Political games

So, as all governments find, life gets tough when you have been in power for a long time.

The three beleaguered.
Patricia Hewitt. She suffers from the same problem as Virginia Bottomley when a Tory health minister - unsufferably posh and prig. One can just imagine her towering over the bed, wagging finger on overtime, with that Victoria-Wood-posh-lady voice making one think of the pleasures of strangulation. However, the reality is that the problems are largely local management - seems that Government can't win. It decentralises and then is blamed for the problems, it manages from the centre and is accused of centralisation.

Charles Clarke. Certain level of incompetence here - but, again, the Home Office has been fraught with problems for years, largely because of the size and agenda of that department. Quite why there should be any complication at all in ensuring that all foreign nationals to be released are referred to the authorities is beyond me. It can't be that complicated, surely? The prisons themselves must know who is being released and where they come from? Think his days are numbered in this job.

John Prescott. I thought the vision of John Major having an affair was unlikely - but John Prescott? To me, people having affairs is trrelevant. I don't care about it.

Despite all this, I think I will be voting Labour in the local elections. The LibDems have done a disappearing act since the demise of our local councillor to alcoholism and disqualification, and I don't vote Tory.