Home Secretary Charles Clarke has been forced into a humiliating apology after letting one of his less talented staff loose with his email account.

On friday, as reported in Recess Monkey, Charles Clarke sent out by email one of the most pointless and biased questionnaires ever produced.

However, at 10.30pm tonight I received a further email from the embattled Home Secretary.

“I would like to apologise for the questionnaire which was attached to the message that I sent out to party supporters on Friday. It was not intended to gauge public opinion but to start a political debate around the proposals currently being debated in Parliament. Many people have raised with me perfectly valid concerns about how the questions were drafted. I can only say that I share those concerns and give my assurance that questions of this type will not used in the future.”

Oh that’s OK then, we weren’t supposed to answer the questions, just talk about them in the pub - a rhetorical questionnaire.

Here’s some more rhetorical questions…

1. Who’s getting the sack over this cock up?
2. Does an abject apology sent to every email-connected member of the Labour Party help your chances of beating Gordon Brown in a leadership election?
3. Who’s going to be the next weakest link the media will go after now that they’ve got Blunkett?

The Labour Party has a very strong tradition of ignoring its members, and as a member, I can’t really knock that. But when the upper echelons start taking the piss while ignoring us - that’s when we get upset. The funny thing is, it’s probably more stupid to apologise for the cock-up than for letting it happen in the first place. Charles Clarke is obviously getting some bad advice from somewhere - If you’re reading this Charles, give me a job. I may not give better advice but I’ll probably be cheaper.

There is a more serious note to Clarke’s most recent email to Labour members, the text of which I have included here.

Following my email last Friday I wanted to update you on the Terrorism Bill that is going to be debated in Parliament tomorrow. Last week I gave an undertaking to Parliament to try and achieve a consensus around the measures proposed in the Terrorism Bill, measures that have been put forward by the Police and Security Services to help combat the terrorist threat we now face. I have now consulted widely and the position is essentially as follows:
The leadership of the opposition parties is not prepared to discuss any time of pre-charge detention for these offences above 28 days, and have therefore decided that they cannot join the effort to find a cross-party consensus in Parliament, which I had hoped to achieve.
Many Labour MPs have spoken to their constituents and local police over the weekend, and the overwhelming majority of those who spoke at yesterday’s meeting of the Parliamentary Labour Party expressed their support, most very strongly for the Government’s proposals for pre-charge detention of a maximum of 90 days, subject to certain conditions and safeguards. I felt that there had been a definite movement of opinion towards the Government’s position over the weekend.
Accordingly I decided to table amendments for the Report stage of the Bill to be debated tomorrow which included with the proposal for a maximum 90 days of pre-charge detention the following three groups of concessions:
a) Further safeguards for the process itself, including that a full High Court judge has to agree an extension of detention every seven days and will have greater flexibility, and that a code of practice, similar to the codes under PACE, will govern the treatment of those held under this Act.
b) Around the application and definition of the offence, including clearer definitions of incitement, narrow application of the law extra-territoriality and a review into the definition of terrorism, to be conducted within a year by Lord Carlile.
c) A sunset clause with the 90-day power which provides that these powers will lapse after one year unless renewed by both Houses of Parliament.
These are all significant changes from the original government proposals and I hope that they will mean that MPs who previously had doubts will feel able to support the Government.

Not going to get a crystal mark for clear English.

I work on the assumption that you should never give a current government a power if you wouldn’t trust a previous government with it. Under Thatcher, my dear Mum was arrested for beating up six police officers, who went to trial and gave radically different accounts of the event (because it wasn’t true).

On being accused, while pummelling six defenceless police officers, of screaming “Leave him alone you bastards, he ain’t done nuffink!” (they happened to be giving a man a good kicking at the time) my mother told the Judge in her finest Maidstone Girls Grammar School RP, “Well, your honour, I wouldn’t call a police officer a bastard to his face and I certainly wouldn’t use a double negative under any circumstances”. And the case was thrown out of court with an apology and costs paid.

But if Maggie had had the powers that Charles Clarke is now seeking? Would my mother have spent three months in prison before having her case dismissed? Maybe a bit of porridge would have done her good.

recessmonkey@gmail.com

editor[at]recessmonkey.com