Just how bad can it get at the Home Office?

Today has been dominated by two fairly major scandals eminating from the Home Office. The first is the news that two rather dangerous (and morbidly obese) murderers have escaped from a prison supposedly categorised as being 'excellent'. This comes a couple of days after a prisoner was freed by masked assailants from a police 'security' wagon as he was transported to hospital.

What a shambles. It puts the old days of Group 4 escapes into the shadows.

The second shocking scandal to befall this shambolic excuse for a government department is todays revelation that ministers knew about the hundreds of Britons who committed crimes abroad. These rapists, paedophiles and assorted other miscreants have been permitted to work in this country. They might be working with patients, kids, vulnerable people - we just don't know! What a dreadful scandal; but should we be surprised that it is happening? I'm not.

John Reid is perhaps one of the most inept cabinet minister Labour have. I am astonished that he gets all the big jobs. At health he left a system where health trusts were teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. When he was defence secretary our troops in Iraq had no decent boots, radios or even guns! At Northern Ireland he was forced to dissolve the Stormont parliament because he couldn't keep control there and his other major position, as Labour chairman, was marked by the increasingly bitter feuding between numbers 10 and 11 Downing Street.

Not exactly a sparkling reputation. Yet this man is charged with protecting the public from dangerous criminals. Thankfully one of our better performers, David Davis, is tearing lumps out of the Labour front bench. What's the betting, however, that no resignations result from this?