in the way she 
suggested.
Still, she had achieved some positive headlines ahead of any adverse 
publicity in the memory stick affair. Wasn't that what her 
grandstanding was really about?

But there is a more serious point here. Ministers want to foist ID 
cards on us at a cost of countless billions and take powers to lock 
up terror suspects for 42 days without charge. Yet why should we 
trust this bungling administration?

An inept Home Secretary. a shambolic Home Office. a shameful 
catalogue of security lapses. you wouldn't leave this lot in charge 
of the proverbial whelk stall.