Back when I were but a lad, and when there were some people in the Labour Party that I didn’t dislike too much, I stated that I had a little respect for Charles Clarke.

Obviously, that faded when he became Home Secretary and commenced shitting on us all, but for a bit before that I have to say I quite liked the way that he wasn’t a spin-merchant, and he didn’t pick his battles based upon the chance of success.

Since he left the Home Office some of that respect has come back in, especially when he was one of the few people to stand up when Brown was anointed as leader and say “This is not a good idea”. He knew it wouldn’t make any difference, but he was the biggest name to speak out against the downright twattish culture that he could see following Brown into Number 10.

And now he’s at it again.

Former Home Secretary Charles Clarke has told the BBC recent events have made him “ashamed” to be a Labour MP.

Mr Clarke said he had “worked half my life to get Labour into a position where it could be a good government and I do see that fading away”.

Obviously, his current behaviour is to be applauded. It’s not enough to wipe away the damage he did to the country while pushing the statist agenda, but it might just downgrade his punishment to life with a hope of parole…