Will Jacqui Smith go? The BBC thinks now, and I (for once) agree with them.
Their logic is that she hasn’t committed enough of a gaffe that she will go entirely; she may go from the Home Office but she won’t go entirely.
My thinking is that she has committed several gaffes big enough to justify her going, to whit:
- The stealing of money from the public and dressing it up as accidentally claiming things on expenses;
- Being delusional about people wanting an ID card;
- Wanting an ID card;
- Calling in the police to deal with a party political issue;
- Pushing Parliament to get rid of habeas corpus;
- Drugs policy reversals.
And those are just the ones that come to mind immediately.
But still, I don’t think that she’ll go, for three reasons.
- Under Gordon Brown, being inept, money-grabbing and thuggish is not enough to get you out of office. No, you only go if you are disloyal or a threat to Brown; Smith is both loyal and no risk at all.
- Smith is very likely to lose her seat at the next election; she has nothing to lose by being a lightning rod for accusations of sleaze and ineptitude.
- While the current crop of bastards in government are dumb, but are any of them dumb enough to take the reigns of a department that has seen off John Reid, Charles Clarke and David Blunkett?
So, unfortunately, we’re stuck with the muppet for the foreseeable. Which is a shame.