Home Office Divorce

It is only the middle of the week and the idea of splitting the Home Office into two departments, launched by John Reid only on Sunday has already disappeared.

The suspicion is that the idea was a highly cynical ploy to get the story of a No 10 aide being arrested in the cash for honours scandal. Another staffer from No 10 has been questioned for a second time and this does not look good for the government. To play so frivolously with the Home Office when there are real issues there is pathetic and Reid should be ashamed of himself, if that is indeed what happened. He should divorce the Home Office before it divorces him.

For all of this, is it a good idea? It is hard to know. The Home Office is large and seemingly impossible for a series of ministers to manage. It may simply be too big. On the other hand, many of the problems it has seem to stem from one part of it not talking to the other (criminal records, prison releases, etc) and that would hardly be helped splitting it further.

What is clear is that it is in a truly awful state, something radical needs to happen and there are scant few ideas in the public domain.