In a bid to save his own bacon, Charles Clarke has come up with what he regards as the perfect solution: announce the creation of new laws. You can see why he thinks this will get him off the hook; it has been the standard recourse of action for both him and his predecessors whenever they have found themselves in anything hotter than mildly tepid water. It follows the standard formulation of “something must be done, this is something, therefore it must be done,” which generally speaking completely outfoxes the media.
The problem is, also as per usual it manages to be both draconian and completely misses the point. On the one hand, it means a presumption of deportation for anyone imprisoned for not paying their TV license. On the other hand, it wouldn’t have stopped Mustaf Jamma who was considered for deportation. It also does nothing to solve the systemic failure that caused this crisis in the first place. It is all for show.
We all ready have a system in place. Charles Clarke should have spent the last week trying to make it work. The fact that he has apparently spent the last 7 days simply coming up with more illiberal laws suggests that he is incapable of government. In essence, announcing this new law is a cry for help, “somebody stop me before I use my discretion again!”
I don’t think it “outfoxes” the media as much as that it is in response to the media; this morally bankrupt government will do anything to make themselves look as if they have everything under control. Of course we all know full well that they don’t have things under control and that they are simply lurching from one knee jerk reaction to another, at the same time hoping that the voters will vote Labour in the local elections today. Personally I hope that the voters vote against Labour in droves and sends them the message that we are all fed up with the constant lies, deceit and ever more draconian legislation that this bunch of inept loonies are giving us.