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March 30, 2004
Beverley Hughes
Q. How do you know that Beverley Hughes is lying? A. Her mouth is open.So David Blunkett has suspended immigration applications from Romania and Bulgaria in response to an email from the now-suspended diplomat at the British Embassy in Bucharest. It would make more sense to suspend, or rather sack, ms Hughes for incompetence and dishonesty. This issue regarding the fast-tracking of immigration applications has been rumbling on for a month now. First we get the allegation, then the denial followed closely by the revelation of evidence supporting the original allegation. Then Ms Hughes declines to resign and either Tony Blair or David Blunkett steps up to defend her. Finally the whole sorry saga repeats itself again. With this issue the only people to suffer are the whistle-blowers; with both Stephen Moxon (Sheffield) and the unnamed Bucharest diplomat being suspended.
We are even going to be treated to the unedifying prospect of an formal enquiry being re-opened. Kenneth Sutton has already investigated previous concerns, and is now scheduled to look at the latest set of allegations. What concerns me is that the need to re-open the enquiry would seem to imply that the original investigation was either inadequate or hamstrung, a choice I leave to readers.
Meanwhile we're treated to pearls of wisdom such as this quote from Blunkett...
I carry ultimate responsibility and accountability for what goes on and I will answer for it today in the House.
So David, that'll be your resignation announcement for appointing and supporting a person obviously incapable of exercising their duties to any acceptable standard? No, I didn't think so, that "resigning honourably" is so terribly passe and not at all New Labour.
And what does Ms Hughes have to say...
They simply want to use this material for their own political ends to fuel people's fears about immigration and keep a bad story running.
Oh, so now it is wrong to capitalise on her incompetence for political ends? Talk about trying to deflect attention away from the real issue. Which is that a senior minister doesn't appear to know what is going on in her department, and in fact, doesn't seem to care. Instead she prefers to try and simply "bury" the bad news to use a traditional New Labour phrase. If she'd had anything about her, she would have ordered a full and comprehensive investigation after the original revelations, then gone before parliament to explain what was going on. The problem with that approach being that it required more than a modicum of honesty on Ms Hughes part.
Update - 13:15 - And now it appears that the Home Office was warned more than 18 months ago about a potential migrant scam. So either Beverley Hughes knew about them and lied, or she has spent her time at her department asleep at the wheel and presiding over a culture of blind eyes and deniable ignorance. Either way she has shown herself to be an unsuitable candidate for high office.
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Posted by Clive on March 30, 2004 10:37 AM in the category Old Stuff