Gordon Brown has handed the poisoned chalice of the post of Home Secretary to Alan Johnson, presumably to diminish his chances of becoming Labour party leader, after Gordon Brown is removed or resigns.
Johnson is now the 6th Labour Home Secretary since 1997,and we have no expectation that he will be any more competent than his predecessors.
No matter how much he smiles on television, he has obviously subsumed any principles he ever had as a former post man, former (?) Communist, and former Post Office workers Trades Union leader. When he was Trade and Industry Secretary, he oversaw some of the decline of the Post Office - will he resign when Mandleson now sells off most of the Post Office, or not ?
As Education Secretary, he fell for the "Omega 7 fish oil capsules make children more intelligent / better behaved in school" hype and nonsense, and seemed to be advocating compulsory medication with the "snake oil".
See Alan Johnson considering behavior control Omega-3 supplements in schools
Alan Johnson has also spouted utter rubbish regarding the number of errors made by the Criminal Records Bureau.
"And Education Secretary Alan Johnson said the number of mistakes was only 0.03 per cent of the checks carried out.
He said: "We have to get it into context. This is not about unsuitable people being allowed to work with children, this is about erring on the side of caution and people who are suitable being caught in the system."
The Alan Johnson / NuLabour spin approach is to divide the 2700 into 9 million and get a figure of 0.03% , he then claims that this is a statistically insignificant number, which it is.
However if you divide 25,000 "unsuitable" people discovered by 9 million checks, that is also statistically insignificant i.e. only 0.28 %
However if you divide 2700 the number of falsely reported criminals, by the number of alleged criminals (which includes the falsely accused ones) 25000, you get 1 in 9 negative CRB checks are false i.e. refer to innocent people, which is far, far too high a percentage.
If there are 2700 people who have been falsely accused of being criminals due to mix ups with similar names and addresses, it is a reasonable hypothesis that at least the same number of criminals will have been given an "all clear" CRB check result, for the same reasons i.e. a false negative result.
Will he be equally confused by Home Office crime statistics ?
His time as Health Secretary has also been undistinguished - the wasteful and insecure NHS medical records data spine project and the continued losses of confidential NHS data continued under his stewardship. What happened to "Swine Flu" ?
The re-shuffle at the the Minister of State level, sees Vernon Coaker moved to the Department for Children, Schools and Families.
Presumably his replacement as Minister of State for Policing, Crime and Security is to be the Rt. Hon.http://www.theyworkforyou.com/mp/david_hanson/delyn" target="_twfydh" title="TheyWorkForYou.com - David Hanson - new window">David Hanson, who has been moved the Ministry of Justice from being the Minister of State responsible for the National Offender Management Service and youth justice i.e. for Prisons etc.
Phil Woolas remains in place, presumably still in charge of Immigration (and with Treasury "responsibility for revenue protection at the border"), although he was no match for the charming Joanna Lumley, over the Ghurka Justice Campaign
Such is the incompetence of Labour Government re-shuffles and re-organisations of the Home Office, that these roles still need to be confirmed - the unlamented Tony McNulty (who has now left the Department for Work and Pensions and the Government, presumably due to his unseemly 2nd home allowance claims) and Liam Byrne (the former management consultant former "Android" and e-government software solutions salesman now seems to have been absorbed into the Treasury from the Cabinet Office) , swapped roles a few days after the split of the old Home Office which spawned the Ministry of (in)Justice.
Perhaps there will be further changes at the junior Parliamentary Private Secretary level - depending on who else the vindictive unelected Prime Minister Gordon Brown and his henchman, the unelected doubly disgraced Lord Mandelson further annoy and harass out of Government.
Will the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Identity Meg Hillier, who is so out of her depth when trying to promote the notorious ID Card and National Identity Register database scheme, remain, or will she join the several other women Ministers who have left, partly because of Gordon Brown 's misogynistic style of leadership ?
Will the undistinguished Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State responsible for Crime Reduction, Alan Campbell survive ?
How much longer can the unelected Parliamentary Under-Secretary for Security and Counter-terrorism, Admiral Lord West of Spithead stand this Government ?
Seven unelected Ministers (who do not have to pass any public appointment scrutiny hearings, like in, say the USA or the European Commission), is far too many, but it shows the dearth of talent amongst Labour MPs.
One of the rumours which Sky News and the other mainstream media were on about last week, was that Louise Casey, the controversial former Home Office civil servant and NuLabour "anti-social behavior tsar" apparatchik, might become a Minister, which would also require her ennoblement, although, conceivably, she might be inflicted on the Department for Communities and Local Government rather than on the Home Office.
On encountering Meg Hillier last year, it seemed to me that she understood the shortcomings of HO on the ID card project - but doing something about it is another matter. But, like other civil servants, I assume that HO staff have all been on the intro to Information Assurance course.