Is ministerial responsibility dead?
 

Well, actually it's been dead for quite a number of years, but after the recent highly amusing squirmings of the government I'd guess it is now totally decomposed. After careful consideration, I have developed 3 new laws of modern ministerial responsibility.

1) "I didn't know what my staff were doing. Honest, guv!" is a totally acceptable response from any government minister and uttering it automatically clears him or her of any charge.

2) Smoking guns and government ministers are, by definition, mutually exclusive.

3) The British public are actually to blame for refusing to believe that government ministers are totally honest and would never dream of bending the truth by the slightest degree.

Re: Is ministerial responsibility dead?
 

we have only career politicians now, they will hang on in their untill they are kicked out.

Re: Is ministerial responsibility dead?
 

TAKEN FROM RICHARD LITTLE JOHNS COLUMN IN THE SUN TODAY

<LI>BEVERLEY HUGHES is the worst kind of New Labour harridan.

She is smug, self-satisfied, dismissive and immune to criticism.

She clearly believes she has a God-given right to sit in government.

Hughes has misled Parliament and dumped on junior civil servants in her refusal to accept blame for the immigration figures fiddle.

It now emerges that, despite what she told MPs, she personally gave orders that 100,000 immigrants were to be nodded through on the hurry up with virtually no proper checks.

David Blunkett is standing by her.

He insists she will not be resigning.

His bizarre excuse is that these 100,000 people were not new arrivals but were already living in Britain when they were granted leave to remain. What he doesnââ‚ƚ¬Ã¢â€žÂ¢t explain is what, exactly, they were all doing here in the first place.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/1,,2004142772,00.html